“Unsolicited ballots”

Let’s stipulate that mere facts are not as exciting as a wildly spreading rumor/movement based on Pizzagate (and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) involving a child-sex trafficking ring run by powerful, cannibalistic Satan-worshipping pedophiles. POTUS has a brand new talking point with an impressively authentic-sounding ring to it: unsolicited ballots.

An unfair election, says the president, will result from the millions of “unsolicited ballots” being mailed, in some states, to every registered voter. The resulting “rigged election” is the only way, he insists, that the most popular president in history can be robbed of his rightful second term. Massive fraud against Trump is the only way Trump can lose an election he won last time by a total of 78,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

It hurts me every time I hear a report on the president’s lying claim (tactfully reported as “baseless” or “false”) about widespread voter fraud that fails to cite the incidence of actual voter fraud in American elections. We sometimes hear that such fraud is rare, less than 1%.

What we almost never hear that the incidence of voter fraud in America is much, much, much less than

one ten-thousandth of one percent.

Math is confusing, I know. But the available facts show that for a fraud rate of anywhere close to 1% we’d have to multiply the proven rate of fraud (committed by partisans from both sides, mind you) by 10,000 or more. That’s really, really, really less than 1%.

A separate but related question: which political party, based on recent history, their claims about voting and their votes in every voting-related case, is more likely to engage in voter fraud? One party is seeking to make voting easier during a pandemic and to have every vote counted, the other party openly relies on a strategy of making sure as many opponents (‘enemy’ voters) as possible do not get to vote.

In 2016 there were 33,000,000 mail-in ballots, of the more than 138,000,000 votes cast. If every incident of 2016 voter fraud cited by the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation (62) had happened in mail-in ballots, and was committed by Democrats, the anti-Trump fraud rate would jump to an incidence of 1 in every 532,000 votes cast. 1/532,000 is nowhere near one percent (1/100), or a tenth of one percent (1/1000), or a hundredth of one percent (1/10,000). It would be measured in thousandths of a percent.

Why is it so hard to get this infinitesimally small number into the public “discussion” about an imaginary tsunami of voter fraud committed in the name of vicious pedophile cannibals?

Here’s an intelligent short reply to Mr. Trump’s lie about a rigged election (which does not trouble listeners with the microscopic rate of proven voter fraud):

Sedition!

Why is this dangerous maniac not in custody?

On Capitol Hill, top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci warned a Senate committee that many of those who survive COVID-19 suffer symptoms measured in weeks to months.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: “They have fatigue, myalgia, fever and involvement of the neurological system, as well as cognitive abnormalities such as the inability to concentrate.”

Dr. Fauci warned that many patients who appeared to have recovered from COVID-19 were found to have inflammation of the heart.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: “These are the kind of things that tell us we must be humble and that we do not completely understand the nature of this illness.”

source

or Deborah Birx, for that matter:

The United States reported nearly 1,100 deaths from COVID-19 and over 40,000 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday. At the White House, President Trump said he might overrule the Food and Drug Administration if it issues stricter guidelines on the emergency use of a vaccine. Public health officials warn Trump’s push to approve a vaccine before Election Day threatens to bring an unsafe and untested product to market.

This comes as CNN reports White House task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx is “distressed” with the direction of Trump’s coronavirus policy and is not certain how much longer she can serve in her position. CNN reports Birx believes White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas is feeding the president misleading information about the efficacy of face masks for controlling the spread of the virus.

source

It’s like these “scientists” refuse to believe the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! He said, just yesterday, at a packed, mask-optional rally, that hardly anybody gets this disease and that it’s usually very mild if you’re under 18. Yet they — and many, many others — continue to spread these lies about a supposedly out of control pandemic that is no longer even a thing.

I’m confident Bill Barr already has people drawing up the paperwork, probably arrest them both on federal charges the night of the rigged election, along with millions of other traitors.

And they can make fun as much as they like: NO AMERICANS ARE DYING OF THIS DEADLY CHINESE/BIDEN HOAX!

And more of them, making fancy fake videos, trying to rig the upcoming election!

Who is openly trying to steal the 2020 election?

He who cannot be named, by the press.

This week’s CounterSpin podcast began with a concise and powerful rundown of some of Donald Trump’s numerous efforts to undermine the integrity of the 2020 election. Independent journalist Joshua Cho compiled a selection of the many well-documented efforts by Mr. Trump and his best people to rig an election the president is constantly complaining will be rigged. I’m waiting for FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to post a transcript of Janine Jackson’s excellent short piece, which, like Cho’s report, takes the corporate media to task for failing to report this ongoing and energetic conspiracy to steal the election, cloaking everything in an “objectivity” that equates factual claims and false claims, but meanwhile, listen to Janine Jackson reading it.

Yes, the president does many of these things openly and notoriously, and as his lawyers have claimed (and Bill Barr ensures), he cannot be independently investigated for anything he does while president, including shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue, or for anything he did before he was president- – as long as he remains in office. Robert Mueller pointed out that a crime done in public is no different than one done secretly — that you made no effort to hide your lawlessness is no defense at trial. Though Mr. Trump and his people have also made every attempt to hide much of their doings– (see belated released CIA report below — or Volume Two of the Mueller Report documenting many of these nefarious schemes.)

Leaves you wondering how much openly corrupt abuse of power is enough for the corporate media to report that the president is (not theoretically, but actually) corruptly using his power to try to ensure his re-election (his best bet for avoiding accountability for his numerous alleged criminal acts) by stealing the election in every imaginable way.

Joshua Cho writes:

When the president of the United States has:

…then the evidence threshold has been more than satisfied for journalists to declare that he is trying to steal the 2020 election. Journalists and newsrooms have an obligation to report that the most powerful person in the country is trying to subvert the election and retain power illegitimately, and a failure to blow the whistle on a clear threat to democracy is journalistic malpractice.

Not included on Cho’s list is the Trump-directed Republican party’s refusal to hold so much as a hearing on any legislation to address the sweeping and systematic (and ongoing) Russian election interference found by Mueller, the Inspector General of the DOJ and the Republican-led Senate Committee that investigated Russian interference in our presidential elections. This year’s top divisive Russian talking point is that mail-in voting will unleash a tsunami of fraud, although actual incidence of such fraud is 4/100,000ths of one percent–

0.00004%

62 votes out of 138,846,571 cast in 2016, according to the Conservative Heritage Foundation.

But don’t take the word of some opinionated schmuck with a little-read blagh, the CIA recently weighed in on this issue:

“We assess that President Vladimir Putin and the senior most Russian officials are aware of and probably directing Russia’s influence operations aimed at denigrating the former U.S. Vice President, supporting the U.S. president and fueling public discord ahead of the U.S. election in November.”

Thus reads the first line of a top-secret CIA assessment, published on August 31 but reported today. The report details how Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach, who, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Treasury Department is a Russian agent, is disseminating false stories about Democratic nominee Joe Biden through congress members, lobbyists, the media, and people close to the president. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been openly working with Derkach for several months.

The news stories that Trump denigrates as “Russia, Russia, Russia,” have been dropping steadily of late.

source

And look, to be fair, it’s not as though the Republican-led Senate report found that Trump’s campaign manager was repeatedly meeting with a GRU agent named Konstantin Kilimnik and passing on detailed polling and demographic research that could have had anything to do with the surgical 78,000 Trump votes across three states that decided the Electoral College.

I can hear the full-throated, righteous response from those who swallow the MAGA pill daily:

Paul Manafort was a VOLUNTEER, not paid a penny by Trump or his campaign to run the campaign — so how is it Trump’s fault if Manafort was meeting with (and communicating using a variety of encrypted devices) a Russian spy during a time when the Russian government was actively trying to get Trump elected, hacking the DNC and snooping in the voting machines of all fifty states? PURE CONJECTURE!!!! Besides, Manafort was never convicted for that, or even tried for his supposed crime! Free Roger Stone, Free Michael Flynn, Free BIRD! FREE BIRD!!! Fill her seat, fill her seat, lock her up, lock her up!!! USA! USA!!!!

A Few Examples of Bill Barr’s treacherous lack of truthfulness

Admittedly, I hate the guy, a pugnacious, self-righteous, lying partisan bully. But this less than three minute clip gives ten or eleven pretty vivid examples of what a lying fraud Donald Trump’s top law enforcement officer, Bill Barr, is. Based on his stellar work on behalf of George H. W. Bush, permanently covering up the remnants of the Iran-Contra scandal, it appears he’s been a duplicitous partisan for decades.

The Washington Post, currently owned by the world’s greediest man, notorious pandemic profiteer and anti-labor hardliner Jeff Bezos, still refuses to use the common and obvious word “lie” to describe false statements made by powerful men with a deliberate intent to deceive, but, of course, the rest of us can.

A man who lies as much as Bill Barr, (or Donald John Trump, for that matter,) may appropriately be described as a liar, or, if one were determined to be scrupulously polite, said to “lack candor” as federal Judge Reggie Walton wrote of Barr in March when he ordered production of the un-redacted Mueller Report because he did not believe Barr’s representations about its contents or the proffered reasons for the many redactions [1].

The short clip above presents one demonstrable and destructive lie after another by the Attorney General, the two minute tour of his characteristic mendacity. The lies are presented in the video with an almost New York Times-like delicacy, tactful, nuance-qualified understatement bordering on muteness. (Particularly in this age of conclusory five second sound bytes.)

The NYT’s circumspect, always scrupulously balanced reporting style brings to mind this great headline from the coffee table history edition of The Onion (America’s Finest News Source). The Grey Lady could not have written it better:

That said, The New York Times does some excellent, crucial reporting. It detailed specific examples of Barr’s seemingly subtle lies about the Mueller Report during the month Barr held it back. The Times analyzed Barr’s untruthfulness in detail that few others provided. I can’t knock their investigative reporting, which is often vital and important (though best taken in conjunction with other news sources). Wikipedia summarizes:

 The New York Times reported instances in which the Barr letter omitted information and quoted sentence fragments out of context in ways that significantly altered the findings in the report, including:[20]

  • Omission of language that indicated Trump could be subject to indictment after leaving office, inaccurately suggesting that Trump was “totally exonerated”.[27][28][29]
  • A sentence fragment described only one possible motive for Trump to obstruct justice, while the Mueller Report listed multiple possible motives.
  • Omission of words and a full sentence that twice suggested there was knowing and complicit behavior between the Trump campaign and Russians that stopped short of direct coordination, which may constitute conspiracy.

And, not for nothing, speaking of liars — Mr. Trump once again had the Center for Disease Control take down its guidance on controlling the spread of the pandemic, this time removing the known fact that the disease is spread by airborne particles (something Trump has known since at least February– as he told Bob Woodward on 2/7). The CDC took the guidance off its website yesterday, stating that it had been posted “in error”.

So 200,000 dead Americans, by far the most of any nation, 20% of the world’s dead from COVID-19, a death rate 500% higher than our proportion of the world’s population (4%) and NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

After all, voter fraud may DOUBLE in 2020– to 0.000008%. YOW!!!

Eight hundred-thousandths of one percent!!!

And the race is tighter than expected in every swing state!

[1] The New York Times, in an article entitled Judge Calls Barr’s Handling of Mueller Report ‘Distorted’ and ‘Misleading’ 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday sharply criticized Attorney General William P. Barr’s handling of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, saying that Mr. Barr put forward a “distorted” and “misleading” account of its findings and lacked credibility on the topic.

Mr. Barr could not be trusted, Judge Reggie B. Walton said, citing “inconsistencies” between the attorney general’s statements about the report when it was secret and its actual contents that turned out to be more damaging to President Trump. Mr. Barr’s “lack of candor” called into question his “credibility and, in turn, the department’s” assurances to the court, Judge Walton said.

Naturally, like every other story involving the president or his myrmidons, there has been virtually no media follow-up on the story. The DOJ produced the un-redacted report and Judge Walton apparently read it and had questions for the DOJ about redactions seemingly made to cover up findings damaging to the president. Walton was to hold a hearing, as of a few weeks back, if the DOJ did not give him sufficient written explanation for the redactions that troubled him.

We have no attention span here in the 24/7 shit-storm we are living in, with hundred-armed media savvy shit-gibbons constantly flinging the nasty stuff to profit-driven “news” entities Perhaps Senior District Court Judge Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, was satisfied with Barr’s answers; maybe not.

It seems that, beyond citing Barr’s lack of credibility, Judge Walton will not press the DOJ any further on Barr’s calculatedly misleading spin of Mueller’s conclusions, since there appears to have been a legal rationale offered for at least some of it.

Oh, well, at least we have the internet, that fountain of immediate information:

Barr letter- Wikipedia

NYC designated Anti-Christ Jurisdiction…

Just three quick things about this autocratic, in-your-fucking-face, unconstitutional, symbolic power play by Trump and ever-creative extreme right-wing religious fanatic Bagpiper Bill Barr, designating my home town (and two other Democrat [1] cities) an “anarchist jurisdiction” not entitled to federal funds lawfully provided by Congress. Talk about “triggering the libtard cucks!” (in places that clearly dislike Mr. Trump and his lurch toward autocracy).

First: what a great picture of di Blasio and the Bagpiper! (from a youTube come-on)

Second: this vilification of cities (and the illegal attempt to impose the president’s policies– and fiscal pain– on a city in an independent, sovereign state, during a pandemic) is an old chestnut from the modern totalitarian playbook (see, for example, the chapter on Vienna from Mein Kampf, a book a few years from its hundredth birthday).

A stock part of fascist propaganda is based on the myth of a pure folk, who live primarily in the unspoiled rural areas, constantly in danger from lazy degenerate mongrels who live in decadent cities. From Jason Stanley’s How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.

(me, summarizing his chapter SODOM AND GOMORRAH):

 Cities, which tend to be places where diverse populations live and work, and differences are tolerated, even embraced, are seen in fascist politics in stark contrast to the countryside, where the mythic national purity they extoll still prevails.   Stanley cites a few counter-factual lines from one of Donald Trump’s campaign speeches:

“Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before, ever, ever, ever.   You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street.”  And yet during this time, cities in the United States were enjoying their lowest rates of crime in generations and record low unemployment.  Trump’s rhetoric about cities makes sense in the context of a more general fascist politics, in which cities are seen as centers of disease and pestilence, containing squalid ghettos filled with despised minority groups living off the work of others.

Third: According to men like Bagpiper Bill Barr, and America’s Greatest Dealmaker and Winner — and the least racist, most stable genius ever to lead our great nation — these despised, parasitic minorities are enraged because they are inferior. Simple as that, their sorry genetic stock comes from shit hole countries, the poor bastards.

These people, in the reflexive racist mind, are born losers who are irrationally angry, people whose rage makes them self-destructively turn on the very people who risk their lives to protect them, authority-keepers who almost never kill them while they are not resisting — hardly ever even cripple them, though Christ knows they richly deserve it for being such vicious, stupid ingrates who constantly act against their own best interests and blame everyone else for their own problems.

Remind you of anyone?

Here is a more nuanced and detailed look at this desperate campaign stunt by the fervent Attorney General:

Today started off with Attorney General William Barr designating New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, as “Jurisdictions Permitting Violence and Destruction of Property.” His statement responded to Trump’s September 2 memorandum calling for a review of funding to “state and local governments that are permitting anarchy, violence, and destruction in American cities.”

The idea of defunding cities is vague and it is also odd, considering how many Americans actually live in cities. The U.S. Conference of Mayors wrote to Trump on September 7 to ask him to rescind his memorandum, noting that “attacks on America’s cities are attacks on America itself. America’s cities represent 86 percent of the Nation’s population and 91 percent of real gross domestic product (GDP)…. Cities are the Nation’s incubators of talent: people flock to cities to take advantage of their accessibility, diversity, inclusiveness, vibrancy, infrastructure and innovation,” they wrote. They warned that if he tried to enforce a restriction on funding, they would sue, and would almost certainly win. They reminded him: “This is a time our Nation needs unity, not division, among all levels of government.”

This new declaration is little more than a distraction, meant to try to resurrect the old “law and order” ploy and take our eyes off… what?

source

[1]

Let us make no mistake about this pejorative (and increasingly widely accepted) reference to the “Democrat Party” and “Democrat” cities— these are cities run by democratically elected Democratic mayors.

These mayors are Democrats, but their party is called the Democratic party and if you call their city by the name of their political party they, New York, Portland, Seattle, Washington D.C., are actually Democratic cities. HEY, WAIT!

“Well, you see, that’s another reason we call them ‘Democrat’ cities (pause to hit the spittoon square in the middle), run by the, heh ‘Democrat party’… whell, hell, you can’t really dog whistle any clearer than that, now can you? We all know what ‘Democrat mayor’ refers to, you can picture her, and it don’t take a damned oversensitive damn n-word to tell you what tune this dog whistle is whistling. We ain’t just whistling Dixie, son.”

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Featured Comment

I get very few comments here on gratuitousblahg, so when I get a good one I like to feature it. Here’s an articulate, well-written note from the other day, commenting on an August 10th post

MelH commented on Benghazi Hearings Continue in effort to disprove the legality of the Mueller Investigation (which totally exonerated Mr. Trump!)

The number of lies written above reflect the problem of the Media being owned by 6 Democrat entities with the result they are acting as the propaganda arm of the Democrat party and you have not been allowed to analyze the truth. Instead you have swallowed the Democrat propaganda and are CALLING it truth. How could you not, when it has been spewed as truth day after day after day. You might twist to other channels and keep hearing the same one-line narrative EVERY day on EVERY channel, always about Orange-Man-Bad. I challenge you to follow this lead and discover what that Orange Man Bad has done for this Country that you probably never heard about on the channels you listen to and watch.; www.magapill.com Relax and enjoy life because what you have been reading is troubling, but full of lies!

Thank you for your comment generously dismissing my post as a pack of lies that were not my fault for believing. Tempting as it is to take a virtual magic pill that will make me as enlightened as you are, I will instead quote noted fellow Jewish wise-ass Hannah Arendt:

 “… the ideal subject of a totalitarian state is the person for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist.” 

Have a blessed day, my friend.

Trump keeps pushing Putin talking points as Russia works for Trump 2020

from historian Heather Cox Richardson. last night:

Midday, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the House Homeland Security Committee that “the intelligence community consensus is that Russia continues to try to influence our elections” by spreading disinformation through social media, online journals, and so on. Russians are “very active” in their attempts to undermine Biden’s campaign. They are trying to “sow divisiveness and discord” and “primarily to denigrate Vice President Biden and what the Russians see as kind of an anti-Russian establishment.”

Russians are spreading the idea that mail-in ballots are insecure, and that Biden is slipping mentally—both stories Trump echoes.

Trump took to Twitter to argue with his FBI director. “But Chris, you don’t see any activity from China, even though it is a FAR greater threat than Russia, Russia, Russia. They will both, plus others, be able to interfere in our 2020 Election with our totally vulnerable Unsolicited (Counterfeit?) Ballot Scam. Check it out!”

The president’s attempt to deflect attention from Russia while putting it on China is more disinformation. Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Brian Murphy last week said that DHS acting Director Chad Wolf told him “to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran. Mr. Wolf stated that these instructions specifically originated from White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.”

source

It bears repeating, frequency of voter-fraud in the USA, using the Heritage Foundation’s data, is less than one in 2,000,000 votes, about 4 hundred-thousandths of 1%. 0.00004%

You’d need an electron microscope to see a fraction of a percentage point so infinitesimal.

In other news:

AG Bill Barr, in a speech the other day, as he continues to “debunk” (and promise to prosecute) the “criminal” origins (oringes) of “Russiagate,” the multiple investigations into documented Russian pro-Trump interference in the 2016 election, made the inflammatory comment that Covid-19 stay-at home orders are “the greatest intrusion on our civil liberties” since slavery.

Enough said about that demented ad lib. Here’s the well-expressed objection to AG Barr as Attorney General:

The concern of Barr’s critics—ourselves included—is that Barr has exercised his undoubted supervisory powers in an improper, even corrupt, fashion, and that he has done so in a sustained effort to undermine the results of Robert Mueller’s investigation. The criticism is that he has exercised those powers to frustrate legitimate investigations and prosecutions. And it is that he has done all of this not because of legitimate concerns about the uniformity of justice or fairness to defendants generally but to protect individuals close to the president who appointed him and to serve Trump’s personal and political interests in attacking investigations of himself.

We aren’t saying Barr is deploying powers he doesn’t have or that it is wrong for attorney generals to have such powers and even to use them; we’re saying he has abused powers he certainly does have and that attorneys general need to have.

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Of course, as we learned during the president’s impeachment “trial” (witness and evidence-free, like any good American trial should be) Abuse of Power is not a legal reason to remove somebody from office, as long as there is a one vote party-line majority to keep the person there.

Or, as any young Trump supporter, applauding Barr’s latest deranged pronouncements about justice might say “suck it, cuck!”

Example of Totally Fake News

The president strongly, strongly denied he ever called dead American soldiers “losers” and “suckers”. He denied it as strongly as our ally Mohammed Bin Salman denied the strangling and dismemberment of that stinking critical journalist in his embassy on the soil of our ally Turkey!

FAKE, fake, totally and completely FAKE. Hello! So fake, they don’t even put on the light! Come on, now.

source

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Why Trump/RNC is spending millions on lawsuits to stop mail-in voting — at a glance

These two graphics give you the picture of why limiting mail-in voting is such an important issue to the RNC. Look at the pictures, no need for a thousand words. Visual word to the wise.

These screenshots are from Fareed Zakaria’s recent piece on a nightmare scenario (he calls it a “deeply worrying” scenario) for November 4, 2020. The first set of numbers is from a CNN poll, the second is from a Democratic data firm called Hawkfish. (Full disclosure: I do not have Tucker Carlson’s numbers on these issues, nor Sean Hannity’s).

The rationale behind all these Republican lawsuits, of course, being the danger of massive Democratic electoral fraud in a rigged election. The RNC is trying to prevent a terrible electoral crime, like those 62 fake votes the Heritage Foundation documented in 2016 (out of 138, 846,571 votes cast.)

Danger: one out of every 2,239,460 votes is cast by a partisan fraudster!

Try saying that with a straight face. If you’re not too busy spreading the word of the well-connected and mysterious oracle Q.