So long as they appeal to feelings instead of facts, the ignorant will believe. I miss the days when this country valued an educated populous. Now its all knee-jerk reaction and supporting whoever says what you'd like to hear.
I’m not in the least bit sure that this country as a whole ever valued an educated populace. Expertise and the elite education system has always been viewed with suspicion and disdain in this country.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
//
Isaac Asimov. It's as true now as it was forty years ago when he first said it.
I think we start a do they think we are stupid campaign, esp as his depravity becomes fact...the pay to get out of jail is deep state stuff, the lies the money wasted on fixtures in DC, inappropriate service ppl in DC gardening, the White House debacle - it is ruined- for months if not years to come. And his family buying a nuclear fallout shelter for 3600 ppl?
This is absolutely scary, especially since so many in the country are programmed to believe it. Something I realized last night is that the reason trump wants to outlaw mail in voting, is that it is a secure system that he can't mess with. I have seen comments to the effect that electronic voting machines can be tampered with. That may or may not be true, but I have concluded that anything that prevents republicans from cheating is defined as fraud… I think one of the republican messages to the country is that they have a right to cheat, which is not a right for everyone.
While I truly believe somehow, someway there was fraud in the 2024 election I struggle because I know how hard it is to actually tamper with the electronic voting machines. Voting machines are not connected to the internet, at least in the state of Michigan. My google search produced a vague answer in that there are reports that some voting machines in a few areas at least temporarily connected but the gist is electronic voting machines overall are never online. While they are not connected to the internet, they are programmed usually the night before the election- the best bet to compromise an election is through the program that is loaded onto the machines. I don't know how hard that it. This is my take anyway, There are some theories out there about how 2024 could have been stolen, and some plausible in my mind, but until proven I don't put much stock into those theories. I just have a hard time believing 2024 was decided so quickly and that literally all "purple" states went red- something just never sat right with that. But again no proof and I'm not a Mike Johnson
I'm glad to know that you are not a Mike Johnson. What you wrote proves that. I appreciate that you know as much as you do about voting machines. I'm pretty sure that what I had read was opinions, which were not based on actual knowledge. I would really like to see a serious investigation into the 2024 election, because I, too, had a hard time believing that all the "purple" states suddenly went red. Thank you for educating me about voting machines.
You're welcome. I really only know Michigan but have done research about the rest. And logic says same machines, same processes. I became a poll worker after 2020 because I didn't want to tell people that the election couldn't have been tampered with without knowing the process.
As Stalin supposedly said, it's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes. Individual machines don't have to be compromised for the results to be altered.
I guess it's all how it's done. Where I am nothing is done by hand, the counts come from the tabulator (votiing machines). Even the absentee ballots are run through a machine so there is no human tabulation. Which, as far as I know, is how it's done in the entire state. Yet someone the orange gibbon won Mi, even with our 2 largest counties being pretty blue. Turning either of those counties red (which apparently happened) is unusual. I did start looking at statistics and my guess is the number voters both counties had in 2024 vs 2020 was the difference (much lower in 2024). Really odd since we had 7 days of early voting.
What you're describing is extremely unlikely, as you say.
Consider these things, for starters:
There was widespread vote caging; secret purging of voter rolls to the tune of tens of thousands of votes (voters didn't know until they arrived at the polls); provisional ballots tossed because reasons; mail-in ballots tossed on questionable technicalities; rules changed right before voting began; and other GOP dirty tricks. There were stark, measurable anomalies among the totals (e.g., on the same ballot, votes for Dems down the line, except for Drump; huge numbers of bullet ballots), possibly due to interference by Elon's hacker posse. Greg Palast has said that if everyone eligible had been allowed to vote, and every legal ballot had been counted, Harris would have won.
Bottom line: we have no idea how many people actually voted or didn't, and what the results actually were.
If Dems were so nefarious, Gore would have won and we would be further along in our move away from fossil fuels. Hillary would have won and our health care system would be improved. Kamala would have won and we would still have our staunch allies and not be in a useless war with Iran.
Actually because Republicans truely cheated( I lived in Palm Beach County) a Republican supervisor and her cohorts designed that ballot. Then screamed when so many were so confused. Stopped halfway thru the last count at Govenor Jeb Bush's request, throwing his weight. The supervisor was duly thanked After the election, by giving a plum position in the state, giving the states votes to Jebs brother. Trust me. That election was stolen and we all knew it.
Don't forget that brother Jeb threw a lot of Dems off the voter rolls. The GOP always cheated and we are dumb and trusting. Why are the odds the DJT won all six states with a count just slightly about the automatic recount level?
Electronics have come a long way, but that election is one of the reasons that Fl turned to the voting machines to such an extent instead of the punch cards. They were so problematic. Never mind that the actual cards we voted on didn't look like the sample ballot they mailed out. These days I fill in the dots, rather than use the electronic machine, and wait for it to agree with what I choose. We had the option at our voting precinct. I will never vote totally electronic again. And now a pal of trumps bought the co that owns the voting machines.
As you pointed out, the fact that their chosen Republican- Hilton- is advancing to the general election in November shows that the election wasn't rigged in favor of Dems.
I hope all these Republican politicians have sleepless nights, knowing their lies are destroying our nation, which will affect their families as well as ours.
So "no evidence" is evidence! So that means then, that I can only "sense" without any tangible proof that my neighbor is cheating on his wife, tell her, and she can shoot him and declare it as justifiable homicide?
Slight record correction that actually harmonizes with your post Jay: in some of the 2020 election lawsuits, the plaintiffs submitted reams of affidavits from "experts" purporting to know about things like "votes being sent to Italy via satellite." One judge, I think in Pennsylvania, went through each affidavit and, in an epic takedown, pointed out the flaws in each of them to show they were inadmissible. (I'm trying to find that judgement and failing. If you read this and know what I'm thinking of, please link it!) Yet, after the smoke cleared, the election deniers claimed that, because no one got it trouble with the courts for filing false affidavits, they must all be true, and that thus the great mountain of 'evidence' was never even considered. A vibes-based vindication, because a lack of court sanctions doesn't mean that the evidence was good/legit, it just means the court didn't take the time to punish the plaintiffs or their attorneys for wasting the time of the court. (They really should have, but then they'd be called partisan actors. Lose/lose.)
"Absence of evidence" becomes "evidence". When I read this article, my first thought was, "Does anyone --- Mike Johnson, for instance --- have any morals at all, or are they so simply caught up in keeping their jobs in the face of everything that they can say things like his statements. Does no one ever have any qualms about what they are saying and doing? As Pat Warrick noted, "I grieve!"
Well, trump has his army started. First it was ICE, next it will be the J6ers, and who knows how the actual U.S. Army will behave now that so many Generals have retired. What he will instruct them to do during/after an unsatisfactory election? He’s already shown us!
Thanks for highlighting the fallacious claim in ‘41/‘42 that (I paraphrase) « the fact that no sabotage has taken place among Japanese Americans is a disturbing indication that such sabotage will take place. » I was about 15 when I read that and it was quite the stunner.
"Road tested"? No, the testing is over and the techniques have been shown to be perfect and puncture-proof thanks to presidential pardons and the nearly unlimited and essentially transferrable presidential immunity granted by the kangaroo Supreme Court. Proof? Evidence? "We don't need no stinkin' evidence" as long as we have a press that is tied up in its own ambivalent standards, a justice system controlled by our MAGA leaders, and so we are unaccountable for any bs we say or savagery we commit. MAGA has finally perfected political double-standards, and until we confront that fact with actionable outrage, we will be their victims.
There are people who believe trump/musk rigged the Nov 2024 elections, but they too have no evidence. They have suspicions and vibes because miraculously trump won all the swing states.
Maybe the 2 Johnson's and scalise know that the gop did in fact cheat in Nov 2024. If so, the gop would know that it is (again) in fact possible that the evidence can be hidden so well that lack of evidence proves that it was committed.
“Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that it is impossible to prove.”~Mike Johnson
There's actually some evidence that some of the states' 2024 results were rigged. Check out the Substack columns by This Will Hold, which details vote numbers shrinking or disappearing as vote counting proceeded, votes for non-existent districts that were converted at the last minute, and even Musk's baby mommy who has come forward with Musk's bragging on election day.
And consider this: when has Trump NOT cheated on something? An election that would keep him out of prison is plenty of motivation.
Until all that is presented as evidence in a court room...
I absolutely don't doubt that trump, musk and a lot of other people would lie, cheat, steal and bribe their way to manipulate the results, but I'm not going to let it live rent free in my head if I don't have evidence.
Jay, you are obviously correct. And I guess there's some value in educating or notifying the good guys. But really, what is the point of facts and logic in the current political environment?
My choices for acceptable responses in approximate order:
1. Bullshit
2. You're a liar (hat tip to Bob Dylan)
3. Prove it
I just don't see dignifying this nonsense with facts and rationality. Meet the people where they are and all that.
So long as they appeal to feelings instead of facts, the ignorant will believe. I miss the days when this country valued an educated populous. Now its all knee-jerk reaction and supporting whoever says what you'd like to hear.
I’m not in the least bit sure that this country as a whole ever valued an educated populace. Expertise and the elite education system has always been viewed with suspicion and disdain in this country.
I see adults who choose to not learn anymore. Every scientific study is a lie. Experts lie. Robert E. Lee was a hero — not a lie.
Didn’t his side lose the war so how could he be a hero?
He was a brutal slave-holding traitor to his country, the Union. Other than that ...
And the internet, a myriad of t.v. stations, and right-wing radio shows with screaming hosts have doomed us.
There were always crackpots. But in this era of technology's, lies spread faster than truth.
This chaos and destruction of our norms would not have been thinkable 30 years ago. The internet is a blessing and a curse...more of the latter.
//
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
//
Isaac Asimov. It's as true now as it was forty years ago when he first said it.
I think we start a do they think we are stupid campaign, esp as his depravity becomes fact...the pay to get out of jail is deep state stuff, the lies the money wasted on fixtures in DC, inappropriate service ppl in DC gardening, the White House debacle - it is ruined- for months if not years to come. And his family buying a nuclear fallout shelter for 3600 ppl?
The Democrats are SOOOOOO good at d-i-a-bo-li-cal sa-bo-ta-gee that the GOP controls the White House, both houses of Congress, and the SCOTUS.
There is someone who knows exactly how to diabolically rig an election, though. His name is Mike Johnson, and he is doing it right now.
Here is Bugs Bunny's view of this latest GOP claim.
https://youtu.be/gMJIRTCK--I?si=j_4joIGzokmUPpNC
Remember the diabolically clever way the Dems left control of the Senate up to two run-off elections in GEORGIA? That just proves everything!
Yeah. We are sooooooooo clever, just as you say.
This is absolutely scary, especially since so many in the country are programmed to believe it. Something I realized last night is that the reason trump wants to outlaw mail in voting, is that it is a secure system that he can't mess with. I have seen comments to the effect that electronic voting machines can be tampered with. That may or may not be true, but I have concluded that anything that prevents republicans from cheating is defined as fraud… I think one of the republican messages to the country is that they have a right to cheat, which is not a right for everyone.
While I truly believe somehow, someway there was fraud in the 2024 election I struggle because I know how hard it is to actually tamper with the electronic voting machines. Voting machines are not connected to the internet, at least in the state of Michigan. My google search produced a vague answer in that there are reports that some voting machines in a few areas at least temporarily connected but the gist is electronic voting machines overall are never online. While they are not connected to the internet, they are programmed usually the night before the election- the best bet to compromise an election is through the program that is loaded onto the machines. I don't know how hard that it. This is my take anyway, There are some theories out there about how 2024 could have been stolen, and some plausible in my mind, but until proven I don't put much stock into those theories. I just have a hard time believing 2024 was decided so quickly and that literally all "purple" states went red- something just never sat right with that. But again no proof and I'm not a Mike Johnson
I'm glad to know that you are not a Mike Johnson. What you wrote proves that. I appreciate that you know as much as you do about voting machines. I'm pretty sure that what I had read was opinions, which were not based on actual knowledge. I would really like to see a serious investigation into the 2024 election, because I, too, had a hard time believing that all the "purple" states suddenly went red. Thank you for educating me about voting machines.
You're welcome. I really only know Michigan but have done research about the rest. And logic says same machines, same processes. I became a poll worker after 2020 because I didn't want to tell people that the election couldn't have been tampered with without knowing the process.
Good on you for becoming a poll worker and doing the research on voting machines. We need more people like you.
I suggest checking out Election Truth Alliance.
https://electiontruthalliance.org/
Thank you for the link. I wish they had a transcript, because I read a lot better than I can hear, and I don't have a lot of opportunities to listen.
They have various reports on this site. I don't know if any are audible.
I will try to listen to this when I'm not at work.
It's actually a site with all kinds of info.
As Stalin supposedly said, it's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes. Individual machines don't have to be compromised for the results to be altered.
I guess it's all how it's done. Where I am nothing is done by hand, the counts come from the tabulator (votiing machines). Even the absentee ballots are run through a machine so there is no human tabulation. Which, as far as I know, is how it's done in the entire state. Yet someone the orange gibbon won Mi, even with our 2 largest counties being pretty blue. Turning either of those counties red (which apparently happened) is unusual. I did start looking at statistics and my guess is the number voters both counties had in 2024 vs 2020 was the difference (much lower in 2024). Really odd since we had 7 days of early voting.
What you're describing is extremely unlikely, as you say.
Consider these things, for starters:
There was widespread vote caging; secret purging of voter rolls to the tune of tens of thousands of votes (voters didn't know until they arrived at the polls); provisional ballots tossed because reasons; mail-in ballots tossed on questionable technicalities; rules changed right before voting began; and other GOP dirty tricks. There were stark, measurable anomalies among the totals (e.g., on the same ballot, votes for Dems down the line, except for Drump; huge numbers of bullet ballots), possibly due to interference by Elon's hacker posse. Greg Palast has said that if everyone eligible had been allowed to vote, and every legal ballot had been counted, Harris would have won.
Bottom line: we have no idea how many people actually voted or didn't, and what the results actually were.
If Dems were so nefarious, Gore would have won and we would be further along in our move away from fossil fuels. Hillary would have won and our health care system would be improved. Kamala would have won and we would still have our staunch allies and not be in a useless war with Iran.
Actually because Republicans truely cheated( I lived in Palm Beach County) a Republican supervisor and her cohorts designed that ballot. Then screamed when so many were so confused. Stopped halfway thru the last count at Govenor Jeb Bush's request, throwing his weight. The supervisor was duly thanked After the election, by giving a plum position in the state, giving the states votes to Jebs brother. Trust me. That election was stolen and we all knew it.
Don't forget that brother Jeb threw a lot of Dems off the voter rolls. The GOP always cheated and we are dumb and trusting. Why are the odds the DJT won all six states with a count just slightly about the automatic recount level?
Electronics have come a long way, but that election is one of the reasons that Fl turned to the voting machines to such an extent instead of the punch cards. They were so problematic. Never mind that the actual cards we voted on didn't look like the sample ballot they mailed out. These days I fill in the dots, rather than use the electronic machine, and wait for it to agree with what I choose. We had the option at our voting precinct. I will never vote totally electronic again. And now a pal of trumps bought the co that owns the voting machines.
As you pointed out, the fact that their chosen Republican- Hilton- is advancing to the general election in November shows that the election wasn't rigged in favor of Dems.
I hope all these Republican politicians have sleepless nights, knowing their lies are destroying our nation, which will affect their families as well as ours.
So "no evidence" is evidence! So that means then, that I can only "sense" without any tangible proof that my neighbor is cheating on his wife, tell her, and she can shoot him and declare it as justifiable homicide?
Yes, this can be applied to anything at all, really. If you believe it, it's true. It is beyond mind-boggling--and frightening.
Magical thinking.
Yes as George Costanza said, it's not a lie if you believe it.
Slight record correction that actually harmonizes with your post Jay: in some of the 2020 election lawsuits, the plaintiffs submitted reams of affidavits from "experts" purporting to know about things like "votes being sent to Italy via satellite." One judge, I think in Pennsylvania, went through each affidavit and, in an epic takedown, pointed out the flaws in each of them to show they were inadmissible. (I'm trying to find that judgement and failing. If you read this and know what I'm thinking of, please link it!) Yet, after the smoke cleared, the election deniers claimed that, because no one got it trouble with the courts for filing false affidavits, they must all be true, and that thus the great mountain of 'evidence' was never even considered. A vibes-based vindication, because a lack of court sanctions doesn't mean that the evidence was good/legit, it just means the court didn't take the time to punish the plaintiffs or their attorneys for wasting the time of the court. (They really should have, but then they'd be called partisan actors. Lose/lose.)
"Absence of evidence" becomes "evidence". When I read this article, my first thought was, "Does anyone --- Mike Johnson, for instance --- have any morals at all, or are they so simply caught up in keeping their jobs in the face of everything that they can say things like his statements. Does no one ever have any qualms about what they are saying and doing? As Pat Warrick noted, "I grieve!"
Oh God, Jay, tell us we can make it through this. It is surreal.
Well, trump has his army started. First it was ICE, next it will be the J6ers, and who knows how the actual U.S. Army will behave now that so many Generals have retired. What he will instruct them to do during/after an unsatisfactory election? He’s already shown us!
I instinctively know that Mike Johnson should no longer be Speaker of the House.
With any luck (luck in the sense that we have fair elections), he won't be. He is such a moron
Isn't he the one who doesn't have a bank account? He must have something to hide!
Thanks for highlighting the fallacious claim in ‘41/‘42 that (I paraphrase) « the fact that no sabotage has taken place among Japanese Americans is a disturbing indication that such sabotage will take place. » I was about 15 when I read that and it was quite the stunner.
Here’s my family in camp. Dad low center.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dnsstv8g1uocp3bbt2ij3/Yoshimura-Family-in-Camp-retouched-Sepia-Valerie-Yoshimura.jpeg?rlkey=26pe9z9a4ljwwytg78l7mkpkv&st=dzh35xyh&dl=0
A sad history they cannot erase, but they sure are trying. I'm so sorry your family went thru this. Heartbreaking.
Thank you
😔
"Road tested"? No, the testing is over and the techniques have been shown to be perfect and puncture-proof thanks to presidential pardons and the nearly unlimited and essentially transferrable presidential immunity granted by the kangaroo Supreme Court. Proof? Evidence? "We don't need no stinkin' evidence" as long as we have a press that is tied up in its own ambivalent standards, a justice system controlled by our MAGA leaders, and so we are unaccountable for any bs we say or savagery we commit. MAGA has finally perfected political double-standards, and until we confront that fact with actionable outrage, we will be their victims.
There are people who believe trump/musk rigged the Nov 2024 elections, but they too have no evidence. They have suspicions and vibes because miraculously trump won all the swing states.
Maybe the 2 Johnson's and scalise know that the gop did in fact cheat in Nov 2024. If so, the gop would know that it is (again) in fact possible that the evidence can be hidden so well that lack of evidence proves that it was committed.
“Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that it is impossible to prove.”~Mike Johnson
There's actually some evidence that some of the states' 2024 results were rigged. Check out the Substack columns by This Will Hold, which details vote numbers shrinking or disappearing as vote counting proceeded, votes for non-existent districts that were converted at the last minute, and even Musk's baby mommy who has come forward with Musk's bragging on election day.
And consider this: when has Trump NOT cheated on something? An election that would keep him out of prison is plenty of motivation.
Until all that is presented as evidence in a court room...
I absolutely don't doubt that trump, musk and a lot of other people would lie, cheat, steal and bribe their way to manipulate the results, but I'm not going to let it live rent free in my head if I don't have evidence.
I am also suspicious but unless someone proves it and that proof goes to court it's just speculation and suspicion
Jay, you are obviously correct. And I guess there's some value in educating or notifying the good guys. But really, what is the point of facts and logic in the current political environment?
My choices for acceptable responses in approximate order:
1. Bullshit
2. You're a liar (hat tip to Bob Dylan)
3. Prove it
I just don't see dignifying this nonsense with facts and rationality. Meet the people where they are and all that.
And add the probability of criminal conviction for lies in the public sphere just as if they were expressed in a courtroom.
I grieve.