↓
 
Home » Open thread 8/6/24

Open thread 8/6/24

The New Neo Posted on by

The difficulty of the moves in this video is nowhere near today’s. But I prefer this far more balletic style. Tourischeva is actually still my favorite gymnast ever. One of the things to keep in mind is that today’s gymnastics floors are very springy, more or less like trampolines, which helps with the height of the tumbling. The floor here just had a mat on it. Also, now the music is recorded rather than live:

Comments

Open thread 8/6/24 — 81 Comments

  4. Agree with the sentiment of this post. I felt similarly about Oksana Baiul back in the day. I think I was the only American who thought she deserved to win over Nancy Kerrigan. Kerrigan nailed all of her difficult jumps, and couldn’t have performed a more perfect routine, but Baiul was the most graceful thing I’d ever seen on ice. Like watching Fred Astaire dance.

  5. Not that it is a surprise to anyone here, but this is a very well put together compilation of how the Democratic message machine reaches down to even the local TV level. I guess the majority of people just do not know how they are being manipulated by the press, and how the press has totally abandoned any pretense of responsibility for actual reporting.

    https://x.com/dom_lucre/status/1820609680067985776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1820609680067985776%7Ctwgr%5Ea8dfa26988bcc8375ff69e4773aa8f488b0d917d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.whatfinger.com%2F

  6. So is (in the wisdom of election Swamis) Pennsylvania no longer “locked up?” And does this placate Deabonistan? Does the “future belong” to we?

  7. om

    A cruelly funny thing said about Shapiro; he sewed his foreskin back on…and got nothing for it.

  8. Tourischeva is a good looking woman with a great conventional figure. If you told me she was 5′ 7″, it would be believable. She is well proportioned. She’s actually 5′ 3″ which is very tall for today’s gymnasts I would imagine.

    If she were a pre-teen today trying out for a good or top gymnastic team I suspect they’d tell her, “Forget it kid, your body is all wrong.”

  10. Well the old cliché about “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” is probably inadequate for Kamala’s selection of Walz for VP… more like “Snatching a solid ass-kicking from the jaws of a longshot”.

    I think Kelly would have been better than Walz, and Shapiro better than Kelly. Shapiro probably couldn’t swallow renouncing Israel. And of course both of them come from consequential states!

    Now we can eliminate any idea that Kamala has some secret non-leftys on staff to counteract her brainlessness… this choice is as brainless as it gets!

    This is of course ignoring Democrat vote rigging, which sadly has the potential to make factors like this nearly irrelevant.

  12. Jews, expendable
    Muslims, pandered too.
    Please, Secular Jews, take note. They don’t care that you vote for them, you are still a Jew.

  13. Wow. This is an election that both parties are trying very hard to lose.

    I can’t believe that they’re announcing the Shapiro snub in Philly.

  14. I’d second the sentiment that it’s worth reading Powerline on the selection of Walz. John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson report from inside the leftist madness of Minnesota politics.

    I have to admit that I’m surprised at the selection, because it has little tactical value. And yes, Trump now has a better chance to win Pennsylvania.

    At the risk of being even more obvious than usual, I can’t help but note that the selection of Walz, and the rejection of Shapiro, is a measure of the power of the Jew haters in the Democratic Party. Even so, I don’t think that the Muslims of Dearbornistan will ever be satisfied. I think Harris will run a close race in Michigan, and will then be carried to victory by the new ballot methods. But I thought that would happn anyway, even with Shapiro on the ticket.

  15. I most ways Kamala Harris is almost certainly the single weakest presidential candidate the Democrats have fielded in the modern age. And she’s now picked a VP candidate that will realistically gain her nothing at best. If Trump still ends up losing anyway it would speak to the absolute stranglehold that the Democrat Party has on the US election system.

  16. Anyone want to read the tea leaves of the Walz pick?

    1. Harris is comfortable she will win Pennsylvania.
    2. The Dem/Leftist party could not afford to alienate the Pro-Hamas/anti-Israel wing of the party. That wing represents enough of their party that it should be concerning to Americans. Harris is concerned enough about Michigan that she chose Hamas over Israel.
    3. Harris is concerned about the black vote. Walz supported the BLM rioters and allowed Rome to burn. He’s by far the most “Forward to Liberal Fascism” of the three. So she is also concerned about the left wing of the party staying home.

  17. Nonapod – If Trump still ends up losing to Harris/Walz, Trump will have lost to a walking corpse and a pair of the most vapid leftists that central casting could have possibly provided.

    Have you considered, even for a moment, that, if that happens, it might be because Trump is a terrible candidate?

    He was at it again yesterday attacking . . . [checks notes] . . . the Republican governor of must-win Georgia, who happens to sport a approval rating above 60%. Trump is the weakest nominee that the Republican party has fielded in the modern age. Nearly any other Republican above room temperature would be ahead of Harris/Walz by double digits right now.

  18. My read on the Walz pick over Shapiro is that it wasn’t so much a matter of some certainty that she’d be able to win Pennsylvania even without Shapiro, but rather that she was afraid to lose Michigan and potentially other areas by angering the large antisemitic voting block of the Democrat party. This may have been a calculation based on maintaining rather than gaining.

  19. If they steal it, yes then this country is over, dead and buried like Assyria or Atlantis, there is nothing wrong with Vance, he did every thing the right way,
    his heart is in the right place,

    now these stepford nonblinking zombies who are the Kamala corps thats something else entirely, they would gouge your eyes with a smile and hand their daughters to the mutilator, or the burka, it’s arguable which happens first,

    Really you think they would react better to desantis, with his six to fifteen week waiting period, or haley dream on, these are unthinking drones, that drive this kabuki effort, and I’m sorry every exemplar they present seems to be equally blind and dumb
    now working class African Americans and Whites and Hispanics are not enthralled in that way, as Michael Smerconish found out the hard way, (hes a blind squirrel that finds the nut once about every 20 years,)

  20. @Bauxite:Nearly any other Republican above room temperature would be ahead of Harris/Walz by double digits right now.

    Where is your evidence?

    Have you considered, even for a moment, that, if that happens, it might be because Trump is a terrible candidate?

    1) Who is a better candidate than Trump, and what is your evidence that if the government and the media did to them what they have done to Trump, your better candidate would be in a better position?

    2) What’s the point of continuing to bring this up? Trump is all we have now. What are you trying to achieve by continuing to try to make the case he’s a terrible candidate?

    Do you want us all to just feel bad when he loses? Do you want to say “I told you so” when we’re all in gulag? What outcome are you expecting to see by keeping this up?

  21. If Waltz was as bad on the riots as people say he was, someone should make a cartoon with him fiddling while the city burns in the background.

  22. What’s the point of continuing to bring this up?
    ==
    That’s what he was recruited to do.

  23. This VP pick makes it very clear that Democrats mean “hard left.” Rs didn’t nominate the seriously conservative candidate I wanted, but it should be very clear to anyone that American freedoms would be seriously threatened by a continuation of the Biden nightmare with Harris/Walz.

    And, it’s the economy, stupid, as Carville said so long ago.

  24. Brian E

    Trump won PA in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, who was/is much more popular amongst DEMs than Harris in my opinion.

    Also, DEMs have been cheating since at least JFK—when I first heard about it. I don’t buy the Trump lost in 2020 because of cheating. DEMs couldn’t cheat for Hillary?!?

    I agree w/ Bauxite on August 6, 2024 at 12:48 pm & August 6, 2024 at 1:07 pm.

    This is an election that both parties are trying very hard to lose. (12:48 pm)

    Have you considered, even for a moment, that, if that happens, it might be because Trump is a terrible candidate? (1:07 pm.)

    Trump needs to not let Harris’ early faux success and excitement to cause him to lose what can be his…

  25. Maybe she picked Walz because the other names on the short list the puppetmasters handed her all told her they weren’t interested.

  26. Have you considered, even for a moment, that, if that happens, it might be because Trump is a terrible candidate?

    That “even for a moment” is a little presumptuous. I’ve been very critical of Trump many, many times in this blog comment section as well as other places. Suffice to say that I’m less than happy about having Trump as a candidate and I personally would have much prefered DeSantis or someone like him.

    But I still say that if Trump ends up losing I believe that the reason for such a loss will have more to do with to do with Democrat voting chicanery than Trump himself.

    Why do I say this? I say it because I don’t believe some other candidate would’ve faced lesser headwinds and still managed to keep and gain certain groups of voters. Yes, Trump is rambling blowhard with an over the top bullying style that turns off many white middle class women (but conversely often impresses black and hispanic men) and drives certain people (who would never vote for any Republican anyway) insane. At this point, Trump is a well known quantity with a long history. The fact that he says wacky things at this point isn’t likely going to either gain or lose anyone.

    Nearly any other Republican above room temperature would be ahead of Harris/Walz by double digits right now.

    I’m not so sure about that. The current Trump base doesn’t necessarily overlap perfectly to the generic “Nearly any other” Republican base. Trump is a sort of populist who has a strong appeal to certain groups that might not always vote for a more generic Republican candidate. At any rate, it’s difficult to say with any kind of certainty if another candidate would truly be way ahead.

  27. what is this kindergarten, they stole in fulton, wayne, dane maricopa, bucks and which ever pittsburgh is located, they had the machinery in michigan wisconsin, and pennsylvania after 2018 kemp and ducey laid back in georgia and arizona,

    in the spring and fall of 2020, josh helderman did a rather extensive deep dive
    into Dominion aired of HBO and PBS, then the next month we have the Houdini election, and anyone who raises any questions is an election denialist, interestingly there was a real hearing on Dominion, not the third hand hearsay leveled against Fox, but oddly no one speaks of it,

  28. Niketas Choniates –

    What is my purpose? Trump 2028 will be a thing the week after the election if he loses. Sure, he’ll be 82, but his supporters won’t care. Neither will he. He’ll run. I’m tired of him blowing winnable elections.

    What is my evidence? We’ve not had a Republican nominee other than Donald Trump in more than a decade, so there’s really no way to precisely predict what a campaign against Biden or Harris would look like with a candidate who refrained from childish name calling, refrained from launching stupid attacks on their opponent’s racial identity, refrained from attacking popular GOP governors, and basically acted like a normal adult human being. If that happened, however, there would be a much better chance to have a campaign on the issues – and the issues favor the GOP to the extreme. Let the press talk about the GOP candidate’s eyeliner and call him weird, and then hit back with attacks based almost exclusively on Harris and Walz’s own words.

    Instead, we’re having a campaign about whether Kamala is really black and whether Brian Kemp is a good Republican. At this point, its cie la vie for 2024, but not after.

  30. Nonapod – A candidate who could actually stay on message would have a much, much better shot against Harris. Her record is a target rich environment. Again, how many news cycles last week were we talking about whether Harris is authentically black instead of her record? How much attention was taken this week talking about Brian Kemp?

    Every stupid little diversion that Trump injects into he campaign takes up attention that could have been focused on Harris and Walz’s records. Sure, Trump faces headwinds. He also creates many of them himself.

  31. Bauxite:

    What is my purpose? Trump 2028 will be a thing the week after the election if he loses. Sure, he’ll be 82, but his supporters won’t care. Neither will he. He’ll run.

    Jeez…Ditto on that Jeez!!! Last ‘Thang that I needed to hear — A never ending Nightmare…

  32. that kamala has been a fraud all her public life, thats not in dispute, that she has brought ruin to every city, she has touched is not either, that she is either ignorant and or evil that should be debatable, this is why she has burped anything in 16 days, (she still doesn’t deign to indulge her black sisters,,

    Now kemp is something else, an enabler of the fraud, and every thing that stems from it, the supply chain collapse, the extortion of the colonial pipelines, East Palestine, the fractured air transport system, Kabul Kiev and Kiryat Arbas, the Tren de Agua, circling NY like Sharks, the reign of the harpy willis who has deprived Fulton County of Justice, for the better part of four years instead going on this Ahab hunt for Orange Man, of course you have to add Dread Pirate Smith to the mix, and the damage he has wrought, and Fat Alvin and how he has turned NYC into a replica of Gotham,

    every lawfare outrage you swallowed like popcorn no matter how ridiculous the tale,
    the Rime of Cassidy Hutchinson the tale of the Nuclear Codes at Maralago, there is no notion too ridiculous, for you to entertain,

  33. “If Trump still ends up losing to Harris/Walz, Trump will have lost to a walking corpse and a pair of the most vapid leftists that central casting could have possibly provided.”– Bauxite

    This is just nonsense and ignores the real problem. Trump was leading against a literal “walking corpse.”

    Kamala may win if the media can pull off the greatest con job in history– even greater than Obama in ’08 when the oceans were going to part, or something like that.

    Trump is running against a media creation, not actual candidates. Nothing Trump says that is positive will be reported. The problem is breaking through the media blackout and propaganda machine.

  34. Bauxite
    I really like your posts and agree completely with you. If Trump loses in November he will undoubtedly start a campaign for 2028. Also Trump is an albatross on the GOP in Senate and Governor races (see Oz and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia).

  35. Oz was investigating the Ellen Greenberg case, he had many other issues against him, he was also concerned about what happens in Kensington, or other deprived parts of Pennsylvania, of course Fetterman came from Braddock, and that was his own ‘laboratory of chaos’ he seeded as he moved to Lt Governor, still insisting on freeing as many prisoners as possible, because thats what Pennsylvania needed,
    yes hes pro israel, and gave at least a nod to the border issues,

    there was nothing wrong with Herschel Walker, except maybe some inexperience what was the looting Marxist Warnock done in two years, well no one really cares, about his part in the inflation or the crime wave, and other elements that are ad nauseum, nor did they care about how they looted FTX and SVB to keep him in office, among other ongoing concerns,

    there was nothing wrong with Kari Lake either, except she was a Cassandra about the deluge that Arizona was to suffer, so they did their Maricopa magic, they did sweep the table, even putting a cartel atty as Att General, I’m not making this up, I don’t have that much imagination,

  36. ‘Whars the Proof on Voter Fraud? Have heard that the DEMs have been doing it since at JFK, which is when I first heard about it. Never cared about elections until attacks of 911, and then voted for first time in 2002. That’s about 42 years between JFK and my first vote.

    Didn’t really hear about Voter Fraud again until 2020…well, Trump was President, and warned against it.

    Now, for close to 24/7, for the past 4-years I can bet on hearing about cheating and/or Voter Fraud at least once a day.

    A Sampling of Recent Election Fraud Cases from Across the United States – ‘an activist American conservative think tank’ doesn’t have many cases on it.

    Now I’m hearing that Trump will run again in 2028 if he loses, so am guessing that we have at least 8 more years of claims about Voter Fraud!? Would he run in again in 2032 if he loses in 2028?!?

    Stop the constant sore loser whining and come up with some real proof – of lost elections due to Voter Fraud…REAL PROOF.

  37. Kamala picks Tim Walz – ‘Shift left‘ – by Techno Fog.

    It was her first real decision as the Democratic nominee, and she chose a relative unknown outside of Minnesota who bolsters Kamala’s leftist credentials. Call it the most left-wing ticket in American history.

    You might also call it Kamala’s first big mistake in the presidential race.

    For their part, Republicans are pleased with this pick. As they should be in a race as close as this. Open Borders Kamala joins forces Sanctuary State Walz. The far-left nominee picks an equally progressive running mate. The woman who supported the rioters selects the man who let them riot. Imagine the ads. As Donald Trump said today, “THANK YOU!”

  38. Karmi, in the case of Pennsylvania there is no way to prove fraud, since the only integrity in the absentee/mail-in ballot is the signature on the envelope.
    In 2020:

    In a blow to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee in a crucial swing state, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday that counties cannot reject mail-in ballots because voters’ signatures do not resemble the way they signed when registering to vote.

    The Secretary of State then issued a guidance that any marks in the signature box was sufficient to accept the ballot. It’s impossible to say whether the ballot is from the person it was sent to or not.

    As to 2028, now you’re just trolling.

  39. I can’t really decide if CC™ is Ahab going after The Great Orange Whale or Gollum in his hate for the Hobbits (the orange one). The orange one stole his checked pants and destroyed the decourum of the country club.

    Trump is the weakest nominee that the Republican party has fielded in the modern age.

    Really, CC™? Romney? McCaine, Bush the elder, Dole, Ford or is “modern” what ever suits your fanciful, malign, frothings?

  40. Brian E

    As to 2028, now you’re just trolling.

    A Nightmare thought (one that I first heard about today from someone else) – not trolling. People warned the same thing about Trump in 2024.

    So, other than calling me a troll, you have absolutely no proof of Voter Fraud in 2020…

  42. I’ll take Walz’s pick as well as the failed assassination attempt on Trump as more evidence that God is protecting Donald Trump.

    It’s interesting that Harris felt the need to shore up the leftist base of the party. Now how do Republicans make that case before independent voters– showing that is how she intends to govern as the far left candidate from 2020, not the moderate remake that is in the works right now.

  44. Karmi:

    I’ve written many times about the possibility of fraud in the 2020 election and the difficulty of proving it. The gist of what I have to say is that fraud is virtually impossible to prove once the rules are changed in certain ways. That is true even if significant fraud did in fact occur.

    Here’s an article that I recommend, as well.

  49. A candidate who could actually stay on message would have a much, much better shot against Harris

    Honestly, I would love a candidate who would stay on message a little better than Trump tends to. That said, I don’t know if “staying on message” is truly Trump’s major weakness right now. That’s not to say that I don’t think it wouldn’t help. But I’m also skeptical of the notion that it would significantly increase his chances (or just “a candidate” for that matter). I think the Democrat-Media machine has an extraordinary ability to either twist and distort or just suppress virtually any message put out by any Republican presidential candidate. It’s complicated.

    And I’m not saying that there’s not things that Trump could definitely being doing better. I’m just skeptical of the notion that there’s some other hypothetical Republican candidate who would’ve been doing far, far better than Trump for a number of reasons.

    If Trump never existed, what would’ve happened? Would Ted Cruz have been the candidate in 2016? If so, could he have beaten Hillary? What would the world look like today?

  51. I have to admit that I’m surprised at the selection, because it has little tactical value. And yes, Trump now has a better chance to win Pennsylvania.

    At the risk of being even more obvious than usual, I can’t help but note that the selection of Walz, and the rejection of Shapiro, is a measure of the power of the Jew haters in the Democratic Party.

    Cornflour:

    Likewise. I figured Harris would get serious about a head-fake to the center, like Obama in 2008 when picking Biden as Veep. Also, Pennsylvania is essential to her ticket.

    However, there are higher concerns which take precedence over vote-grubbing.

    Judenrein is as Judenrein does.

  53. Bauxite, and to a lesser extent Karmi, are demonstrating what the media does to disrupt any message that might reach voters. Persist on raising points that have no bearing on the direction a Trump-Vance administration would lead the country.

    Compare and contrast the policies that Trump did pursue and add to the new policies he intends to pursue to that of the Harris-Walz ticket. Harris campaigned in 2019 on policies that would crush the US economy with new taxes and burdensome regulations, bankrupt the country with massive new spending schemes at a time our debt load is nearly unsustainable, encourage the most woke policies that continue to diminish the parents authority and increase the bureaucracy authority in family life.

    The Trump-Vance administration are the ones promoting common sense, being cast as “weird” by the left. Was Walz picked because he first coined the use of “weird” to Vance and Trump? This is his contribution to America moving “forward”? Common sense is now weird? We know the insanity of the left because we see it daily where fantasy and narrative are confused with reality.

  54. Karmi:

    Are you reading-comprehension challenged? I have never said that, ever.

    I have never said that fraud absolutely occurred. I have been crystal clear in saying over and over – and I will say it again, in hopes that you actually get what I’m saying:

    The change in rules in 2020 gave the opportunity for massive fraud that could not be proven even if it did occur. The voting rules in the US in 2020 were looser than in any first world country in the world; I researched that but never wrote a comprehensive post on it. However, for example, read how they handle absentee voting in the UK. Many many more safeguards against fraud than we have here.

    There is also no question that the motive for fraud exists. Motive plus opportunity is not proof (a proof that can’t exist anyway), but it is enough to undermine faith in the integrity of the voting system. Once that faith is gone, we’re in deep deep trouble, whether significant fraud actually occurs or not.

  55. I presume there are two phases; jew-hate, and pandering to muslims.

    I recall being in high school when JFK was running and the feverish anti-Catholic moves from conservative Christians. I don’t think they’re the Bad Guys in this iteration.

  56. ”If Trump never existed, what would’ve happened? Would Ted Cruz have been the candidate in 2016? If so, could he have beaten Hillary? What would the world look like today?”

    Since Ted Cruz was almost the candidate in 2016 anyway and he was the second choice of most Trump voters early in the primaries, before Trump signaled to his fans that they must hate him, yes he would have been the Republican candidate in 2016. And since almost all polls showed every other Republican candidate beating Hillary even more than Trump did (there’s a reason Hillary told her fans to cross over and vote for Trump in the Republican primaries), yes he almost certainly have won in 2016.

    And since Cruz had both a clue and a nationwide organization stretching to each of the 435 Congressional districts in the country, he would have been able to stop much of the fraud that occurred in 2020 — fraud we all knew was coming six or eight months in advance (we even talked about it here) — fraud that Trump did nothing to stop. He just tweeted about it. So yes, Cruz likely would have won again in 2020 and spared us the disaster of the Biden administration.

    So if Trump had never come down that escalator in 2015 we’d be in year eight of a Cruz administration with the most popular governor in the country lined up to succeed him. Without the fraud of 2020 and 2022 the Senate would be in Republican hands and Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona would be solidly red states.

    The massive inflation of the last four years would not have occurred, nor would the weaponization of the federal government against us. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened nor the disastrous Afghanistan pullout. The Taliban would have tens of billions of dollars fewer weapons and Iran would have tens of billions of dollars less cash.

    But millions of people wouldn’t be able to laugh at the president’s tweets, so I guess it all balances out.

    Sigh. What a tragedy.

  57. neo

    Are you reading-comprehension challenged? I have never said that, ever.

    My reading skills are certainly below yours & those of this board. I didn’t say you did, just asked the question.

    Anyway, if my “reading-comprehension” of what you have said is close, then it sounds sorta like the NYT’s Fake But Accurate scenario.

  58. Two thoughts:
    1. I agree that most ice skaters and gymnists today have lost that original ballet grace. It saddens me.

    2. The fiscal events of the next two months will determine who wins this election. I don’t believe the leadership cabal will allow the world’s economies to fall into a deep dive, but I also don’t think they have the soft touch it would take to stabilize the US, European, and Japanese economies into a comfort zone–not even a temporary one just to get them through November.
    Now is when we will see just how good the “brightest” members of the WEF are really.

  59. You accept extensive Voter Fraud happened in the 2020 election as fact – even without proof?– Karmi

    You misstated what Neo said, then asked a question.

    Here’s what she said:

    …The gist of what I have to say is that fraud is virtually impossible to prove once the rules are changed in certain ways. That is true even if significant fraud did in fact occur.– Neo

    Trying to “distance” yourself, as a liberal might say:

    “I didn’t say you (Neo) did, just asked the question.”– Karmi

    I think there’s a word for what you did.

  60. I’m positive that there was significant fraud in 2020. I’m sure there was fraud going back to Obama’s first election. It just took awhile, and a few elections, to get it perfected. I’m sure they thought with actual votes + extensive fraud, Hilary was destined to win, but they didn’t figure that Trump would get quite as many votes as he did such that he’d win the electoral votes. So they pulled out the stops for 2020. As luck would have it, the pandemic have them a golden opportunity to find more ways to cheat

    I think during Obama’s first election, it was an experiment in a couple of states: “If we just concentrate our fraud efforts in blue counties with large populations and just enough to put out candidate over the top…” In Indiana, that worked. Lake and Marion Counties had more than 105% of eligible voters registered. That number soon out Obama over the top. I’m the grand scheme of the election, it didn’t matter. But in the scheme of how to successfully commit fraud, it worked. I just think they underestimated to what degree they needed to do it to ensure Hilary won. And I’m positive they did it to try and get her to win.

  61. In the hope Neo reads this… I now eat my words as just this afternoon on the Fox site, they report a poll ( I know, I know) that maybe 50%! of NY Jews may be breaking for Trump. I would assume that for this to happen a number of secular Jews have changed their minds and not just the Orthodox.

    I know it won’t affect overall numbers, but I wonder about donations and influence. Still, good news to me if it pans out.

  62. Brian E:

    Thanks, but I’ve found the answer to my original question – “‘Whars the Proof on Voter Fraud?”

    Other fraud cases need proof before someone is prosecuted. Voter Fraud apparently can’t be proven, for some reason that is beyond me.

    So, accusations of Voter Fraud can be false or fake, but many Trump supporters believe them to be accurate – Fake but Accurate…so to speak.

  63. I am an experienced election official in North Carolina. The essence of a fair election is ballot control — being sure that every ballot which is fed into the tabulator is connected to a real voter whose right to vote in that election has been verified. What happened in numerous states in 2020 is that leftists used the virus to relax rules governing ballot control. Once the ballots go into the count, there is no way to determine which were valid and which were not, and thus no way to believe the final counts as accurate. “Proving fraud” is not possible after the fact. The important thing is to use the laws as written to prevent unauthorized ballots from getting to the tabulator; if this is done, people can have more confidence in the results.

    Obviously, for the reasons above, elections on the Left Coast, where ballots are mailed out all over the state to people who may or may not be valid voters, cannot be viewed as valid at all.

  64. Karmi,

    I can point to an audit of the 2020 election in Washington state. The state government is completely controlled by Democrats. There audit found that ever by their standards somewhere between 2%-7% of the ballots accepted should have been rejected for signatures failing to match.

    In the case of Pennsylvania their Supreme Court ruled before the 2020 election that signatures didn’t need to be verified, and the Sec. of State decided as long as there was a mark in the signature box, the ballot was to be accepted.

    In the case of Arizona, both in 2020 and in 2022, the GOP sued to have an audit of the signature verifications and were denied by the court system under the guise of privacy.

    They could put this all to rest by allowing an independent audit of the signature verification process, but the courts haven’t allowed it.

    ‘Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That quote isn’t from President Trump, who criticized mail-in voting this week after Wisconsin Democrats tried and failed to change an election at the last minute into an exclusively mail-in affair. It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III.

    Shouldn’t we strive to have a system that doesn’t require a certain faith that the elections are honest, but that have enough safeguards that both sides think the election was fair.

    Certain groups have made it as a contest between access and integrity. Shouldn’t integrity have the highest priority?

  65. Greg Kelly on Newsmax recently suggested Trump-Vance move away from the big rallies to more townhall type events.

    These are going to be key, since the media will never fairly report on either of them.

    Vance did an event like that, taking question from the local media and the audience. That will be a good strategy, along with the mega MAGA rallies.

  66. neo was very thorough and honest throughout the 2020 election and its aftermath. She wrote extensively on the subject and her main point can be summarized by Kate’s excellent comment @ 6:13pm. Neo enraged more than a few of her readers who are Trump fans by refusing to report on unproved and unprovable theories.

    Neo made it clear that election fraud in the U.S. is very difficult to prove after an election (again, see Kate’s comment) and Trump and the Republicans should have been fighting legal battles prior to November to plug the holes so many state legislatures were driving through election procedures due to COVID.

  67. One of the things which gives me a modest level of hope for 2024 is that the Chairman of the NC GOP who went to court BEFORE the 2020 election to stop fraud in NC is now the Chairman of the RNC.

  68. I caught huxley’s comment about Janis Joplin and “Summertime” on the last open thread too late to comment, so I’ll comment here.

    I love “Summertime” and think it’s one of the most poignant American songs ever written. And I think Janis Joplin’s take on it borders on blaspheme. I hesitate to opine too strongly on Ms. Joplin. She was obviously a troubled woman and I have no idea what battles she was fighting, or who she really was, but I have never understood her appeal.

    Not only do I find her music and singing dissonant and unappealing, her and The Holding Company are archetypes of so much of what I dislike about that era and the hippies.

    I didn’t watch any of the reaction videos. As I stated, it’s a song I love and I can’t bear to watch her attempt to debase it, but I have to assume the people in the videos are reacting for youtube clicks. I can’t imagine a serious musician being impressed with her rendition unless they simply have a love of ’60s, hippie music. And comparing her with James Brown?

    And I’m not writing this to pick on huxley. So often music is about when and where we hear a song or version of a song and what is going on in the world and our personal lives. I can assure you I truly love some awful versions of awful songs from the ’80s that huxley could rightfully mock. I just wanted to stand up for the true beauty of the Gershwin Brothers song, which will be revered for centuries hence.

  69. It appears that Karmi us trolling on voter fraud or has been in complete solitary confinement without access to the interwebs since before 2020, not that hanging chad’s or endless open recounts happened in Florida (2000 election). Nope, neo wasn’t persuasive enough or thorough enough in her writing to reach Karmi. Nor could he look at neo’s index of past posts.

    You can lead a troll to water but he just ducks under the nearest bridge.

  73. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 6, 2024

    Russian officials continue coordination and military cooperation with Iran ahead of the Iranian retaliatory strike against Israel out of concern for Russian interests in the region. Reuters reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a message via Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu that Iran should act with restraint and avoid targeting civilians when retaliating against Israel.

    Russia is also reportedly assisting Iranian efforts to improve its air defenses against Israeli attacks.

    ISW-CTP continues to assess that Russia is increasing its cooperation with Iran, especially leaning into its growing military partnership, to shape Western decision-making into decisions favorable to Russia, particularly into pushing the West to self-deter against providing further military assistance to Ukraine.

    Basically, Russia to Iran – help us destroy Ukraine and we will help you destroy Israel.

  74. Rufus T. Firefly:

    Shrug. You so immediately escalated your dislike of Joplin’s “Summertime” to a matter of absolute moral and spiritual condemnation that I can’t take your criticism of Joplin and “Summertime” seriously.

    I recall your similar reaction to the Rolling Stones after Charlie Watts, the drummer, died.

    My first YouTube link on the song was by a young classical musician who spent 43 minutes celebrating this four-minute version of “Summertime.” She usually doesn’t spend that much time on a song.

    Janis treated “Summertime” with the same detailed thoroughgoing blues-rock approach plus her signature vocal style that she brought to all her music. Millions of people love her music, including myself. My impression is that you don’t like any of her music, so what’s new?

    BTW George Gershwin faced his share of criticism for “Porgy and Bess,” the opera from which “Summertime” comes. It was criticized for incorporating jazz elements and centering it around black life. The opera was initially a commercial failure.

  75. The Art of Waiting to be Attacked

    Iran Update, August 6, 2024

    US intelligence community expects Iran and its Axis of Resistance to conduct two waves of attacks in its retaliation against Israel for the death of Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.

    ..Hezbollah would conduct an attack on Israel in a wave separate from another Iranian and Axis attack. Intelligence officials noted that it is not clear whether Iran and the Axis or Hezbollah would launch the first attack.

    Iran and its Axis of Resistance would likely use the first wave of the attack on Israel to assess Israeli air defenses in preparation for the second wave of the attack.

    Sounding like Russia is also helping w/ strategy, targeting (satellite intel), etc.

    Hamas selected Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip and October 7 architect Yahya Sinwar as the next leader of Hamas’ Political Bureau on August 6. Hamas media released an official statement on August 6 announcing Hamas’ selection of Sinwar as the new political leader, replacing Ismail Haniyeh.

  78. This may have come from someone here, in which case my apologies for cribbing from you, but it’s a worthwhile read, and portends well for at least some of the rising generation.

    https://www.thefp.com/p/free-press-high-school-essay-contest-winner
    A Constitution for Teenage Happiness
    Ruby LaRocca—the winner of our high school essay contest—urges her generation to read old books, memorize poems, and invite senior citizens to parties.
    By Ruby LaRocca August 31, 2023

    Even though I’m an introvert, I would go to one of Ruby’s parties!

  79. This is wildly off-topic for anything except the open thread, but it goes a long way toward explaining why it is so hard to get Democrats back in touch with reality.

    First a post from Hot Air to get the basic facts, and then Matt Taibbi’s take from a sane liberal.

    https://hotair.com/generalissimo/2024/08/05/the-defense-of-kamala-harris-is-just-plain-batty-n3792702
    The salient portion is in the second half of the post, following a recital of some of Kamala’s problems as a presidential candidate.

    But in last Thursday’s op-ed section of the New York Times, Belle Boggs penned a personal narrative that turned into a defense of Kamala Harris that is literally and figuratively batty.
    …
    From what I can make out, there’s really only two salient facts to this entire story that matter. 1) A bat flew into her house, and 2) the same bat flew out of their house. There was no physical contact with the bat of any kind. The bat didn’t hang around long enough to become the main ingredient for bat soup. This was not a reenactment of the Wuhan Lab experiments, nor was it anything resembling the wet market down the road.
    …[herein the timeline of a really paranoid response, which could be understandable if phobic, but Boggs never indicates that was applicable: these are the kind of people who are triple-vaxxed, wore masks driving alone, and never got within 12 feet of another person during the Covid Crisis, because 6 feet was not enough; RTWT for the details]
    …
    Boggs’ conclusion? Border Czar Kamala Harris would be so much better, because of the increase nanny state she represents. In a land of bats, among other things, it’s always best to have a system of bureaucracy with which to overtax whenever someone’s hypochondria becomes overwhelming.

    More of Kamala’s defects follow, but those are not the focus of my comment, although the post as a whole is a good primer for why Harris should never, ever be president.

    Taibbi reaches to the heart of the matter:
    https://www.racket.news/p/bat-scares-egghead-couple-trump-blamed?utm_campaign=email-post&r=2m1r2n&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    The conundrum of the column is that the author, who wrote a book called The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood, does not know if she and her husband need rabies shots. She’s sure the bat “hadn’t gotten near our daughters,” but uncertainties reign elsewhere. “How deep a sleeper are you?” the county health nurse asks, reminding Boggs the window to act is short. Author and husband ultimately spend $600 in co-pays to get shots and realize they’ve lived through another experience reminding them of the need to vote blue, at which point the column is written.

    The real-life decision tree is simpler. If you know you’re too much of a compulsive thinker to get through days of wondering if a rabid bat bit you in your sleep, you don’t need the CDC to tell you you need to pay the $600, get the shots, and buy peace of mind. If you’re confident in your senses and sanity and realize a) the bat didn’t bite you and b) see a, go back to sleep. If you need a government expert to walk you through the math of the second decision, you really already made the first decision.
    …
    About that: a billion years ago, when hadrosaurs roamed New Jersey and I was beginning a progressive education, American liberals believed paternalistic government was urgently needed in Harlem, but welcome to turn around when it got to the Hamptons. I somehow didn’t see the contradiction until I worked on The Divide and I Can’t Breathe. Both books featured social services inspectors who counted toothbrushes and sifted in underwear drawers in the homes of welfare moms, sniffing panties in search of illegal cohabitants. This went on at the same time as national campaigns demanding government stay out of our bedrooms (I agreed with those).

    I’d just about reconciled with the fact that I’d been raised to believe basically racist notions about the inability of the Less Fortunate to cope without the charity and direction of the affluent and enlightened when members of my class threw a curveball, coming out themselves as hapless cucks begging for orders from Mistress Government. This psychosexual plot twist roared upon Covid’s arrival and hasn’t abated, leaving a world in which upscale educateds fetishize contempt for uncultured populists through self-mortifying obedience rituals, wearing diapers on their faces and writing proud memoirs about about needing federal help with flying mice.

    However you want to characterize the original American colonists, as heroes or slave-holding land pirates or both, the problem they set out to solve was constructing a government that externally stopped invaders and internally stopped despots. Assuming citizens who both had and wanted self-sufficiency, they built a state that protected us from others, not ourselves. And so, lacking imagination, the founders never addressed the problem of reality flying through the windows of rich neurotics, failing also to guarantee companionship through “every calamity.” Did they get it wrong? Are we really that pathetic now?

  80. AesopFan

    With regard to the bat lady and are we that pathetic: I believe–it’s going on sixty years–that when I was in college, a certain, small, proportion of the campus left cultivated a kind of helplessness. Almost ostentatious. As if there were a certain social credit. available. Perhaps it was to set off the Power of the Establishment over the rest of us.
    Those who took care of business for themselves and others were…sort of…not entirely…maybe excessively blue collar and not intellectual.

  81. @ Richard > that behavior is not something I remember as being a leftist trait, but then I wasn’t tuned in to the fact that there WAS a “political left,” other than the hippies of the day, and didn’t know any of them where I lived anyway, even in college.

    However, the behavior sounds remarkably like the helpless-female-persona that I am familiar with, and was not above using when deemed expedient to Get Things Done Faster, but I didn’t tie it into any power or status symbolization at the time; I believe in retrospect that your observation applies to most (but not all) of the women who run that ploy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

↑