No power outages yet here, although very late last night the lights flickered a few times. The truer test will come tonight, with the big freeze after the rain.
More on Kari Lake’s election challenge trial
There’s another fairly comprehensive summary of the proceedings at Powerline.
To me, it seems pretty obvious that this lawsuit by Lake inevitably suffers from the built-in handicap of all such suits, which is that proof is well-nigh impossible. The type of election fraud lawsuit that tends to succeed is one in which the alleged fraud is on the micro level: for example, such-and-such person submitted three ballots instead of one.
But that’s not of great import in the scheme of things in terms of election outcome, although it needs to be prosecuted in order to serve as discouragement to and punishment for the behavior. In contrast, although the sort of large-scale fraudulent behavior that Lake is alleging seems very plausible, and her lawyers have amassed a lot of evidence that it probably occurred, they cannot prove it for the very same reasons that it’s possible and perhaps even likely that it happened in the first place: for example, chain of custody problems plus a ridiculously unwieldy and complex set of procedures that seem far more bizarre than in most states. The secret ballot adds to all of this difficulty in proving anything, because the number of votes lost for candidate A versus candidate B cannot be reconstructed after the fact.
The election process needs to be made more secure and more simple. Until and unless this is done, these problems will recur. With voting, an ounce of prevention is worth ten thousand tons of cure, because there is no effective cure possible in court after the fact – unless this court really really surprises me. Courts don’t want to undermine faith in the process by invalidating it, but faith in the process is already undermined by learning about the vulnerabilities inherent in the process itself.
Open thread 12/23/22
Seems like a different world, doesn’t it?
The omnibus bill and Republican betrayals
Yes, they passed it, and just about everyone on the right is angry and shrieking “Betrayal!”:
Despite the outcry, though, Republicans in the US Senate soldiered forward to stab their voters in the back, and now, we have their names.
The writer then links a tweet by Greg Price, giving the names of the eighteen GOP senators who voted for the bill. Some are the usual: Romney, Collins, Murkowski. Some are not, such as Cotton.
Am I angry? Yes, but not in exactly the same way as a lot of the people on the right who are outraged at it. I’m angry first of all that the GOP didn’t win the Senate in 2022 so that we would have gotten a chance to see what they would have done had they taken power. That would have been a much better test of their mettle at this point than this monstrous bill – which, by the way, I also wanted them to fight against much more strongly.
But I believe I somewhat understand the reason for their acquiescence. I don’t agree with it and I don’t like it. But it’s not preposterous and it really is possible they avoided something even worse, which is the argument they give for having done what they did.
What am I talking about? This (from streiff at RedState, who is not a McConnell fan):
My point being that McConnell is duplicitous and can’t be trusted, but he does enough bad crap that it isn’t necessary to invent stuff to blame him for.
Yesterday, the Senate passed a massive, bloated spending bill. They did so when they could’ve killed the bill, passed a continuing resolution, and let a GOP House craft an alternative spending bill next year. McConnell spoke in support of passing the bill from the Senate well.
Streiff then links to the full text of McConnell’s remarks. I’d like you to actually read them and think about what is being said. Do I agree with it? As I said, not really. Do I think it’s an absurdity? No, I don’t. Because the reality is that when the next Senate is seated, the GOP will be in an even worse bargaining position in the Senate and the situation might have become even worse. Despite the fact that the GOP would also then be controlling the House, any decent House budget bill could not have gotten past the Senate.
Here’s another McConnell statement on the same subject:
Month after month, year after year, competitors such as China are methodically pouring money and planning into upgrading and modernizing their own militaries. They are constantly probing new ways to expand their military, intelligence, economic, and political reach — indirectly or directly threatening American forces and our allies’ and partners’ forces.
“Under these perilous circumstances, cutting defense spending in real dollars, as Democrats first wanted to do, is not an option.
“And embarking on a potentially endless cycle of continuing resolutions that give our military real-dollar funding cuts because of inflation, and give Defense Department leaders no certainty to plan and invest — that is not an acceptable option either.
If you don’t control the Senate or the presidency, and only control the House by a few votes – and this will be the reality in January of 2023 – how do you get what you want? A person might respond to that question by saying that some how the Democrats would figure out a way to do it. But you know what? Even the Democrats weren’t always able to do it in this past session of Congress although they controlled both houses as well as the presidency. Remember the votes on ending the filibuster and on HR1, their pet project? They couldn’t accomplish either.
I want to add one more thing. A lot of people are very angry because they believe that McConnell stated the following absurdity:
McConnell: "Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That's how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment." pic.twitter.com/NPmzWRzoz1
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 20, 2022
If I had a dime for every pundit on the right who quoted that, enraged, I’d have a fair amount of money. In my post yesterday on the budget vote, I didn’t get into that issue, but I did include a quote from a Mollie Hemingway article that mentioned it in passing. Here’s what she wrote about that particular remark:
Many Republican voters support helping Ukraine fight Russia’s unjust invasion, but it is absolutely nowhere near their top issue, contrary to McConnell’s false claim…
But it turns out that the McConnell quote is a truncated one. I’m not sure who it was who originally put forth the truncated version – it might have been the tweeter Greg Price, or it might have been someone else or several other people – but it’s misleading.
So let’s set the record straight. You’re still free to detest McConnell and/or to think the budget bill is absolutely horrific and he should have waited, but he didn’t say that arming Ukraine was the most important issue to Republicans. Someone truncated the quote in order to drive Republicans even further apart than they already are, and I’ve seen this many times before and it’s usually successful.
Here’s the fuller quote:
This omnibus bill — it’ll be on the floor — provides a real dollar increase for the Defense baseline and a real dollar cut for the non-Defense baseline — if you exclude veterans. That is absolutely critical and breaking the pattern we’ve had in the past when we’ve ended up in one of these situations where every time Republicans tried to get an increase in defense, we would in effect have to pay a ransom to the Democrats on the domestic side, wholly aside from the needs of the country. So let’s step back and say, “What are the real needs of the country right now?” In the defense part of our expenditures, making sure the Defense Department can deal with the major threats coming from Russia and China — providing assistance for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians. That’s the number one priority for the United States right now — according to most Republicans. That’s sort of how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment. So admittedly, I’m pretty proud of the fact that with a Democratic president, a Democratic House, and Democratic Senate, we were able to achieve through this omnibus spending bill, essentially all of our priorities.
To paraphase: he’s saying that the GOP got what it basically wanted for defense and at least didn’t get an increase for non-defense items (and even got a “real dollar cut” for non-defense items). Then he goes on to refer only to the defense side of the bill, and says we need to make sure the Defense Department can deal with “major threats” from Russia and China; that’s obviously not about Ukraine, because China is not involved there and he also has talked about China being a big defense issue in a related statement I’ve already quoted in this post. And then he adds “providing assistance for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians.” When he then says “that’s the number one priority for the United States right now,” it should be clear that he means number one defense priority, and he’s speaking primarily of threats from both Russia and China to the US and then adding on the Ukraine part as a threat from Russia under the “defense against Russia” category.
So what’s up with the truncated quote? Why make things even more bitter on the right than they already are, by not at least giving the context? I can almost guarantee most people so very angry about what he said will never learn what he actually said.
There are many reasons to be angry with McConnell, but let’s stick to what he actually does and what he actually says.
The tide turns against Sam Bankman-Fried
Two of his associates have pled guilty and probably will get a break in their sentences in exchange for cooperative testimony:
“I’m announcing that the Southern District of New York has filed charges against Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX, in connection with their roles in the frauds that contributed to FTX’s collapse,” the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said on Wednesday night. “Both Miss Ellison and Mr. Wang have pled guilty to those charges, and they are both cooperating with the Southern District of New York.”
“Let me reiterate a call that I made last week, if you participated in misconduct at FTX or Alameda, now is the time to get ahead of it,” he continued. “We are moving quickly, and our patience is not eternal.”
The prosecution seems to be holding a good hand right now.
Bankman-Fried is in custody in the US but is about to be released on $250 million bond. No, that’s not a typo. It’s also “the largest-ever pretrial bond,” and I can well believe it. Other terms of the agreement include wearing an ankle bracelet, going for counseling (for what, I have no idea), and staying in the northern district of California.
How was the money secured? In this way:
A recognizance bond is a written commitment from the accused to appear in court when ordered. In return, Bankman-Fried’s camp would not be required to meet the full collateral requirements on the bail.
The bond was secured by equity in his family home, and by the signatures of his parents and two other individuals with “considerable” assets…
Judge Gabriel Gorenstein said that Bankman-Fried would require “strict” supervision following his release to his parents’ home in California.
His parents, both Stanford Law professors, were present in the courtroom.
Bankman-Fried is thirty years old, but he joins a substantial number of people of that age living with parents. My guess is that his digs will be cushier than the usual, at least for a while. But I would love to be a fly on the wall for some of those heart-to-heart talks he will almost certainly be having with his parents.
Previous bonds under similar circumstances don’t begin to compare, even adjusted for inflation:
Bernie Madoff posted a $10 million bond while awaiting trial on his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Jeff Skilling, former Enron CEO, posted a $5 million bond, while Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos founder, posted a scant $500,000.
Kari Lake’s election challenge trial so far
There is no question there were major irregularities in the 2022 election in Arizona, and many of them are being revealed in the ongoing trial. But it’s always an enormously uphill battle to prove there was intentional fraud that mattered in terms of the outcome.
I haven’t watched any of the trial myself, and from the accounts I’ve read I’m a bit confused as to what actually must be proved in this case in order to win, and what the court would be willing to apply as a remedy if that burden were met. Maybe it’s because it’s not been made clear?
At any rate, here are some links to articles on the proceedings: this, this, and this.
There certainly have been witnesses alleging to the strange goings-on, which were egregious. Some of them have said that these things could not have occurred unintentionally and must instead have been intentional, but I don’t know whether the judge will buy it. Then of course there’s the aforementioned question of how far the plaintiff (Lake) has to go to prove she would have won the election otherwise.
My gut feeling is that despite the strong evidence of chicanery and even more powerful evidence of egregious negligence in the way this election was run – almost certainly contributing to and perhaps determining Lake’s loss – the court will be reluctant to do anything about it except some sort of mild admonition to Maricopa County to clean up its act.
In general, courts do not want to decide elections and there is an enormous presumption in favor of letting things stand no matter what. As I’ve said before, the only way to deal with these things is to prevent them from happening.
Of course, if Lake wins her case and a new election is called, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Storm on the horizon
I don’t mean a metaphorical one; I mean an actual one.
It’s not predicted to be so cold here in New England. In fact, we’re supposed to get a warmish spell with rain and even thunderstorms. Strange. Then on the weekend it’s supposed to turn cold, but not unseasonably cold. Just in the 20s.
However, yesterday I got a sudden flurry (pun intended) of texts from my power company. Six in rapid succession, all warning me that there might be a power outage Thursday night or Friday because of the storm. A sort of preemptive lowering of expectations, I guess, so that we’ll be happy if we don’t lose our power rather than upset if we do.
I’m hoping we don’t lose it, of course. And I hope all of you don’t have a lot of weather problems, although I know they’re reported to be widespread.
The FBI explains that it was just protecting us, as usual
The FBI says that the Twitter files simply reveal business as usual, no big deal:
The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our tradition, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries.
As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers.
The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public.
It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.
That sort of “protection” we don’t need – because one little teeny weeny detail that the FBI is leaving out there is that the FBI is “protecting” us from the truth in order to elect the candidate it favors. The FBI was lying to those private sector companies in order to get them to censor a truth that would have hurt Joe Biden’s chances of getting elected. The FBI also lied to the FISA court in order to get the previous president out of office.
The FBI is a political actor spreading lies (Russiagate) and suppressing truth (Hunter’s laptop).
The FBI also seems to specialize in pissing on our boots and telling us it’s raining – or in this case, in pissing on our boots and telling us that our notion that our boots are wet at all is just a conspiracy theory.
Open thread 12/22/22
It’s winter solstice time
From now on and until the summer solstice, the days will keep getting longer.
It’s no accident that both Christmas and Chanukah heavily feature themes of light, coming as they do at this time of year.
Happy solstice!
On doubting everything
This is a recent bald-faced lie told by the Biden administration:
The Biden administration vastly overstated its estimate that employers created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter of this year, claiming historic job growth when in fact hiring had stalled, according to a new estimate.
Job growth was “essentially flat” in the second quarter with only 10,500 jobs added, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.
That’s Soviet-style stuff: “The Five-Year Plan? It’s all lies, lies, lies!” [see *NOTE below]
There’s are twin dangers here. The first is an obvious one, which is to believe everything this administration (or any administration) says. The second is less obvious, but I’d say it’s to go beyond the border – a place where nothing is true, where you are free to make up your own truth. Or, it’s where all truths are equal and you get to choose your own.
I think that’s one of the worst things about the last decade or so. There have been so many lies that truth has become more difficult to find and more difficult to believe in. And of course, the country is roughly divided down the middle with two halves that believe in two completely different truths.
Which is not to say that truth is relative. I don’t believe that truth is relative. But truth becomes more difficult to discover and to trust. I often find myself trying to sort this out, even (or perhaps especially) with things that have to do with science and statistics – areas in which truth should (at least theoretically) be easiest to determine, not more difficult. But politics has infected everything – although perhaps ’twas ever thus.
When I use the term “the border,” I’m referring to this quote from Milan Kundera’s great work The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
It takes so little, so infinitely little, for someone to find himself on the other side of the border, where everything – love, convictions, faith, history – no longer has meaning. The whole mystery of human life resides on the fact that it is spent in the immediate proximity of, and even in direct contact with, that border, that it is separated from it not by kilometers but by barely a millimeter.
And here’s another way to look at it:
[*NOTE: That quote about the Five Year Plans being lies was from a 1931 article by Welsh reporter Gareth Jones, the first Western journalist to write truthfully about the Holodomor. Needless to say, he didn’t write for the NY Times. On Jones:
After being banned from re-entering the Soviet Union, Jones was kidnapped and murdered in 1935 while investigating in Japanese-occupied Mongolia; his murder was likely committed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD…
Born in Barry, Glamorgan, Jones attended Barry County School, where his father, Major Edgar Jones, was headmaster until around 1933. His mother, Annie Gwen Jones, had worked in Ukraine as a tutor to the children of Arthur Hughes, son of Welsh steel industrialist John Hughes, who founded the town of Hughesovka, modern-day Donetsk, in Ukraine.
Interesting fact about the founding of Donetsk.
Jones’ reporting was “debunked” by the NY Times:
[Jones’] report was denounced by several Moscow-resident American journalists such as Walter Duranty and Eugene Lyons, who had been obscuring the truth in order to please the dictatorial Soviet regime. On 31 March, The New York Times published a denial of Jones’s statement by Duranty under the headline “Russians Hungry, But Not Starving”. Duranty called Jones’ report “a big scare story”. Historian Timothy Snyder has written that “Duranty’s claim that there was ‘no actual starvation’ but only ‘widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition’ echoed Soviet usages and pushed euphemism into mendacity. This was an Orwellian distinction; and indeed George Orwell himself regarded the Ukrainian famine of 1933 as a central example of a black truth that artists of language had covered with bright colors.”
In the article, Kremlin sources denied the existence of a famine; part of The New York Times’ headline was: “Russian and Foreign Observers in Country See No Ground for Predications of Disaster.”
On 11 April 1933, Jones published a detailed analysis of the famine in the Financial News, pointing out its main causes: forced collectivization of private farms, removal of 6–7 millions of “best workers” (the Kulaks) from their land, forced requisitions of grain and farm animals and increased “export of foodstuffs” from USSR.
What are the causes of the famine? The main reason for the catastrophe in Russian agriculture is the Soviet policy of collectivisation. The prophecy of Paul Scheffer in 1929–30 that collectivisation of agriculture would be the nemesis of Communism has come absolutely true.
—Gareth Jones, Balance Sheet of the Five Year Plan, Financial News, 11 April 1933
On 13 May The New York Times published a strong rebuttal of Duranty from Jones, who stood by his report…
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Dueling truths – but only one of them was true. History – and time – has vindicated Jones’ truth against Duranty’s lies.]
Twitter files #8
Here’s the latest Twitter files drop.
I’ll let Ace tackle this one:
This is the least interesting tranche to me or any other conservative. It seems to be published chiefly to interest lefties…
The new disclosures detail Twitter’s active participation in CENTCOM/Pentagon propaganda efforts against Iran, China, Russia, and other miscreants.
While I don’t object to propagandizing against foreign nations, it must be remembered that this propaganda is read by US citizens, too, so we are among the first to be infected by US-government-created disinformation…
I speak specifically about lies the US government is spreading via covert accounts maintained by US government employees claiming that US drone strikes are perfect and kill only terrorists, and not children and civilians like you might hear from other sources.
I always assumed that no one really believes that sort of news anymore, particularly since that horrible drone strike around the time of Biden’s ignominious exit from Afghanistan. You may remember it; the one that killed 10 civilians, 7 of them children. You can refresh your memory here.