Harry Marks wrote: Well, okay, but a lot of cherry-picking goes on by the likes of the Fox News commentators, leaving aside Breitbart and the new crop of news sources trying to outflank Fox, such as One America News. We know that Breitbart was spearheaded by Steve Bannon, who has shown his true colors as a scammer. Sure, he believes conservative stuff, but just as a law firm puts their top priority on winning the case, so the AltRight puts their top priority on generating heated feelings from their followers. Did Alex Jones intentionally mislead people? Of course. Of course he did. And still does. All he has to do is put forward the theories that he wishes were true, and, like Trump, filter mildly for surface credibility (and the more riled up they can get people, the less attention needs to be paid to credibility).

In the interest of even-handedness, MSNBC and HuffPost also work more on generating anger than on getting the perspective right, but they have not, so far, gone into the unprofessional business of spreading falsehood, as, say, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson most certainly have. Motivated reasoning crosses the line into motivated belief pretty easily, and the unprofessional press feels no burden to admit the errors they have made in that pursuit, thus freeing them from the constraints that might stop a more mainstream outfit from spreading lies.

Generating heated feelings has only been a top priority for media outlets since it became common knowledge that greater audience engagement is achieved by affecting peoples' emotions. If a media outlet is more likely to survive in a competitive market by conveying its stories in a fantastic way, even to the point of raising a lot of brows, it's only logical that the media outlet will continue to do so.

News agencies of today are well-aware of the skepticism of certain segments of their audiences, so, if they don't win the trust of those segments, it's usually because they don't need it; they have an audience on one end of the spectrum, who trusts them and keeps them in business.

Harry Marks wrote: A lot of similar stuff, e.g. in Pennsylvania some Republicans-only "hearings" at Gettysburg, are ginned up just to rile people up and are untethered to reality, but if you listen through the Michigan hearings you can tell there really were irregularities.

I'm glad the mainstream media don't swallow all the swill put out by, for example, Rudy Giuliani, and instead check out the facts first. But I fear they are being too cautious (or just biased) and refusing to give any publicity to more serious election stories. I would love to have those things exposed as fake, as many accusations have, but it looks to me like they are sitting on real stories for fear of undermining the credibility of Biden's win. Sorry, but that is just the kind of bias and self-censorship that drives people into the arms of the hatemongers.

So when we underline the motivated reasoning that leads people to accept swill (like the story about out-of-state voters who continue to vote), lets not forget the grain of truth in the accusations of bias, which grows into people giving themselves permission to believe that tripe.

It would be helpful to be able to separate "irregularities" from fraud. I haven't listened as you have to any of the proceedings in disputed states, so I can't comment on whether the supposed misvotings are put forward as evidence of illegality or of glitches. We've heard constantly that there has been no evidence of widespread fraud (even from some Republicans). If the lack of reports of evidence could be due to media reluctance to expose then, that would be truly a dagger in the heart of trust in media. But I choose to believe that the lack of reports confirms that no significant cheating occurred. Unless I'm mistaken, even "insignificant" cheating hasn't been proved.

Maybe what you are saying, though, is that problems with voting aren't being given full attention by media, in order not to give the impression that such problems are anything more than the inevitable, normal screw-ups that happen in any big election. Then I would agree that holding back could indicate a thumb on the scale on the media's part.

DWill wrote: It would be helpful to be able to separate "irregularities" from fraud. I haven't listened as you have to any of the proceedings in disputed states, so I can't comment on whether the supposed misvotings are put forward as evidence of illegality or of glitches.

The big issue in Michigan was exclusion of poll watchers. Some of the complaints seemed to be about the 6 foot vs. 10 foot covid restrictions, which I don't consider too serious, but there were sets of stories that sounded more dramatic, like excluding all poll watchers and then bringing in large numbers of mail-in or absentee ballots. The witnesses were not very clear, which could just indicate that they were not coached, but the net result sounded like a combination of people who were suspicious and frustrated that they could not follow their expected process together with people who had witnessed serious violations of the poll-watching process.

DWill wrote:We've heard constantly that there has been no evidence of widespread fraud (even from some Republicans). If the lack of reports of evidence could be due to media reluctance to expose then, that would be truly a dagger in the heart of trust in media.

I suspect the media have reason not to give much credibility to everyone who thinks the process should have been more transparent and sees a nefarious plot behind whatever they are objecting to. And I'm sure it's possible that the confluence of different people experiencing frustrating things could just be a whole lot of that. But what worries me is that the complaints sounded plausible enough and suspicious enough that they get magnified by the right-wing megaphone into a sense on the part of a lot of people that elections in big cities are rigged.

It would be in the interest of the big cities to have their vote counting processes regularized, and in the interest of all of us to have confidence in the system. If grievances are not aired precisely because they might have affected the election outcome, then when will the facts come to light? And when will more transparent methods be put in place? I am still in favor of the suggestion (I think it was a Democrat who suggested it) of having a forensic audit. I'm not quite sure what that means but it sounded like they could thereby access records that are not normally part of a simple recount.

DWill wrote:But I choose to believe that the lack of reports confirms that no significant cheating occurred. Unless I'm mistaken, even "insignificant" cheating hasn't been proved.

I rather suspect that if there were large scale instances of cheating, even the 40,000 insinuated by witnesses in Wayne County, that the President's well-funded investigation process to try to find cheating would have latched onto them and gotten at some facts. One of the problems has been that his team seemed to have a strategy of calling into question unrealistically large quantities of votes by challenging whole processes, such as mail-in voting, rather than digging into specific instances to see whether those needed clearing up. If your goal is to overturn an election lost by such a large margin, that may be the only realistic strategy, but if your goal is to leave rumors and innuendos floating out there to be exploited later, it may have been diabolically clever.

There have been some verified instances of "insignificant" screw-ups that amounted to over 1,000 votes. Not enough to overturn any results anywhere. There are accusations out there that amount to 10's of thousands of votes either cast illegitimately or counted with illegal lack of transparency. I am not so much concerned that these accusations might get the election overturned, and on the Bush 2000 principle it is too late anyway, but I am concerned that the sense of a stolen election is left out there to rot and fester.

DWill wrote:Maybe what you are saying, though, is that problems with voting aren't being given full attention by media, in order not to give the impression that such problems are anything more than the inevitable, normal screw-ups that happen in any big election. Then I would agree that holding back could indicate a thumb on the scale on the media's part.

Yes, that's my concern. I doubt that the mainstream media are deliberately trying to cover up something they should believe in, but I think they may be too hesitant to really go after the truth for fear of pouring gasoline on a slow-burning fire that is already danger enough. There have been plenty of small screw-ups uncovered and reported, some that helped Biden and some that helped Trump. And there are totally outrageous claims of large-scale fraud that have been definitively debunked. But for highly motivated true believers, the lingering suspicions, (fed, no doubt, by racist assumptions about those "big city Democrats",) have far too much ambiguity left unexamined.

The result is quite a bit like the foolishness with Hunter Biden, where it is far too easy to make things look like a grand conspiracy of corruption that are probably just awkward constellations of stupidities. Better to have the truth.

If there was any voter fraud, it would have been found. If Trump's team missed it, they are incompetent and so tough tittie. Judges gave them chances to prove their case and they couldn't do it. They would talk fraud outside the courtroom and then in the courtroom would say it is not a fraud case. Why? Because they had no evidence. Ultimately, there was nothing there. If there was anything, it would have come out early. You have to put your best foot forward right off the bat and if that was all they had, no judge could possibly sanction it or this will go on after every election which imperils the country. It is imperative that such nonsense be summarily dismissed to send the message that doing so will not change the outcome and only exasperates the courts for the time-waster and obfuscator that it is.

With that said, it is over. SCOTUS refused to hear the Pennsylvania case and has rejected the Texas AG case. All that is left now is for the electors to verify their votes on Monday and that's it. Since Safe Harbor day has passed, Trump can't screw around with the electors nor can Congress. Each state's slate of electors cannot be challenged giving each state the right to choose its candidate. SCOTUS was Trump's last hope and they refused to get involved with these shenanigans. Who thought they would? The margins of victory are too wide and there is no evidence of fraud. SCOTUS has no reason to be involved and they let Trump know it. He was so mad, he skipped the White House Christmas party.

But, as his niece says, he will not concede. He will NEVER concede. So what's he do now? Call for the Proud Boys and the white nationalists to take to the streets? Go ahead. I wouldn't be surprised if he left the country before the Inauguration of Biden. I hear talk of a 2024 run but that isn't going to happen. The country is not about to go through all this again. I don't believe the GOP will let him run in four years. By then, he will be an extinct volcano. He already is.

DB Roy wrote: All that is left now is for the electors to verify their votes on Monday and that's it. Since Safe Harbor day has passed, Trump can't screw around with the electors nor can Congress. Each state's slate of electors cannot be challenged giving each state the right to choose its candidate.

Not so fast, here's always another scheme! On January 6, 2021 a joint session of the House and the Senate gather to officially count the votes from the Electors and declare a winner. The more I read about this, the more terrifying it sounds considering GOP actions in the Scotus lawsuit that was rejected yesterday. This likely will become total chaos with no winner declared.

The joint session of Congress is required by law to ratify presidential results, but also allows "members to object to the returns from any individual state as they are announced," according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Procedure calls for Vice President Pence to open each state's "certificate of ascertainment" — documents prepared by the state after it has completed its vote count and ascertained the official results. He will then present the certificate to four "tellers," who announce result tallies. Once a candidate reaches 270 electoral college votes, Pence will declare the winner. Lawmakers may object to the results — even if it's not their home state — leaving the door open for representatives who support Mr. Trump's unproven claims of widespread election fraud to interrupt the typically ceremonial process.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electoral- ... challenge/

Will Trump sycophants merely be injecting chaos into a ceremony, or could these objections actually block the vote ratification?
OMG! Researching it further, this election may never end! Quote below is from page 2 of the CRS document linked above.

If an objection meets these requirements, the joint session recesses and the two houses separate and debate the question in their respective chambers for a maximum of two hours. The two houses then vote separately to accept or reject the objection. They then reassemble in joint session, and announce the results of their respective votes. An objection to a state’s electoral vote must be approved by both houses in order for any contested votes to be excluded.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11641

A 2 hour recess per objection X lord knows how many objections + additional votes + additional joint sessions = terra incognita!
I have not seen much reporting on this and doubt many Americans understand what is coming in January.

LanDroid wrote:

DB Roy wrote: All that is left now is for the electors to verify their votes on Monday and that's it. Since Safe Harbor day has passed, Trump can't screw around with the electors nor can Congress. Each state's slate of electors cannot be challenged giving each state the right to choose its candidate.

Not so fast, here's always another scheme! On January 6, 2021 a joint session of the House and the Senate gather to officially count the votes from the Electors and declare a winner. The more I read about this, the more terrifying it sounds considering GOP actions in the Scotus lawsuit that was rejected yesterday. This likely will become total chaos with no winner declared.

The joint session of Congress is required by law to ratify presidential results, but also allows "members to object to the returns from any individual state as they are announced," according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Procedure calls for Vice President Pence to open each state's "certificate of ascertainment" — documents prepared by the state after it has completed its vote count and ascertained the official results. He will then present the certificate to four "tellers," who announce result tallies. Once a candidate reaches 270 electoral college votes, Pence will declare the winner. Lawmakers may object to the results — even if it's not their home state — leaving the door open for representatives who support Mr. Trump's unproven claims of widespread election fraud to interrupt the typically ceremonial process.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electoral- ... challenge/

Will Trump sycophants merely be injecting chaos into a ceremony, or could these objections actually block the vote ratification?
OMG! Researching it further, this election may never end! Quote below is from page 2 of the CRS document linked above.

If an objection meets these requirements, the joint session recesses and the two houses separate and debate the question in their respective chambers for a maximum of two hours. The two houses then vote separately to accept or reject the objection. They then reassemble in joint session, and announce the results of their respective votes. An objection to a state’s electoral vote must be approved by both houses in order for any contested votes to be excluded.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11641

A 2 hour recess per objection X lord knows how many objections + additional votes + additional joint sessions = terra incognita!
I have not seen much reporting on this and doubt many Americans understand what is coming in January.

First understand that this is not new. In fact, it's a common tactic. It's been done twice before in the last 20 years and was unsuccessful both times. First, there has to be a member from both houses to make an objection. The objection has to be issued in writing along with a reason for it. Mo Brooks of Alabama will issue an objection--we know that much--but so far no senator has announced any plan to stand up with him. Look at it this way: Both Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and this tactic was tried both times and couldn't succeed so how is Trump going to succeed when he lost the popular by a huge margin?

Suppose a senator does stand up with Brooks. Then what? Then congress splits up and each chamber meets to discuss the objection involved separately. They have to come up with reasons that haven't already been shot down by the courts--if they were better reasons than what was presented to the courts then why didn't they present them then instead of getting shot down? I mean the Supreme Court shot it down!! Both chambers have to pass the charges made against that state and how likely is that with a dem-controlled house? Especially in only two hours? The representatives and senators from that state or states named in the charges will be super pissed that their state was accused of allowing widespread fraud in the polls. The accusations would have to be monumentally compelling to force both houses to reject those states' electors. Remember, after Safe Harbor goes into effect, Congress grants the states the right to elect their candidate. So the only reason to rescind that courtesy would have to be something utterly explosive, something that would outrage everybody in Congress to action. Is that going to happen here? NO! Short of that, Congress is REQUIRED to accept Monday's certification. This is a non-issue

Brooks is a nut and that makes any senator think twice before standing up with him. Brooks has said that if no senator stands then he will force the issue by himself--which he can't. He's just a Trump fanatic with nothing to offer but just can't stand the thought of Joe Biden running the country that he will do ANYTHING to try and prevent it and no senator is going to ally himself with someone like that.

I expect this one to succeed as well as the ones in 2001 and 2017 did. It's over.

Damn I wished I'd kept my Biden sign up. I swear none of the Trump signs in my area have come down. Naively I figured, well, end of hostilities, right?

I took Landroid to mean that we could be facing more chaos Jan. 6, not that this Trump gambit could ever work. Jeb Bush was as right as he could be when he said Trump would be the chaos president. Trump's an arsonist, not a strategist. He sets fires and sees whether he can fan the flames--if they go out or he loses interest in stoking them, he turns his torch elsewhere. It's improvisational. And the attention's the thing, of course--don't you dare take the camera off me! Trump will take this Pied Piper thing right up to Jan. 20, when he decamps before the inauguration to hold a rally in the heartland. By then, a large minority will believe that he's the president still, entitled to set up an administration in exile. Pardon the mixed metaphors, but I find it amazing how he's making sedition seem patriotic!

Well I fervently hope you are correct, DB Roy, but I don’t think you are considering recent actions by the Trump cult in the Texas lawsuit just dismissed by Scotus. ONE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX GOP Representatives signed onto that kooky thing including the minority leader. Even after that humiliation very one of them will be absolutely thrilled to challenge state votes for Biden on January 6. On the Senate side, so will McConnell and anyone else he and Trump bully into complying.

Day 1 Jan. 6, 2021 The votes for Georgia are challenged by a representative and a senator. The joint session is adjourned for two hours where, as shown by that Texas lawsuit, coherent arguments in the House and Senate are not required, just rabble rousing. When the joint session is reconvened, the House votes down the objections while the Senate approves the objections. Georgia’s votes are counted, but 4 hours total have passed.

Next Michigan’s votes are challenged, same scenario as above. Michigan’s votes are approved. The joint session closes at 7 pm.

Day 2 Jan. 7 Overnight the right wing media goes insane, calling for challenges to every state that Biden won.
Pennsylvania’s votes are challenged but ultimately accepted. 5 hours wasted.
Wisconsin’s votes are challenged. Same thing. The joint session closes at 11 pm with 46 states to go.

Day 3 Jan. 8 Armed gangs start marching around Washington DC. Perhaps California’s votes are challenged along with all other states that Biden won. Who knows how many days they can can drag this out, but ultimately Biden "wins." (air quotes)

Perhaps all the above is my paranoia and hysteria, but I expect it’s closer reality than DB Roy’s summary dismissal. Chaos will rule, who knows how it will end, but Democracy will be weakened.

Heh, I'm gonna put my Biden sign back up on December 14 and January 6!

DWill wrote:
I took Landroid to mean that we could be facing more chaos Jan. 6, not that this Trump gambit could ever work. Jeb Bush was as right as he could be when he said Trump would be the chaos president. Trump's an arsonist, not a strategist. He sets fires and sees whether he can fan the flames--if they go out or he loses interest in stoking them, he turns his torch elsewhere. It's improvisational. And the attention's the thing, of course--don't you dare take the camera off me! Trump will take this Pied Piper thing right up to Jan. 20, when he decamps before the inauguration to hold a rally in the heartland. By then, a large minority will believe that he's the president still, entitled to set up an administration in exile. Pardon the mixed metaphors, but I find it amazing how he's making sedition seem patriotic!

So what are they going to do? Riot on the floor of Congress? GO AHEAD!!!! I'd LOVE to see it!! All that is going to accomplish is scaring the hell out of the mainstream. Weaken the country. Draw denunciations worldwide. Wreck the economy. Every congressmen who participates in this attempted coup will be remembered by posterity as someone who tried to overthrow a duly elected president, someone who willfully tried to destroy our democracy. They'll wear that for the rest of their days. None of them will ever again be able to run for office, certainly not for president. Their opponents will always drag up the time they tried to stomp down the will of the people and set up what would be a dictatorship with Trump as dictator--the worst president that ever occupied the office. They'll be the butt of every joke in Washington. Are they stupid enough to try it? YEAH!! Will they succeed? NO!!! Unless their goal was to destroy their careers and party--they will succeed at that. By all means, stage a coup, riot on the floor---PLEASE!!!

And really, that is probably what it will take to wake America up from this weird slumber it's in.

LanDroid wrote:
Perhaps all the above is my paranoia and hysteria,

Ya think?

but I expect it’s closer reality than DB Roy’s summary dismissal. Chaos will rule, who knows how it will end, but Democracy will be weakened.

It's already weakened. You can stop worrying about that if you weren't worried four years ago.

I don't fear a coup simply because the leaders of it are SO inept that they will botch it. Guaranteed. They'll botch it. They'll shoot themselves in the foot. Trump will flee the country when it the whole thing goes south and leave them to face trial and prison. But I don't think it will go that far. I think if and when Trump calls for them to riot and commit chaos, they will chicken out.