The Goat Pen

eCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:12 pm its time to put up or shut up

If there is fraud or ineligible voting , then show it , document it and get it addressed immediately, otherwise move on.

And in the future, states that were unable to process ballots in a reasonable manner need to figure out how to close this out within 24 hours of the election

Are we convinced yet?

I suspect eCat has seen enough, re: evidence (or rather, lack thereof) concerning election fraud, but why anyone would think that Trump, and therefore many of his more whacko followers, ever would, even in the face of two unanimous SCOTUS rebukes, is a mystery. This guy is not only willing but is using every means in his power to basically say "it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court says, they're wrong, I'm right, I don't have to recognize their authority or submit to their rulings." And a bunch of people in this country are just fine with that. That's really the scariest thing about these past 4 years, not Trump himself, he's nothing but an idiot, a clown, and an ill-tempered, spoiled, not very intelligent child. But the fact that so many Americans have basically said "we don't care about any of that, we will follow you to the end, no matter what you say or do, it doesn't matter, you are our god and leader now." And that's what has happened. Like I said, sad...

Trump Rants About Getting 'Screwed' By Supreme Court In Twitter Meltdown

In “a flash” the suit was “thrown out and gone, without even looking at the many reasons it was brought,” Trump angrily tweeted. “A Rigged Election, fight on!” he added.

He complained bitterly that no court has yet judged his complaints about election fraud on their “merits” — even though there is absolutely no evidence of election fraud. “It’s a “legal disgrace, an embarrassment to the USA!!!” he tweeted.

He grumbled that the Supreme Curt “really let us down,” and has “no wisdom, no courage!”

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trump-tw ... 23388.html

oh I still think there is election fraud. I just think the people pursuing it are incompetent while at the same time the people responsible for investigating it understand the magnitude of even the slightest admission it could have occurred.

I didn't expect SCOTUS to hear any arguments. Had they ruled that states did allow votes counted in violation of their laws, it would have determined the election null, and it could have led to events this country hasn't seen the magnitude of since the civil war - and all this happening during a pandemic. Amy Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh aren't going to give a ruling that sets this country on fire.

As I said before, at a minimum, even if there wasn't election fraud, this idea that key states just stop counting votes when the incumbent president has what would have been considered a heavily favored statistical edge (when they stopped) and then when election vote tallying starts back up after a period of time, he goes on to lose an an improbable rate, should rate serious investigation. To date there has been none, there has only been a validation of the votes that were counted.

The democrats allowed a single whistleblower without directly witnessing the event to lead to the impeachment of a president, but this isn't important enough to have a full scale investigation?

This isn't about whether election fraud occurred, this is about Trump being so despised by the professional political machine on both sides of the aisle coupled with the idea that cities would burn if the results were overturned that no one is touching this. They're counting on the heartland voters just quietly accepting it and going on about their lives.

74 million people voted for the president, some polls say as high as 52 million people believe that voter fraud occurred, and yet they have no interest in trying to address the concerns of 1/6 of the population of this country.

Think about that - 1/6 of the voting population, and really its much more than that because probably 30% doesn't even bother to vote, has no faith in the election process being valid. That can't lead to anything positive in the short term.

another issue which of course is purely conjecture on my part is that there really isn't a stark difference between Trump and Biden.

Yes, Biden had to play the game with his token VP appointment and he is saying all the things that allowed him to be a democrat in a divided base, but he is a 70'ish old white guy who introduced a crime bill, is as corrupt as any one else in Washington, and is a seasoned politician who knows how to play the game. Republicans and Democrats will prosper under him in the old school Washington pig trough approach. All the more radical elements of the democratic party - the young idealist are already taking him to task with his exclusive and minimally divisive staff he is building. A budget hawk to lead finance for example. You can't enact social change at the federal level if your finance advisor is pushing for a balanced budget and controlled spending.

My point is, had Bernie Sanders won the election with the intent of drastically implementing change in this country, I'd be willing to bet that voter fraud would be taken much more seriously.

At the end of the day, Mitch McConnell's life doesn't radically change with a Biden presidency. Hell, it probably improves. That was Trumps undoing more than anything

Guess you got your answer hedge. All I can say is Wow.

"The democrats allowed a single whistleblower without directly witnessing the event to lead to the impeachment of a president"

Yeah, but the whistleblower's allegations against Trump were proven correct (which is why he was impeached, duh), while every single case that Trump's various legal minions have brought before various courts of law, at every level of local, state and federal jurisdiction, have been rejected, often in the most scathing terms and often by judges who were appointed by republican presidents and in some cases by Trump himself. So how can you say that this hasn't been investigated, plead and adjudicated, on multiple fronts and in multiple venues? Decisively, I should add...

because they are simply validating that a ballot was received and counted.

let me ask you - do you think in this election that there was zero voter fraud? none whatsoever?

"Think about that - 1/6 of the voting population, and really its much more than that because probably 30% doesn't even bother to vote, has no faith in the election process being valid. That can't lead to anything positive in the short term."

You're right, the fact that 30% of the population are deplorable idiots is not good. Luckily, they are, as stated and by defintion, idiots who really don't have much power and absolutely zero concept of how to engage in any kind of workable strategy to achieve their goals (or whatever it is that they've been brainwashed into thinking are their goals, which of course will change as soon as it suits the next Trump-like figure who comes along and tell them what their new goals are). So that's encouraging. Trump is the perfect symbol of these types of folks' impotent rage. Emphasis on "impotent." So I guess I agree that the judges (the smart people) know that this 30% you speak of (the dumb people) will just shuffle back to the heartland like the idiot, corn-eating zombies that they are and start watching The Price is Right again. It's nice to know we can count on this type of thing...

well that about sums it up. You are better than them, you have it figured out and therefore government shouldn't represent their concerns. They're really not Americans, they're just corn eating zombies.

"let me ask you - do you think in this election that there was zero voter fraud? none whatsoever?"

Sure, there always has been, and it's been well studied and researched, with the conclusion being that it's such an infinitesimally small number that it's never had any impact on a presidential election. My personal opinion is that whatever deliberate fraud took place, it is far more likely (and I believe actually occurred) in favor of Trump than Biden. I have seen reports of a few cases of people voting for Trump with their dead mother's mail in ballot and stuff along those lines, but stuff like that is so obvious that it gets caught pretty quickly (as it did in these cases). That type of piddly little shit isn't even worth worrying about, but to the extent that it did occur, I think it was more of Trump's idiot base trying to pull it off than anybody for Biden. But of course I have no proof of that, just like there has not been one molecule of proof with regard to deliberate, organized, coordinated and large scale election fraud, all four of which would be necessary simultaneously to make any difference in an election, and would be, IMO, virtually impossible to pull off, much less get away with.

eCat wrote: ↑Sat Dec 12, 2020 9:03 am well that about sums it up. You are better than them, you have it figured out and therefore government shouldn't represent their concerns. They're really not Americans, they're just corn eating zombies.

I was deliberately trying to provoke you, you corn eating zombie...

"with the conclusion being that it's such an infinitesimally small number that it's never had any impact on a presidential election"

and who concludes that? the people that count the votes? In the past vote fraud was discounted as being nominal because the election vote totals went the way they were expected, with normal vote tabulation procedures in place, usually within a 16 hour period give or take.

the media tells the people who won the election before the final votes are counted. America has gone to bed in almost every election knowing who was going to be president, even Bush/Gore

In an election where we radically changed how the votes were received and counted, you have complete belief in a system where they shut the doors for hours with one man leading, a highly unpopular president in the urban areas that were lagging in vote counting and then when they return the opponent takes the lead , not narrowly but convincingly and wins

and you aren't even willing to have an independent examination of the votes because you believe the people that count the votes telling you its all good - because your experience with the political system has been complete transparency and honesty I'm sure.


and you call the 30% idiots while proclaiming full faith and goodwill on the part of politicians.

"the media tells the people who won the election before the final votes are counted. America has gone to bed in almost every election knowing who was going to be president, even Bush/Gore"

That's bullshit. I remember sitting up all night and posting in whatever iteration of the Goat Pen we were using back then. The whole gang was there, even Crow. I remember saying something along the line of "I just jacked off to Tim Russert"...

Gore conceded on the night of the election did he not? He recanted later, but the projections that night had Bush winning.

Did Gore win the election?

Dude, what's your solution? That you personally get to count 150 million votes? At some point you have to trust that the people working at the polls are honestly doing their jobs in good faith. If you can show proof that somebody in that roll is cheating, then present the evidence and let the system fix the problem and punish the perp. But if you simply will never accept that your guy lost, then of course you're going to have to find somebody to blame, some conspiracy, something illegal, whatever. And that's exactly what Trump has done, which is not a surprise, b/c he said he was going to do this months before the elections. So finally one promise he made good on. But seriously, let me ask you this: Do you think that Biden won the election? Yes or no. Or is there no scenario under which you would accept that Trump simply did not have enough people who wanted him to be their president and more people wanted Joe Biden to be president? And if there is, what would that scenario be, i.e., please tell me under what conditions would you willingly accept and admit that Trump lost? What kind of "investigation" would have to take place, conducted by who? Lay it out for me...

If he did concede it was late as hell, like 4 in the morning. I'm just saying most people did not go to bed that night knowing who the winner was. And the only reason they ever do is b/c most elections aren't really that close. They get called early, even though not nearly all the votes have been officially counted. That doesn't mean there's a flaw in the system just b/c a more hotly contested election can't be decisively called in time for you to get your jammies on and tucked in to bed...

here is what those 52 million people are thinking.

in 2016 Hillary rigged the democratic nomination to make sure Bernie Sanders, who clearly drove the enthusiasm for the democratic party, had no chance of winning.

From locking in super delegates who had no allegiance to sanders or the will of the people, to having the head of the DNC on her payroll, she took nothing for chance.

Where she made her mistake was believing that Trump was considered such a buffoon that it would be a cakewalk for her to white house, and she put little effort into winning the election. The polls had her winning at a 90% clip.

Now fast forward to 2020, Biden wins the nomination but there is some galvanization in the party that he has to win over. The polls have him beating Trump by a comfortable margin.

Jump to election night - at whatever time , lets say 1:30am Trump has a projected lead and by standard projections of past elections, should go on to win by - perhaps not by a comfortable margin, but certainly Biden had alot of ground to make up. And it just happens that key locations that would be potential Biden strongholds had not been able to count their votes, while Trump locks like the entire state of Ohio had been able to do so. So at 2AM, the vote tabulation shuts down. People go to bed believing that based on the numbers Trump had an edge and it was unlikely to see a turnaround.

You know the rest.

Now whether there is fraud or not

we just had an election where unlike any we've had in our past with supposedly record turnout, unprecedented numbers of mail in votes, some questioning as to whether votes were received within a deadline and certainly very little transparency.

I honestly suspect the results won't change, but what I would expect is a much more concerted effort to investigate, document and provide transparency for the voting public. I think they are owed that much given the circumstances, and not leave it up to Guliani and his clown show to try to get an investigation started. It should be just standard procedure. The president warned of voter fraud, many people were concerned about it, and regardless of whether their concerns are valid, just saying its all good isn't going to put those concerns to rest.

Its going to be a problem, especially for the GOP - maybe as soon as the Georgia run off if they don't put a concerted effort back into winning the faith of a huge number of voters.

now if we go back to the start of this, and people believe that Hillary was capable of rigging the nomination against the will of the people, then why is it a stretch that an election can be rigged to change the outcome?

no you don't have to recount 152 million votes, what you need to do however is to go into areas where there are statistical anomalies and tear it down to the basics, and keep the public educated on what is happening at each step of the process.

people are very aware its not the voters that determine an election, its the people that count the votes.

and they need to put some effort into restoring the faith of the voters - even if they are Trump sycophants, just due to the sheer number of people who are concerned about it. They may not ever be able to restore the faith of the people, but letting this sit idle is not in the best interest of this nation.

hell, you have Rush Limbaugh touting secession on his show, I guess a man facing mortality can be very cavalier, but Limbaugh is an influential force to many of these guys, especially in flyover states where the local and state government is very representative of his listeners.

"In an election where we radically changed how the votes were received and counted, you have complete belief in a system where they shut the doors for hours with one man leading, a highly unpopular president in the urban areas that were lagging in vote counting and then when they return they opponent takes the lead convincingly and wins"

Yep, b/c the republican legislatures in those states voted months ago to not let the mail-in votes even start being counted until after the polls closed on election night, which is not how it's done in states who have been doing mail-in voting for many years. And yes, I do think that was a deliberate decision by those republican legislatures to sow exactly the kind of doubt that has in fact now sprouted up, exactly according to their plan, in the event that Biden won the election. If the republican legislatures in those states had allowed the mail-in votes to be counted before the polls closed, those results could've been published and known long before midnight on election night and you would've gotten your dream of being able to go to bed knowing that Biden had won, but of course that is not what the republican legislatures in those states wanted, they wanted there to be doubt and griping and grumbling in the event that Biden actually won the election and that's exactly what has happened, just like they planned for, and you've swallowed it hook, line and sinker. You've been manipulated, man...

"Where she made her mistake was believing that Trump was considered such a buffoon that it would be a cakewalk for her to white house, and she put little effort into winning the election."

Oh I agree with you there. She made the fatal mistake that no competent politician can ever afford to make: She underestimated the stupidity and gullibility of the American public. That's a mistake Trump has never made nor ever will. And Hilary paid for that mistake, as have we all...