Election 2020

[IdleRich]

The latest hilarious news from Sidney Powell... when it was announced that both Dominion and Smartmartic are gonna sue her so hard that you almost (but not really at all) feel sorry for her, Trumpletons were all over twitter saying stuff like "Yes, they've fucked up now, cos the discovery in court is gonna reveal all their wrongdoing - the awesome Sidney is going to relish that battle".
Which is amazing on so many levels, revealing so much ignorance.
For starters, loads of STILL totally believe that the machines did just flip votes to Biden AND they believe that there is loads of evidence of this, and that the only reason that Team Trump lost the 62 court cases was due to minor legal technicalities.
This is a bit of right-wing propaganda that has been very successful (albeit only on idiots whose opinion doesn't matter in any way and who can't change anything), there is a straight-forward lie going around that ALL of the court cases were dismissed on technicalities (just things like lack of standing which isn't some minor technicality*) and that Powell and Rudy never got the chance to provide any of their mountains of evidence in court - when in actuality there were loads of cases in which they were able to present their evidence and it was all shown to be lies, hearsay, insanity or just irrelevant or whatever.
Also they believe that when Dominion sue Sidney Powell it will somehow swing round to her cross-examining them and revealing all their lies and probably at the end of the case the judge will say "The wool has been pulled from my eyes, spread the news that Trump is now president and we Biden must immediately be seized in the White House and taken to another place where he will be hanged from the neck until he is dead - and may God have mercy on his soul".
Anyway, this has been a constant theme on Twiter ever since the announcement with people proclaiming it with total confidence, which, as we see every day, is not shaken in any way by being proven utterly wrong in almost every single aspect all of the time. Only thing is, apparently someone forgot to tell Powell cos it seems she has been desperately on the lam for the last month or whatever, her legal strategy to fight the case turns out to have been based on her running away as fast as she can so that they can't serve the subpoena on her. This woman is fucking amazing.



*One time I saw someone claiming that lack of evidence proving their claims was a technicality. Just brilliant - albeit accidental - comedy genius.

 

[IdleRich]

Actually, joking aside though, I really hate this woman. I hate the way that she stood up and so confidently lied to the people who she was supposed to be helping. It's like I was saying about Trump's lawyers in the impeachment thing, don't they have the same feelings of shame and common decency and so on that a normal person has? Of course we know that they are bad people and I expected them to have a higher threshold before they feel guilty = but it's worse than that, they don't feel guilt or shame for wrong-doing at all, their actions are just completely inhuman.
What I mean is, I assume that Powell is pro-Trump, I assume that she wanted him to win, and that she sees Trump voters as her allies - and yet she was completely without any guilt in lying and lying and lying to them, giving them false hope and stealing their money. The whole kraken kerfuffle thing had less than no effect on the election, it was obviously laughable to sensible people - but the only thing it did manage was to destroy some stupid people's faith in the system, and cruelly give hope to people on her side. When you see people like the ones above who think that her being sued will overturn the election, or the arguments being made by mixedbiscuits and HMGT and you realise that these people don't really have the critical faculties that normal people have and so when she came along they believe in it and she strung them along for ages and ages. It's so so cruel, I really hope she gets her arse fucking kicked, cos there was something so annoying about the way she could so shamelessly lie to the people who really believed in her, the weak and the foolish, who a lot of the time are not necessarily bad people, but were just victims of life and now she made them victims again, despite the fact that she was supposed to be helping them.

 

[Leo]

every once in awhile I wonder whether some of these people are knowingly lying, as you say, or if they are so deluded that they actually believe the conspiracy theories and honestly think Trump did win. are they true believers, or just sleazy balls willing to lie in order to extend their 15 minutes of fame? and at a certain point, someone like Powell has lied so much and is in so deep that she might feel she has no way out. the only way to turn back now would be to admit the big lie, and they can't bring themselves to do it and dig their graves deeper.

I always contended that trump (and many of those around him) knew full well there was no fraud and he lost fair and square, but the loser tag was too much for him to accept, so he'd lie and go along with any theory. but maybe it comes to the point where you start to get so swept up in the hysteria and conspiracies that you lose "the critical faculties that normal people have", as you say.

 

[luka]

every once in awhile I wonder whether some of these people are knowingly lying, as you say, or if they are so deluded that they actually believe the conspiracy theories and honestly think Trump did win. are they true believers, or just sleazy balls willing to lie in order to extend their 15 minutes of fame? and at a certain point, someone like Powell has lied so much and is in so deep that she might feel she has no way out. the only way to turn back now would be to admit the big lie, and they can't bring themselves to do it and dig their graves deeper.

I always contended that trump (and many of those around him) knew full well there was no fraud and he lost fair and square, but the loser tag was too much for him to accept, so he'd lie and go along with any theory. but maybe it comes to the point where you start to get so swept up in the hysteria and conspiracies that you lose "the critical faculties that normal people have", as you say.

possible explanation

method acting/role play supercedes irony as cultural strategy

This is the wave of the present and has been for years now

www.dissensus.com

 

[IdleRich]

I think it's quite complicated as to what these people believe and don't believe. I mean for sure, it's very hard to imagine that Trump and his team believed the little and specific lies that they invented themselves. For example, when they were pissed off that Fox had called Arizona for the Dems and they obviously put their head together and went "what shall we do now? I know" and then suddenly they all went "Yey, we've won Pennsylvania! Come one everyone celebrate, we've done really won it honest" which for me was the one of the funniest moments of the whole thing somehow. So even they can't have ever believed that to be true...
But I do think Trump probably, as a combination of the fact that he just doesn't accept losing along with all the people around him going "There must have been fraud" and others saying "Biden didn't do any rallies so he can't have won can he?" and so on sort of came to believe that he deserved to be president again somehow. I can believe that Trump was saying to himself "Well obviously I must have won, that's axiomatic, was the steal due to foreign interference or Dominion machines or a miscount or cos postal votes are fraudulent? Honestly I don't really know, but I won so it must have been one of them" and because he must have won and there was some cheating, he was happy to fight fire with fire and cheat like fuck, knowing that it was just putting the world right really.
That's just my amateur psychology of Trump. Of course, it would be amazing if he was sectioned, or otherwise put in some kind of institution (possibly for the criminally insane) where he could be forcibly analysed against his will and doctors could have free reign to try and find out what it is that he truly believes and, more importantly, what has made him like he is. I mean electro-shock therapy, that thing they do in horror films when they lower their chair down into icy water, maybe drill holes in his head, whatever it takes really.
Then perhaps put him on a kind of MK Ultra type scheme - I honestly think it's probably vital for the development of the US Army to find out what exactly would happen if a 74 year old, morbidly obese former president was forcibly given a massive dose of LSD every day for a year and told he had to go in fight in Afghanistan to make up for all the times he pretended he had bone spurs. In fact, why tell him that? Why not just make him do it? Anyway, sadly that's unlikely to happen, so that's science's loss.

 

[IdleRich]

But back to Sidney Powell, to me it's like one of those films when the good guys have to fight some kind of unspeakable evil like Sauron or something. Yeah, he's on the same as the orcs or whatever, and they have the same goals, but he would happily sacrifice any number to help him get closer to the ring. In fact he would kill them on a whim if it didn't diminish his armies too much. You don't see it so much in real life, but that's how it is here; she truly is on the same side as your rank and file Trumper in that they both want to ensure that the presidency stays Republ9ican, but at the same time, she has absolutely no qualms about lying to them, pretending she has overwhelming evidence which gets up their hopes, extorting money from them that they can't afford, demanding they go on marches and risk their freedom and so on with no possible gain. Steps that all together can completely ruin their lives. It's shocking really.

 

[Leo]

and then you get people like this...

A Republican donor who handed over $2.5 million to a conservative nonprofit to investigate claims of election fraud has come to realize those claims were baseless—and now he wants his money back. The Washington Post reports that donor Fred Eshelman is trying to get a full refund from True the Vote, a Texas-based group that promised to expose voter fraud. Its string of election lawsuits failed to produce results, and, according to the Post, True the Vote ultimately abandoned its efforts to prove fraud. Eshelman then asked for his money back—but the organization offered to return just $1 million, so Eshelman launched two lawsuits. One of them is ongoing in a Texas state court, and it alleges that True the Vote didn’t use his $2 million gift and a subsequent $500,000 donation as it had promised. True the Vote’s lawyer said no conditions were attached to the donations and Eshelman can’t get a refund because he doesn’t like the results of the investigation. Eshelman said he still believes there was “some misbehavior” in the election, but that he’s not sure it changed the result.

 

[Mr. Tea]

There mere grammar of "True the Vote" makes me want kill.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah this is funny as well. Is this the same guy that was reported like a month back? I've seen this in the news a lot last couple of days, but I dunno if it's the same story - seems to be around about the same sum of money at least - either way, yeah it's very funny. On the one hand, he has a point I guess, there was never any real strategy for overturning the results and loads of the money just went to the Trump campaign.
On the other hand, you're dealing with Donald Fucking Trump, what the hell do you expect? And also, there was some small print and stuff explaining that wasn't there?
It's especially funny cos there is an interview with this guy explaining how he's such a great judge of character and how when you invest in something, you don't invest in the stock or the company, you invest in the people. Fucking twat.
It seems that Trump's strategy in court was just to keep litigating and keep litigating cos that's what he does against guys complaining about his real estate shenanigans - I really feel that he has no flexibility to adapt, that cos that worked there it would work here. I honestly think he just thought that if he brings case after case that he'll grind them down, but it doesn't work like that when it's an election. The number of cases was just incredible, each time one was slapped down it would rise back as a zombie appeal and march moronically on to the enemy guns. I truly believe that when he's litigating he doesn't give much thought to whether or not the case has merits, he believes that if you throw enough money at it you will just win in the end. He really thought just saying "fraud" and litigating it again and again would magic it into existence. Thank fuck for Marc Elias and his team, the guy is a fucking genius and he's still fighting new attempts to restrict future voting rights in courts all round the country, pretty much every day now, and he always wins.

 

[Leo]

the trump campaign has their own fundraising scheme that does say in fine print that the money may be used for other expenses. in this case, it seems like this rich guy donated directly to a separate Texas-based group that promised to do their own investigation of the fraud. this is another hallmark of the trump years/swamp: scammers always circling the campaign, seeing what they can jump on and exploit for a quick buck (ie, Bannon with his misappropriation of build the wall donations, Huckibee with that stupid book you posted, etc.)

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think the relative ineffectiveness of the Trump administration to achieve many of its stated goals is due in large part to the fact that nearly all - maybe literally all? - the main figures in it have been grifters, spivs and conmen and -women. For me the most symbolic example was Steve Bannon, supposedly the guru-like ideological architect of much of Trumpism, simply pocketing much of the money that was donated by MAGAnauts to build the wall along the Mexican border. Does that mean Bannon isn't ideologically committed to nationalism, isolationism, anti-Islamism, supporting Putin and so on? Not necessarily - but it does make you question whether those things are as important to him as making a quick (million) buck(s) while, presumably, sneering at the red-hatted simpletons who sent him their hard-earned cash.

Edit: I see Leo got there with the Bannon/wall thing while I was typing. But yeah, it's just unbelievable that so many people, even now, apparently still believe that Trump was the cure for corruption in US politics. Or maybe they don't really still believe it, but are unable to admit to themselves or anyone else that they've been had for fools all along? I think that's a key reason for the continued popularity of Brexit among people who can't give a single example of how's it made their life better, and may even admit that it's been harmful to the economy and made us look like fucking imbeciles around the world, but who hang on to their precious 'sovereignty', whatever that means, as somehow being worth it all.

 

[Leo]

the relative ineffectiveness of the Trump administration to achieve many of its stated goals

there were some considerable accomplishments, such as placing conservative judges in the courts, tax cuts, deregulation, etc., but those were all done by lifetime republicans like McConnell who used the trump presidency to do things. but you're right about the grifters who didn't really achieve much, though.

 

[Leo]

Yeah this is funny as well. Is this the same guy that was reported like a month back? I've seen this in the news a lot last couple of days, but I dunno if it's the same story - seems to be around about the same sum of money at least - either way, yeah it's very funny. On the one hand, he has a point I guess, there was never any real strategy for overturning the results and loads of the money just went to the Trump campaign.
On the other hand, you're dealing with Donald Fucking Trump, what the hell do you expect? And also, there was some small print and stuff explaining that wasn't there?
It's especially funny cos there is an interview with this guy explaining how he's such a great judge of character and how when you invest in something, you don't invest in the stock or the company, you invest in the people. Fucking twat.
It seems that Trump's strategy in court was just to keep litigating and keep litigating cos that's what he does against guys complaining about his real estate shenanigans - I really feel that he has no flexibility to adapt, that cos that worked there it would work here. I honestly think he just thought that if he brings case after case that he'll grind them down, but it doesn't work like that when it's an election. The number of cases was just incredible, each time one was slapped down it would rise back as a zombie appeal and march moronically on to the enemy guns. I truly believe that when he's litigating he doesn't give much thought to whether or not the case has merits, he believes that if you throw enough money at it you will just win in the end. He really thought just saying "fraud" and litigating it again and again would magic it into existence. Thank fuck for Marc Elias and his team, the guy is a fucking genius and he's still fighting new attempts to restrict future voting rights in courts all round the country, pretty much every day now, and he always wins.

If only there were a company he could give money to investigate the fraud of the company he gave money to investigate the election fraud.

 

[Mr. Tea]

there were some considerable accomplishments, such as placing conservative judges in the courts, tax cuts, deregulation, etc., but those were all done by lifetime republicans like McConnell who used the trump presidency to do things. but you're right about the grifters who didn't really achieve much, though.

OK, sure, you can draw a distinction between the card-carrying Trumpists and the shameless opportunists. What an absolute turd McConnell is - publicly blaming Trump to try and salvage some respectability, and then voting to acquit anyway.

And as has been noted many times before, loyalty with Trump is very much a one-way street. The second anyone starts to look like they might be a liability he drops them like they're radioactive.

 

[Leo]

a few zingers in the Dominion-MyPillow guy lawsuit

“Lindell — a talented salesman and former professional card counter — sells the lie to this day because the lie sells pillows,” Dominion said in the filing. It said MyPillow’s “defamatory marketing campaign” — with promo codes like “FightforTrump” and “QAnon” — had increased the company’s sales 30 percent to 40 percent.

“Instead of retracting his lies, Lindell — a multimillionaire with a nearly unlimited ability to broadcast his preferred messages on conservative media — whined that he was being ‘censored’ and ‘attacked’ and produced a ‘docu-movie’ featuring shady characters and fake documents sourced from dark corners of the internet,” Dominion said in the filing.

In an interview with The New York Times last month, Mr. Lindell said he would “welcome” a lawsuit from Dominion after the company sent him a legal letter warning of pending litigation over his baseless claims involving their machines. “Dominion threatened to sue me and I said bring it on, I want you to, I 100 percent want you to,” Mr. Lindell said in the Jan. 25 interview. “But they won’t do it, and you know why they won’t do it? Because they know all the evidence will come out.”

MyPillow is based in Chaska, Minn., and is relatively small; Mr. Lindell said last month that it employed nearly 2,500 people. It was founded by Mr. Lindell, a former crack cocaine and gambling addict, after the idea for MyPillow came to him in a dream in 2004, according to his memoir.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/...ml?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

 

[Leo]

funny in today senate hearing on the Jan 6 riot, questioning of FBI head Christopher Wray. Asshat GOP election fraud dude Josh Hawley asks him exactly what sort of geolocation data and metadata collection the agency did, hmm...

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah it was a bit like that incel pretending to be a girl and asking 'if someone rapes me how will they catch him?'

 

[Leo]

The commanding general of the D.C. National Guard told lawmakers Wednesday how restrictions the Pentagon placed on him in the run-up to the Capitol riot prevented him from more quickly sending forces to help quell the violence. Maj. Gen. William J. Walker said he did not receive approval to change the D.C. Guard’s mission and send his forces to the Capitol on Jan. 6 until three hours and 19 minutes after he first received an emotional call from the Capitol Police chief requesting urgent backup.

Walker described the Pentagon’s restrictions as “unusual,” noting that he did not have such limitations last summer, when the D.C. Guard was tasked with responding to local racial-justice protests after the killing of George Floyd.

 

[Leo]

maybe best for the conspiracy theory thread but...

if this delay was due to anything other than miscommunication/gross negligence/sheer incompetence (all of which are possible), which side used it for their own ends? was it far-right/MAGA supporting Pentagon officials who wanted to allow the crowds to derail the election certification? Or was it anti-Trump/deep state forces looking to stain Trump's legacy and get him permanently booted off twitter/out of politics?

 

[sufi]

maybe best for the conspiracy theory thread but...

if this delay was due to anything other than miscommunication/gross negligence/sheer incompetence (all of which are possible), which side used it for their own ends? was it far-right/MAGA supporting Pentagon officials who wanted to allow the crowds to derail the election certification? Or was it anti-Trump/deep state forces looking to stain Trump's legacy and get him permanently booted off twitter/out of politics?

that's how modern politics is so fascinating, innit, all those constituencies exist and the flow of the current affairs has reached a place where their interests overlap, despite their aims being opposed, so unpredictable events occur, like a horoscope