Do Trump's lawyers know what they are doing?

[TitanTiger 20,481]

Do Trump’s Lawyers Know What They Are Doing?

Today several of President Trump’s lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, held a press conference in which they alleged that they have convincing if not conclusive evidence that the presidential election was rigged, and that in addition to garden variety voter fraud, hundreds of thousands of votes were added to Joe Biden’s totals through electronic manipulation. This is the familiar issue that involves Dominion and SmartMatic software. Here is the press conference; it begins around an hour into the video.

 

 

There is circumstantial evidence of more than a normal amount of voter fraud in this year’s election, but Trump’s lawyers have not yet presented most of the evidence supporting the electronic claims that they must rely on to have any hope of reversing the outcome of the election. So we can only reserve judgment for now. It is hard to understand what motive lawyers like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood might have to make explosive claims that they cannot prove, which would be career-destroying. But how strong their evidence will ultimately be, we don’t yet know. I hope their claims turn out to be well-founded and provable.

However: I got an email today from a Minnesota resident, a conservative and a smart guy who is the CEO of a company, and later talked with him on the phone. He has taken the trouble to read the filings that have been made so far by Trump’s lawyers. He directed my attention to an affidavit signed by Russell Ramsland, a Texas resident who is an expert on cyber security. The affidavit was filed by Lin Wood in the Georgia lawsuit, but it relates entirely to Michigan, and it is a safe bet that it has been filed in one or more cases in that state as well.

The Ramsland affidavit is part of the Trump team’s case relating to Dominion. In paragraph 9, the affidavit states:

Based on the significant anomalies and red flags that we have observed, we believe there is a significant probability that election results have been manipulated within the Dominion/Premier system in Michigan.

What are those anomalies and red flags? Paragraph 11 explains:

Another statistical red flag is evident is evident in the number of votes cast compared to the number of voters in some precincts. A preliminary analysis using data obtained from the Michigan Secretary of State pinpoints a statistical anomaly so far outside of every statistical norm as to be virtually impossible. … There were at least 19 precincts where the Presidential Votes Cast compared to the Estimated Voters based on Reported Statistics exceeded 100%.

This is a screen shot of the list of 19 precincts:

Paragraph 17, continuing in the same vein, says:

Wayne County uses Dominion equipment, 46 out of 47 precincts/townships display a highly unlikely 96%+ as the number of votes cast, using the Secretary of State’s number of voters in the precinct/township; and 25% of those 47 precincts/townships show 100% turnout.

This list of 25 precincts or townships (a number that does not obviously fit with the preceding language) follows:

Here’s the problem: the townships and precincts listed in paragraphs 11 and 17 of the affidavit are not in Michigan. They are in Minnesota. Monticello, Albertville, Lake Lillian, Houston, Brownsville, Runeberg, Wolf Lake, Height of Land, Detroit Lakes, Frazee, Kandiyohi–these are all towns in Minnesota. I haven’t checked them all, but I checked a lot of them, and all locations listed in paragraphs 11 and 17 that I looked up are in Minnesota, with no corresponding township in Michigan. This would have been obvious to someone from this state, but Mr. Ramsland is a Texan and the lawyers are probably not natives of either Minnesota or Michigan.

Evidently a researcher, either Mr. Ramsland or someone working for him, was working with a database and confused “MI” for Minnesota with “MI” for Michigan. (The postal code for Minnesota is MN, while Michigan is MI, so one can see how this might happen.) So the affidavit, which addresses “anomalies and red flags” in Michigan, is based largely, and mistakenly, on data from Minnesota.

This is a catastrophic error, the kind of thing that causes a legal position to crash and burn. Trump’s lawyers are fighting an uphill battle, to put it mildly, and confusing Michigan with Minnesota will at best make the hill steeper. Credibility once lost is hard to regain. Possibly Trump’s lawyers have already discovered this appalling error, and have undertaken to correct it. But the Ramsland Affidavit was filed in Georgia just yesterday.

A postscript: has Mr. Ramsland inadvertently stumbled across evidence of voter fraud in Minnesota? I seriously doubt it. The venues in question are all in red Greater Minnesota, not in the blue urban areas where voter fraud is common.

Trump’s lawyers have not yet had their day in court, but they will have to do a great deal better than this if they hope to succeed.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/11/do-trumps-lawyers-know-what-they-are-doing.php

-------

Is there any limit to this bunch's capacity for the self-own?

[homersapien 11,373]

Trump uses power of presidency to try to overturn the election and stay in office

By

Philip Rucker, 

Amy Gardner and 

Josh Dawsey

November 19, 2020 at 11:02 p.m. EST

President Trump is using the power of his office to try to reverse the results of the election, orchestrating a far-reaching pressure campaign to persuade Republican officials in Michigan, Georgia and elsewhere to overturn the will of voters in what critics decried Thursday as an unprecedented subversion of democracy.

After courts rejected the Trump campaign’s baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud, the president is now trying to remain in power with a wholesale assault on the integrity of the vote by spreading misinformation and trying to persuade loyal Republicans to manipulate the electoral system on his behalf.

In an extraordinary news conference Thursday at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Trump’s attorneys claimed without evidence there was a centralized conspiracy with roots in Venezuela to rig the U.S. presidential election. They alleged voter fraud in Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and other cities whose municipal governments are controlled by Democrats and where President-elect Joe Biden won by large margins.

“We cannot allow these crooks — ’cause that’s what they are — to steal an election from the American people,” said one of the attorneys, Rudolph W. Giuliani. “They elected Donald Trump; they didn’t elect Joe Biden. Joe Biden is in the lead because of the fraudulent ballots, the illegal ballots that were produced and that were allowed to be used after the election was over. Give us an opportunity to prove it in court and we will.”

Neither Giuliani nor other Trump attorneys have furnished evidence to support that or any other claim of widespread fraud.

Thursday’s show by Trump’s lawyers disquieted many, including Christopher Krebs, the Trump-appointed director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency whom the president fired Tuesday after he stated publicly that the election had been secure.

“That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest,” Krebs wrote on Twitter.

On Capitol Hill, senior Democrats ratcheted up their rhetoric. “I think this borders on treason,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.). “He is undermining the very essence of democracy, which is: You go to the poll, you vote and the people decide. There’s no doubt that the people decided.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and a prominent Trump critic, decried the strategy.

“Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election,” Romney said in a statement late Thursday. “It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic act by a sitting American President.”

In defiance of the vote, Trump and his lawyers are scrambling to stop key states from certifying their results and to enlist Republican state officials to overturn Biden’s wins by seating Trump electors to the electoral college.

Biden’s team expressed confidence Thursday that Trump’s intensifying effort to keep power would fail.

“None of it is legally significant,” said Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, who runs the election protection legal efforts. “They are pivoting from this completely failed litigation strategy to a strategy of misleading people into believing that he now has a political option. It is a response to failure. It is the last card that he thinks he can pull from his deck here, but his hand remains a completely losing hand.”

But other Democrats voiced more concern about the threat of Trump’s moves.

“Other people looked at me like I was insane, but I have fully anticipated that Donald Trump would try every trick in the book,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). “The kind of stuff that’s being done now is undermining people’s confidence in the election process and the integrity of the election and it is fundamentally attacking the roots of our democracy, and it is unacceptable.”

Trump’s focus for the moment is centered on Michigan, where Biden is the projected winner and leads by about 157,000 votes. The president earlier this week called a Republican member of Wayne County’s Board of Canvassers, after which she attempted to rescind her vote to certify Biden’s win in Wayne, which is where Detroit is located and is the state’s most populous county.

Trump then invited the leaders of Michigan’s Republican-controlled state Senate and House to meet him Friday at the White House ahead of next Monday’s state canvassing board meeting to certify results.

The president’s allies have said that if the board deadlocks, the legislature could choose to ignore Biden’s popular-vote win and seat Trump electors. But experts say such a move would be on shaky legal ground. And multiple election lawyers have said that scenario is unlikely for several reasons. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has the power to fire members of the canvassing board and appoint interim replacements without legislative approval. And Democrats are highly likely to file suit in the event the board deadlocks, because state law directs the board to follow the popular vote in its decision to certify.

“I can’t tell you all the different actions [Republicans] are contemplating, but I implore people to put country over party and do the will of the people — respect the law, and see through that the will of the people is reflected in our electors and not play games with this fundamental part of our democracy,” Whitmer said at a news conference Thursday.

In Georgia and Pennsylvania, where Republicans also control the state legislatures, officials said Trump’s ploy stood little chance of success.

A top adviser to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said there is “zero” chance the secretary would take a phone call from the president or his advisers. Raffensperger is expected to certify the statewide result Friday, as required by law. The certification then goes to Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican, for his signature.

Kemp told reporters last week that he was glad Raffensperger ordered the hand-counted audit of the presidential vote. “Let’s let that happen and let the chips fall where they may,” he said.

Yet Trump has for the past several days been publicly badgering Kemp to intervene in the recount to reject ballots and “flip” the result, which currently has Biden winning by 12,284 votes. “Republicans must get tough!” Trump tweeted at Kemp on Thursday morning. Privately, Trump has told advisers he is furious with the governor for not doing more to overturn the outcome.

Trump also is consulting with advisers about how he might get Wisconsin ballots discarded, and his lawyers say they believe he has a relatively strong case in Dane and Milwaukee counties because of how officials there conducted absentee balloting. They have offered no evidence to bolster their case.

These are the words and actions of an attempted coup, according to historians and other experts.

“We have never seen anything like this before,” historian and author Michael Beschloss said. “This is a president abusing his very great powers to try to stay in office, even though it is obvious to everyone that he has been defeated in the polls. That is a prospect that terrified most of the founders.”

Beschloss added, “I don’t want to be alarmist, but I do think it’s our job as citizens to keep watch on every one of these things with an eye to that ultimate dread of the founders, which is that a president rejected by the voters would use his powers to try to stay in office anyway.”

The latest evolution in the Trump strategy came into view Thursday at RNC headquarters, where Giuliani and campaign attorneys Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell presented their argument for widespread fraud but provided no evidence.

Powell argued that the voting systems used in many states, including those manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems, use software “created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chávez to make sure he never lost an election.”

The conspiracy theory that machines by Dominion, a Colorado-based manufacturer, were programmed to rig the election has spread widely on right-wing websites and social media and has become an obsession of Trump’s in recent days. A Republican who has spoken with the president said he has been telling his team that votes should be thrown out in any state, such as Georgia, where Dominion machines were used.

There is no evidence to support this theory, however.

The Trump campaign did not raise objections to Dominion equipment or software before the Nov. 3 election. And the company’s products are certified for use in states that Trump won, including Utah and Florida.

In addition, Giuliani and Powell’s claims have been disproved in Georgia, where the state’s hand recount of nearly 5 million paper ballots affirmed that the Dominion scanners accurately counted the vote, state officials said.

Ellis swatted away questions from reporters asking for evidence of the massive fraud that she, Powell and Giuliani claimed, saying they would produce it later.

Trump was said to be enthused about the news conference and asked allies to watch it, a White House official said. The event seemed at times farcical, with streaks of what appeared to be black hair dye mixed with sweat dripping down the sides of Giuliani’s face as he spoke.

 

Giuliani speaks during Thursday’s news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters. (Sarah Silbiger/for The Washington Post)

Giuliani has assumed control of the president’s strategy, which is in part to build a public-relations case on television that amps up political pressure on Republican officials in key states to make decisions more amenable to Trump, according to two campaign officials. The president grew frustrated last weekend with his campaign lawyers after Giuliani told him they were lying to him and minimizing his chances of victory. He also said they were not appearing on TV frequently enough.

At first, officials said, Trump seemed rather deflated with the election results and only going through the motions of a legal fight. But his attitude changed in recent days. Although Trump has long vacillated on Giuliani, he has been buoyed by the former New York mayor’s energy — and, after so many other advisers told him he was unlikely to win a second term, by Giuliani’s proclamations that he just might, two campaign advisers said. They, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

But not everyone in the president’s orbit shares his enthusiasm. One senior White House official, asked for comment about Giuliani, let out a long laugh. Some advisers think Giuliani sees this ongoing effort as a way to make money and remain relevant.

Some of Trump’s most valued lawyers — including White House counsel Pat Cipollone and private attorneys Jay Sekulow and Jane and Marty Raskin — have not played large roles in this post-election fight, while former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, a public face for the effort in the early days, has all but disappeared.

Trump campaign lawyers Justin Clark and Matt Morgan were not at Thursday’s news conference and were not part of the Giuliani discussions. “They’ve been totally cut out,” a senior campaign official said.

Clark and campaign manager Bill Stepien were said to be at headquarters Thursday and aides were winding down the operation, dealing with contracts and offboarding hundreds of employees.

Also not present was RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who was in Michigan. The RNC granted Giuliani’s request to use its building after officials there were informed by the president that Giuliani was in charge of all efforts, an official said.

Giuliani did not respond to multiple requests seeking comment.

Election law experts said the clock is ticking on Trump, as states will soon certify their results.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-uses-power-of-presidency-to-try-to-overturn-the-election-and-stay-in-office/2020/11/19/bc89caa6-2a9f-11eb-8fa2-06e7cbb145c0_story.html

[McLoofus 35,182]

2 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Trump uses power of presidency to try to overturn the election and stay in office

Isn't it funny how "You're crazy, he would never do that" turned into "Oh, it doesn't matter, he can't get away with it, besides the Dems brought this on themselves by winning the election fair and square, oh and let's talk about past fantasies involving fake crimes by previous Dem leaders as though that has anything to do with this"

Christ, some of y'all are pathetic. 

[AUFriction 1,179]

I’m still just trying to wrap my head around their strategy. Surely they don’t think they are going to get the vote overturned in multiple states. I thought for a short while that maybe the goal was to build up anger in their fan base for 4 years from now (which I believe the Republican Party distances itself from Trumpian populism after this anyway). But the claims have gotten so outlandish that many potential Trump voters for 4 years from now starting to say “dude, just stop. it’s over.” So, the only thing I’m left with is that it is all delusion. Trump is so stuck in his delusion that everyone loves him and wants him as president that he can’t mentally comprehend how he could’ve lost, and, instead of trying to convince him that it is over, everyone is just humoring his lunacy. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

28 minutes ago, AUFriction said:

I’m still just trying to wrap my head around their strategy. Surely they don’t think they are going to get the vote overturned in multiple states. I thought for a short while that maybe the goal was to build up anger in their fan base for 4 years from now (which I believe the Republican Party distances itself from Trumpian populism after this anyway). But the claims have gotten so outlandish that many potential Trump voters for 4 years from now starting to say “dude, just stop. it’s over.” So, the only thing I’m left with is that it is all delusion. Trump is so stuck in his delusion that everyone loves him and wants him as president that he can’t mentally comprehend how he could’ve lost, and, instead of trying to convince him that it is over, everyone is just humoring his lunacy. 

It's three things.

1) A long shot bid at muddying things enough to pray for states not being able to certify, therefore allowing their state legislature to appoint people.  It won't work.

2) An all out attempt to punish Democrats and Biden.

3) I'm convinced he's scared ****less about potential crimes after he leaves.  Trump and others are protected as long as he's in the WH.  That all goes away January 20 at noon.

[RunInRed 16,407]

Didn’t Rudy recently ask for 20K a day or something like that?

[homersapien 11,373]

47 minutes ago, AUFriction said:

I’m still just trying to wrap my head around their strategy. Surely they don’t think they are going to get the vote overturned in multiple states. I thought for a short while that maybe the goal was to build up anger in their fan base for 4 years from now (which I believe the Republican Party distances itself from Trumpian populism after this anyway). But the claims have gotten so outlandish that many potential Trump voters for 4 years from now starting to say “dude, just stop. it’s over.” So, the only thing I’m left with is that it is all delusion. Trump is so stuck in his delusion that everyone loves him and wants him as president that he can’t mentally comprehend how he could’ve lost, and, instead of trying to convince him that it is over, everyone is just humoring his lunacy. 

IMO, you are overestimating the Republican party as well as Trump voters.

The future of our country rests solely on the apparent majority - as alarmingly  slim as it is - of the voting public that recognizes Trump for who and what he is.

That majority must be grown by whatever means that will grow it. Hopefully substantive change will be part of the means.

[ValleyTiger 2,894]

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

“Other people looked at me like I was insane, but I have fully anticipated that Donald Trump would try every trick in the book,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). “The kind of stuff that’s being done now is undermining people’s confidence in the election process and the integrity of the election and it is fundamentally attacking the roots of our democracy, and it is unacceptable.”

The process itself and the lack of integrity undermined the confidence in the system. There's a massive problem with electronic voting. The unsolicited mail-in ballots and erosion of the verification processes of mail-in ballots was subject to fraud. 

This serious issue should be concerning to all Americans. 

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

In addition, Giuliani and Powell’s claims have been disproved in Georgia, where the state’s hand recount of nearly 5 million paper ballots affirmed that the Dominion scanners accurately counted the vote, state officials said.

Claims of fraudulent activity certainly were not completely disproved by an unaudited recount. All the evidence has yet to be presented. Why is it now such an atrocity that the legal processes are allowed and the truth sought out? The doxing and vitriol being hurled at Americans doing their lawful duty and/or seeking the truth is the sad state of America.

 

Why has Dominion been running for the hills? Why were the servers stored in a foreign country? Hacking of elections has happened in other countries; could it not have happened to America as well? The electronic systems are very simplistic and experts have stated very prone to fraud now and in the past. Let's see what evidence there is.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000005790489/i-hacked-an-election-so-can-the-russians.html?smid=tw-share

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/

[TitanTiger 20,481]

55 minutes ago, ValleyTiger said:

The process itself and the lack of integrity undermined the confidence in the system. There's a massive problem with electronic voting. The unsolicited mail-in ballots and erosion of the verification processes of mail-in ballots was subject to fraud. 

There's zero proof for this allegation.  It's just asserted and taken as fact for no other reason than it aligns with certain people's assumptions.

 

 

[TitanTiger 20,481]

1 hour ago, ValleyTiger said:

Why has Dominion been running for the hills? Why were the servers stored in a foreign country? Hacking of elections has happened in other countries; could it not have happened to America as well? The electronic systems are very simplistic and experts have stated very prone to fraud now and in the past. Let's see what evidence there is.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000005790489/i-hacked-an-election-so-can-the-russians.html?smid=tw-share

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/

Stop believing bull****.

 

Americans Deserve the Truth, Even If It’s Unpleasant

Jim Geraghty
November 20, 2020 9:26 AM

On the menu today: a blunt message about who is conning whom in the aftermath of the 2020 elections.

You Are Being Conned

Rudy Giuliani, yesterday:

We have enough evidence without [a lawsuit in Wisconsin] to overturn this election. We have it from the affidavits of American citizens, but that’s a matter of national security that we’re talking about now, very, very serious matter of national security. Please don’t make light of it and don’t act like you knew it, don’t act like it isn’t a surprise. If that’s not a headline tomorrow, then you don’t know what a headline is. There isn’t a single person in this country that would have believed that we have states that are stupid enough to have our vote sent out of this country. You couldn’t possibly believe that the company counting our vote, with control over our vote is owned by two Venezuelans who were allies of Chavez, are present allies of Maduro, with a company whose Chairman is a close associate and business partner of George Soros the biggest donor to the Democrat party, the biggest donor to Antifa, and the biggest donor of Black Lives Matter. My goodness, what do we have to do to get you to give our people the truth? Yes.

Sidney Powell, yesterday, in the same press conference:

What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States. The Dominion voting systems, the Smartmatic technology software and the software that goes in other computerized voting systems here in as well, not just Dominion, were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez to make sure he never lost an election after one constitutional referendum came out the way he did not want it to come out. We have one very strong witness who has explained how it all works . . .

In terms of the level of corruption we are looking at here, we have no idea how many Republican or Democratic candidates in any state across the country paid to have the system rigged to work for them. These people didn’t do this just to take control. They make one heck of a lot of money off of it. Think about the global interests behind your own news organizations. Think about the pressure being brought to bear from the social media companies to shut down free speech on any challenge to the election. This is a massive, well-funded, coordinated effort to deprive we, the people of the United States of our most fundamental right under the constitution to preserve this Republic that we all cherish. It is of the greatest concern. It is the 1775 of our generation and beyond.

Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson, on his program yesterday:

We took Sidney Powell seriously with no intention of fighting with her. We’ve always respected her work, we simply wanted to see the details. How could you not want to see them? So we invited Sydney Powell on the show. We would have given her the whole hour. We would have given her the entire week, actually, and listened quietly the whole time at rapt attention.

But she never sent us any evidence, despite a lot of polite requests. When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her. When we checked with others around the Trump campaign, people in positions of authority, they also told us Powell had never given them any evidence to prove anything she claimed today at the press conference.

Powell did say that electronic voting is dangerous, and she’s right, but she never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one.

If you put your faith in President Trump’s claim of a presidential election stolen through massive alteration of votes through the use of voting software, and in the legal skills of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, I am sorry to tell you that you have been conned. Whether or not Rudy Giuliani wants $20,000 per day as the New York Times reported, it is safe to conclude he expects to be well compensated for his work for the Trump campaign. He has a financial interest in dragging out proceedings for as long as possible.

Dominion Voting Systems works in 28 states and ran elections in Ohio, Florida, and other states that Trump won. In state of Florida, which Trump won by a wider margin than expected, the state division of elections certified their voting systems as safe, secure, and effective. That division answers to the Florida secretary of state, Laurel Lee, who is a former assistant U.S. attorney and former judge appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis in 2019.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency have thoroughly examined the company’s hardware and software and found no vulnerabilities, no backdoors, no evidence of a secret way to alter the votes.

Dominion and Smartmatic are competitors. The founders of Smartmatic, Antonio Mugica and Alfredo Anzola, immigrated from Venezuela and created the company in Boca Raton, Fla., in 1999. Back in 2006, after being accused of being influenced by foreign governments, they declared that “no foreign government or entity — including Venezuela — has ever held an ownership stake in Smartmatic, and we have voluntarily filed with the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to put to rest the baseless but persistent rumors about our ownership.” The company’s systems were indeed used in Venezuela, but in 2017, Smartmatic accused the regime of President Nicolás Maduro of rigging the election, declaring, “The turnout figures on Sunday, July 30 for the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela were tampered with.”

And as many have pointed out, if any voting-machine software was altering votes from Trump to Biden, then the hand recount in Georgia should have revealed a dramatic difference from the initial tallies to the hand-counted tallies. The hand recount found Biden won Georgia by 12,284 votes, and Trump picked up about 1,400 votes from the initial count, as some Republican-leaning counties failed to count 5,262 votes. It’s good they did the recount! Those missing votes shouldn’t be hand-waved away. But those human-driven mistakes were caught and rectified, and out of 159 counties in the state, 54 counties had the same totals after the recount, 27 counties initially miscounted by one vote, and 26 counties miscounted by five or fewer votes. Of the 5,262-vote change, 4,740 came from Floyd, Fulton, and Gwinnett Counties.

In short, the contention of the Trump campaign’s lawyers is that the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was rigged by a conspiracy of multiple voting-machine-software companies, poll workers across the country, local and county election officials in multiple key states, various secretaries of state, state attorney generals, governors including Republicans, law enforcement at all levels, the Department of Homeland Security, and every judge who has ruled against them so far. Oh, and almost everyone in almost every form of media who covers elections, presumably including me. If indeed the conspiracy is that vast, that deep, and that powerful, it raises the question of why anyone should participate in elections at all.

If you still have more faith in Giuliani and Powell than everyone who contends what they’re saying is nonsense, don’t take my word for it. Every court document that is filed in relation to the election gets posted online. DemocracyDocket.com does a good job of collecting them and posting them fairly quickly. You can read through them; everything is right there in black and white. You can see that the Trump campaign’s lawyers are not making the same claims of massive widespread fraud and voter alteration in court. Lawyers face serious professional consequences for lying — that is, making an assertion that they know is not true, to a judge or jury — in a courtroom. Ask yourself, if what Giuliani and Powell are claiming is true, why is the Trump campaign not even making the accusation in court? Why are they not presenting evidence? Why did Powell get angry at Tucker Carlson, who is about as supportive a media voice as the Trump campaign could ever want, when he asked for evidence? Just what did Tucker Carlson do wrong in this situation?

You deserve to be treated better than this. You deserve the truth, even if the truth is unpleasant or something you don’t want to hear.

President Trump did not win the election. He came surprisingly close, considering how he was running during the worst pandemic in a century, after a sudden and severe economic shock, and his own difficulties staying on-message. He won a bunch of states that he needed — Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and North Carolina. He lost Georgia by two-tenths of a percentage point, Arizona by three-tenths of a percentage point, Wisconsin by seven-tenths of a percentage point, Pennsylvania by 1.2 percentage points, Nevada by 2.4 percentage points, and Michigan by 2.8 percentage points. His ardent push in the final weeks probably helped keep the Senate close to GOP control and diminishing the Democratic advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives down to a handful of seats. That’s more than respectable.

But we are now two and a half weeks since Election Day. Other than California and New York — which is a separate story, worthy of tackling another morning — the voting is done, the counting is complete, and in some cases, the count has been completed twice. There are no more absentee ballots left to arrive, no more provisional ballots to sort out or dispute. Many, if not all, of the court cases have been resolved. As of this morning, 15 states and territories have certified their vote results; by dinnertime tonight, Georgia and North Dakota will have joined them. The 2020 election is over — other than those Georgia Senate runoffs, and a Louisiana House runoff between two Republicans — and it is time for Americans to move on with our lives.

As U.S. marshal Samuel Gerard says at the end of The Fugitive, “It is time to stop running.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/americans-deserve-the-truth-even-if-its-unpleasant/

 

[ValleyTiger 2,894]

13 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

There's zero proof for this allegation.  It's just asserted and taken as fact for no other reason than it aligns with certain people's assumptions.

 

 

Who says there's zero proof? I can say the same for those dismissing the allegations as well. All of the evidence hasn't been submitted at this point. Are you not even the least bit curious?

[TitanTiger 20,481]

1 minute ago, ValleyTiger said:

Who says there's zero proof? I can say the same for those dismissing the allegations as well. All of the evidence hasn't been submitted at this point. Are you not even the least bit curious?

Until there's proof, until the Trump team's court filings and claims therein line up with the grandiose claims they make a press conferences, there's zero reason to believe them.  Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence.  They've shown none.  Time and again they make one claim for the TV cameras and then filed a far more muted claim in court and back down from actually alleging fraud before judges.  To give them the benefit of the doubt right now is ludicrous.

Read that National Review article I posted.  This isn't a bunch to put any trust in.

[ValleyTiger 2,894]

3 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

Stop believing bull****.

I'm not blindly believing anything Titan. I could poke holes in the latest article you posted, but what I'm trying to say is clearly falling on deaf ears. 

Why would it be advantageous for Sidney Powell et al to file their best case at this point while they are still busy assembling it? Tucker can do his own damn work and quit getting pissy bc she wont hand everything over to him and the rest of the tanking Fox News.

[TitanTiger 20,481]

1 minute ago, ValleyTiger said:

I'm not blindly believing anything Titan. I could poke holes in the latest article you posted, but what I'm trying to say is clearly falling on deaf ears. 

Why would it be advantageous for Sidney Powell et al to file their best case at this point while they are still busy assembling it? Tucker can do his own damn work and quit getting pissy bc she wont hand everything over to him and the rest of the tanking Fox News.

To believe Guilaini and Powell this juncture is blind faith at it's worst.  They've given you absolutely zero rational reason to buy their story.  It's a fantastic claim on the order of UFO abductions.  The only reason to put any stock in it is because one wants it to be true because they simply don't like the election results.

[ValleyTiger 2,894]

23 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

To believe Guilaini and Powell this juncture is blind faith at it's worst.  They've given you absolutely zero rational reason to buy their story.  It's a fantastic claim on the order of UFO abductions.  The only reason to put any stock in it is because one wants it to be true because they simply don't like the election results.

The FEC chair even stated that there's "legitimate accusations" based on the evidence he's seen to this point. 

Even though the election is still yet to be certified and electoral votes cast, it would be a monumental task for the current apparent results to be overturned in Trump's favor. I realize that Titan. It doesn't change the fact that the full legal process hasn't been completed yet. 

[AUDub 11,148]

4 hours ago, ValleyTiger said:

The FEC chair even stated that there's "legitimate accusations" based on the evidence he's seen to this point. 

Even though the election is still yet to be certified and electoral votes cast, it would be a monumental task for the current apparent results to be overturned in Trump's favor. I realize that Titan. It doesn't change the fact that the full legal process hasn't been completed yet. 

Don't take Trainor seriously. He's a Trump hyperpartisan and his source is Sidney Powell. 

[Grumps 3,704]

4 hours ago, ValleyTiger said:

The FEC chair even stated that there's "legitimate accusations" based on the evidence he's seen to this point. 

Even though the election is still yet to be certified and electoral votes cast, it would be a monumental task for the current apparent results to be overturned in Trump's favor. I realize that Titan. It doesn't change the fact that the full legal process hasn't been completed yet. 

I agree. There is NO CHANCE that the election results get overturned. But if Trump wants to be a poor loser and use every legal means to investigate then he has the right to do so. The best way to make Trump go away is to ignore him, but the left still chooses go bonkers every time Trump pushes their buttons.

[aubiefifty 16,790]

 

Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

 

4-5 minutes

---

• President Donald Trump told an ally that he had accepted his loss in the 2020 election but wanted to avenge Democrats for disputing the legitimacy of his 2016 win, CNN reported.

• President-elect Joe Biden was projected to defeat Trump two weeks ago, but Trump has still not conceded or permitted his administration to brief Biden's transition team.

• The Trump campaign has tried to deny Biden victory and overturn vote counts with a string of lawsuits in several states.

• According to CNN, Trump wants to get back at former President Barack Obama and the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, for saying Russia helped him win and wants revenge for the Mueller investigation.

• Many of the Trump campaign's election lawsuits have hit a wall, with Trump and his team now launching a new plan to stall the final vote count for long enough to throw Biden's victory into doubt.

 

 

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

10 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

 

Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

 

4-5 minutes

---

• President Donald Trump told an ally that he had accepted his loss in the 2020 election but wanted to avenge Democrats for disputing the legitimacy of his 2016 win, CNN reported.

• President-elect Joe Biden was projected to defeat Trump two weeks ago, but Trump has still not conceded or permitted his administration to brief Biden's transition team.

• The Trump campaign has tried to deny Biden victory and overturn vote counts with a string of lawsuits in several states.

• According to CNN, Trump wants to get back at former President Barack Obama and the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, for saying Russia helped him win and wants revenge for the Mueller investigation.

• Many of the Trump campaign's election lawsuits have hit a wall, with Trump and his team now launching a new plan to stall the final vote count for long enough to throw Biden's victory into doubt.

 

What a small, petty man he is. The good of the nation be damned, he wants to throw his tantrum and get his revenge for things that exist only in his fevered mind (and therefore in the fevered minds of his supporters as well.)

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

11 hours ago, Grumps said:

I agree. There is NO CHANCE that the election results get overturned. But if Trump wants to be a poor loser and use every legal means to investigate then he has the right to do so. The best way to make Trump go away is to ignore him, but the left still chooses go bonkers every time Trump pushes their buttons.

Because he's literally hurting the country by not opening up transition access to the Biden team.  People on the left were mad Trump won four years ago, but Hillary conceded the morning after the election and Obama welcomed Trump to the White House the day after that.  Obama also made every resource available open to the Trump team.  Don't believe me?  Go rewatch Trump's inauguration speech where he effusively praises the Obama administration for their graciousness.

But now, in the middle a freaking pandemic, he wants to play games?  Give me a f****** break.

[Grumps 3,704]

7 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Because he's literally hurting the country by not opening up transition access to the Biden team.  People on the left were mad Trump won four years ago, but Hillary conceded the morning after the election and Obama welcomed Trump to the White House the day after that.  Obama also made every resource available open to the Trump team.  Don't believe me?  Go rewatch Trump's inauguration speech where he effusively praises the Obama administration for their graciousness.

But now, in the middle a freaking pandemic, he wants to play games?  Give me a f****** break.

Please don't misunderstand me. I agree with you completely about what Trump SHOULD do. I agree with you that Trump does not care if the hurts the country or not. My only point is that Trump is not going to do the right thing just because people scream at him about what he should do. He WANTS to get people upset. Therefore, he is more likely to do the wrong thing if people are getting upset by his actions.