I won’t link to the disgusting New York Times article in question, but I saw it: the gist of the story is that three years ago, a mix-race high school kid saw a white girl say “the N word” and he recorded her doing it. From what I understand, the girl was singing a rap song which uses the word. So, anyways, this other kid records her saying it and then, three years later, he posts it on line after he finds out what college the girl got accepted to. He deliberately held on to it – waiting for the moment when it would do the most damage. And then he dropped it on her and, presto!, it worked just like he planned…the girl was forced to withdraw from the school and is now socially ruined. Tagged forever as a “racist” person…even though all she ever did was say words of a song (a bad song, to be sure: but this is the sort of music the kids are told they have to listen to if they want to be cool).
Now, you and I know what really happened here: the boy who recorded the video was probably shut down by the girl and this was his revenge. The way the story is being cast is that he’s a hero for finally forcing the girl to confront her racism…and the legacy of racism in the United States. But the real point of the effort by the NY Times, however, is to use a lie (“the girl is a racist and part of racist AmeriKKKa”) to enforce terror…fear that you may have an unguarded moment where you utter something unapproved and it will be used to destroy you, later. So, better make sure you are either strictly silent, or always braying along with whatever the SJW’s are on about at the moment.
The chances of an upper middle class suburban white girl being a racist in 21st century America are about nil. She’s been taught since kindergarten to not be racist. Her parents were taught the same when they were in school. Everything about her life is from the liberal script about what education should be. In fact, she’s been taught that she’ll get massive social credit for being non-racist and dating non-white boys (she’d get more for being lesbian or gender fluid, of course). The whole thrust of American popular culture and education is to teach her that non-white people are the best and she must love and respect them no matter what. The point here is that there is zero chance her use of “the N word” was meant as a racial attack in any way, shape or form. She ain’t Bull Connor and this isn’t 1963. The whole thing about America being racist and that we have to confront it with censorship and reparations and such is merely a gigantic lie – but a necessary lie if you want to control the debate. If, that is, you want to control people.
And that’s what the Times story is about – as are all other stories like this and all the bogus racial attacks and all the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter and the whole run of all the SJW Thought Police things you see – to place you under control. To forbid you to say certain things in public. If they can get your fired and/or socially ruined because of something you said, then you are going to be very careful abou what you say. You will knuckle under to tyranny because to speak out against it will get a SJW mob after you costing you friends and employment. And it is the MSM which drives this – some dimwit posting something on Tik Tok only matters if the matter is taken up. In other words, it only matters if the MSM reports about it. And, of course, they do: it doesn’t matter how absurd it is, if it can be presented as someone being racist, they’ll run with it.
The Left wants total control. They see it necessary on two levels:
- They believe themselves morally superior.
- They believe our lives depend on the Left being in charge.
They have learned that they can’t actually secure what they want in a free and democratic society – but, remember, they are morally superior and our lives depend on their rule. Morally superior people who are saving the world can’t compromise with morally inferior people who are trying to destroy the world (these morally inferior world destroyers are you and me, by the way). I mean, if you really believed like they do, how could you compromise? Of course you wouldn’t – so, by hook or crook, you take power. And it is made a lot easier if certain things simply can’t be said. If the Left believes that Reparations are necessary, then they are necessary and there’s an end on it…they can’t bother fussing about with your ridiculous objection that Barack Obama owes Reparations to Thomas Sowell if Reparations are to be done. So, easier to just call objections to Reparations racism and call it a day…and then go and ruin a few people over it so that everyone else gets the message.
And, as usual, the MSM is the vehicle. It gets said and then repeated and then the MSM picks up on it and then the person is ruined and everyone else takes note and then takes on protective coloring to protect themselves. Lies are being used to terrorize people into silence so that they no longer have rights to the public square.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a feeling that when the Founders wrote the First Amendment – and when my dad fought for it on Saipan – they didn’t have in mind protecting the ability of egregious liars to use slander to silence political dissent. In fact, I’m pretty sure they and he meant the exact opposite of that. What I’m saying here – and this will probably infuriate some – if we were to punish the New York Times for this slander, it wouldn’t be a violation of the First Amendment (in an added bit of sickness, the Times hides behind the 1A which they believe was crafted by White Supremacists).
But Mark (you object), we can’t control the Press! It is a slippery slope! Where does it lead? Well, it probably leads to what amounts to a State controlled media slandering people so that one Party can obtain and retain power. Hate to break it to ya, guys, but we’re at the bottom of the slippery slope. We slipped down it ages ago. And we won’t start to climb back up as long as we vigorously defend the ability of the MSM to lie about us. They have to be forced to stop lying.
It is either that or we might as well hang it up and start memorizing the 57 genders. We can’t win if we can be lied about with impunity. It is as simple as that. Look what they did to Trump? Think about how much more he would have got done if more than half his time wasn’t spent merely fighting against lies? Trump pointed out early on that we needed to reform libel laws. He was attacked for saying it…but he was right! We must reform libel laws. We must punish for lies. And severely. We must make it so that it isn’t you and I thinking twice about saying the truth, but the MSM thinking ten times before publishing something…because it better be true or it’ll cost ya.
Punish liars or be ruled by liars. Those are the choices.
Blogs For Victory 
I agree on the principle of your suggestion, but how do you get people on board the ‘liars must be punished’ idea? It’s hard enough to get people to go out and punish Antifa and BLM. There’s been only a couple that have been willing to do it the correct way, but not enough. The proud boys reminds me of the WWE.
Sadly, liberalism has moved the needle away from punishments for wrong-doing, even for the worst most evil crimes. We need to move the needle back the other way now, towards punishing wrong doers.
President Trump, he’s wanting to get rid of the section 230 in the defense bill that gives protections to big tech, and I totally agree, big tech should have not been given any protections from the start. Zuckerberg, and Dorsey are very dangerous individuals, who are no good for society, or country.
Anyway, hopefully Trump can get a provision in a bill that will hold not just big tech, but the major news media accountable, too. Bring the hammer down on CNN, Fox NBC, MSDNC, ABC, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. Reveal all their lies and shut them down. They are a disgrace, and have done irreparable harm to this nation in this election, and long before this.
I just hope VP Pence will do the right thing in January for President Trump, and when the left goes to be destructive that the President will call on the militia and military and be done with the left-wing liberal commie anarchists.
Well, a great strength of our Constitution is also a weakness—when we want to do what you suggest, we run into the 1st Amendment.. And it was designed specifically to allow citizens to criticize the government. It was not designed to allow citizens to undermine the government through lies and deception, but the problem is that “lies and deception” depend on how people view what is said. I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, but I am saying that it is tricky.
When you study the Left you find all sorts of sinister and tyrannical structures, including “commissions” ostensibly created to find or even define “truth”, and they have been used as weapons to essentially silence people. It’s a favorite ploy of the Left, and we see it now in the “Hate Crimes” nonsense and the Cancel Culture and the insane edicts of what are supposed to be institutions of actual learning.
Rather than go after the overt lies of the Left through its media mouthpieces, which of course include Big Tech, I would prefer to start with dismantling the structures OF the Left—to eliminate the stupidity of Hate Crimes and the inherent discrimination therein, to open up free speech instead of allowing it to be incrementally fenced in by the Left, and to work to get rid of the current belief systems that say that some ideas and some words should be punished and/or silenced.
We let this get a toehold by first going along with the Left’s determination to weaponize the deadly “N-WORD”. What utter foolishness, but squishy people thought well, if that word UPSETS some people, we just shouldn’t use it. Up to that point, I agree. Up to that point it, like so many other words intended to insult or diminish, should not be used. But that should be a matter of civility, not of the law. NOT that they should be outlawed, NOT that they should suddenly be given such massive power and control over the minds and emotions of others that they reach the level of criminality. Unlike other words intended to convey anger, disdain, or simply to insult, the suddenly omnipotent N-WORRRRDDD !!!” was allowed to take on a life of its own, along with the acceptance of the idea that anyone using it, at any time in his or her life, in any context, should be punished, banned and forever scorned, unable to get an education or a good job. But you know what? Now that the N-WORD” is enshrined as the ultimate evil that can be imposed on another, other words will follow, until we are hemmed in by fencing we have allowed to be built around us. Now even some pronouns are “criminal”..
So I contend that the first step is not to go after the speech of the media and Big Tech, but to eliminate the artificial restrictions on true free speech the Left has, with our implied approval, imposed on us. Eliminate the whole artificial construct of “Hate Speech” and its ugly cousin, “Hate Crimes”. Open it up. An insult is just an insult, a crime is a crime, and the artificially imposed alleged distinctions that supposedly make one insult a crime and another just a vulgarity, or one crime demanding a greater penalty than another depending on the identity of the victim, should be removed.
This may not seem to relate to the control the media and Big Tech have on us, but if you look at it you can see that these kinds of imposed and arbitrary restriction form a framework within which the media and Big Tech have been able to exert control over the minds and emotions of too many of us.
Because when we accept the concept that the meaning of a word depends on how we FEEL about it, it is a short step to accepting the concept that truth is not only not an absolute but also depends on how we FEEL about what is being said. And that accepted ability to treat each word or phrase on its own, and apply a personal meaning to it without an objective definition that stands outside how we feel or what we want lies at the core of the ability of the media and its lapdog Big Tech to simply invent things and present them as fact, or to censor what we say based on how what we say makes someone else FEEL.
Until we can re-establish the concept that facts are facts independent of how they make some people FEEL, and that there is a standard of “truth” that goes far beyond the politically expedient manipulation of the perceptions of others, we can’t hope to make any progress in dealing with the massive media machine whose job is to feed wholly invented crap to people and convince them it is nourishment for their minds and necessary for them to make decisions about their lives and the country.
We can’t do that by silencing the liars, as satisfying as that would be. No, we have to start by offering an alternative and explaining why there is a difference between what actually HAPPENED and an “explanation” based on an “interpretation” of only one version of what happened. That can be done, but not without focus.
When I said it would be tricky to deal with the lying Agenda Media we have now, I meant it is not likely to be possible by just shutting them down, as they do have 1st Amendment protections even though they are abusing the right, hiding behind the 1st Amendment by posturing as “journalists” while actually being active participants in a political campaign.
But in the case of the Agenda Media purposely withholding objective information about the Hunter Biden issues, ranging from his ongoing investigations by the FBI to the contents of his laptop, right before the election, I think a strong case can be made that the media were not acting as journalists or purveyors of public information but as active agents of a political party, and therefore that their actions constituted (1) interference in an election and (2) illegal campaign contributions.
Ditto for Facebook, Twitter, and so on—-any “social media” site that either censored information that might affect public perceptions of Joe Biden as a potential president or inserted editorial opinions to influence perception of what was seen.
It is tricky and it is a slippery slope. But we do have to figure this out: we can’t have a MSM which is 99% on the side of one Party being allowed to lie with impunity about us. If it was 50/50 and both were lying about each side, it wouldn’t be good but it wouldn’t be so bad, either. But it is all lies and all lies against us – so, something has to give.
Certainly, libel law needs to be changed – it is far too high a bar for a victim when slandered in the press. I would simply make the law so that a jury decides if what was said was a lie. It if was, the liar pays: and I would have them pay a lot.
The other thing is to force a breakup of the media corporations. The news divisions of the MSM are usually loss leaders – and the corporate bosses don’t care because as long as the approved lies are rolling out, they are getting what they want. Perhaps make a law saying that if you have entertainment, you can’t have news? If the news organizations were forced out of the major corporate entities, they would have to sink or swim…and they’d sink if their only product is lying for the Democrats. You can see how it works: “hey, guys, Disney isn’t cutting the checks any more…its either earn viewers or learn to code…so, we’re going to put some GOP stuff into the lineup, ok?”. You know they’d do it – they’d hate it, but they’d do it. And the uniform pro-Democrat monopoly in the MSM would be broken for good.
You both point out why we need a free press but also the need for information to travel freely. Media lost their stranglehold on information when cable and the internet both showed up and they have been hellbent on getting that control back. They (media mainly) have always desired to be the “single point of truth” no matter the lies they were telling. They need it to control the population as they lead us to the slaughter house of socialism.marxism/communism.
I still contend, and have been preaching this for years, that if we (the Right) could and would develop a major media presence we would at least have the ability to get our messages out there. It might take a little time to burrow back into the American consciousness, but it could be done.
Here is an example: Let’s say there is a conservative media outlet with the reach to compete with the networks, and let’s say it has hired top quality writers and actors so it can produce good entertainment as well as objective news reporting. So let’s say there is a sitcom, like Last Man Standing, and a teenager comes home with a “news” story that contradicts what Mom and Dad have been saying. Without getting too preachy, Mom could take a look at the content of the story and point out what we talk about here—that it vaguely references unnamed “sources” in ways that imply without really stating, and that there is a lot of interpretation of what was said or alleged to have been said and a lot of explaining about what it really means and teach that this is how people are misled—-that a true piece of real news will have sources that are named, will quote directly, can be confirmed through some other source and doesn’t need to be “explained” or “interpreted” and that when these elements are missing the chances are very high that it is fake and intended to mislead. A quick two-minute dialogue, with well-written and even humorous exchanges, could get this message across, and if the characters are likable and sympathetic the message will be well received. A few such tutorials on how to sort out lies from truth would at least give young people some tools to work with, tools they don’t have now.
The same kind of approach would be valuable in newscasts—–a lead-in that says this news show respects the intelligence of its viewers and their ability to understand what is being said, without having to have it explained or interpreted for them. And on every half-hour newscast I would have an example of how media outlets like the NYT distort the news through careful and manipulative presentation of what they want people to believe—I’d have a paragraph from a story, or a clip from a show, and dissect it for its propaganda content and manipulation of facts.
We need to not just educate the public regarding what is really going on, we need to start educating them about how they can do their own sorting of fact from propaganda.
This is all very interesting, but I would say it lacks self-awareness on your parts. After all, it is your side that subscribes to the theory “flood the zone with shit,” a phrased coined by Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, meaning that you saturate the media false claims, which you know to be false. By doing so you hope to achieve a situation in which the public can’t discern what is true or not simply because there is so much information and misinformation to sift through.
Trump-Russia: lie
Dossier: lie
Fine people: lie
Mexicans are rapists: lie
Owes money to Russia: lie
Racist: lie
Sexist: lie
Homophobic: lie
Mocked the handicapped: lie
Abuses women: lie
Will start WWIII: lie
Can’t make mideast peace: lie
Won’t build border wall: lie
Muslim ban: lie
Cheats on his taxes: lie
Didn’t pay taxes: lie
Can’t restore manufacturing jobs: lie
This isn’t even exhaustive: but each and every one of those lies has been repeated endlessly about Trump for the past four years – now, where is the pro-Trump lie broadcast endlessly in the MSM about Trump.
You find me one or STFU.
We all know what little mind droppings the rats leave. As to Mark’s post–Mimi Groves’ Story Is A Disturbing Peek Into The Future That The Radical Left Seeks To Create.
Without any idea of my beliefs a poster has determined my lack of self-awareness. No matter if I collect my view on a global basis or not–they have determined I an ill-informed person. Now take that quote and search on it and you will find every left leaning site attributing it to Steve Bannon but after hours of videos, multiple documents and papers I have not heard him say it or even hint towards anything like it. Could be wrong but that is not what anyone here meant so I guess an out-of-context is the best that can be expected from the minions (and I hate to degrade the minions). Change that — useful idiots.
Once more it looks like “Oops” could be in order as the tower of lies does start to fall apart. In this case Pennsylvania; https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/breaking-pennsylvania-certified-results-president-found-error-error-twice-size-difference-candidates/
Irony can be pretty ironic
Something maybe you should have learned from your masters: Omission is the greatest form of lie.’ —George Orwell
Look no further than most of the media for your answer to that quote.
How many innocent lives do you need destroyed before you think your supposed moral superiority is quelled?
Just curious—is there a penalty or consequence for certifying something you know is or even might be false?
Just to pick one, Donald Trump, June 16, 2015: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
You’re telling me that the MSM lied about it when Trump himself said it? Mostly the MSM played the video of him saying it, or quoted him verbatim in print pieces.
Therefore not all Mexicans are rapists. Some are good people. Deny that rapists, murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers are coming across the border from Mexico. Deny that many if not most of them are Mexican. Deny that the Mexican government is happy to see them become our problem instead of theirs. Explain how and why you feel that you can deny these things.
The big lie of the Left about this is that “Donald Trump says Mexicans are rapists”. Well, some are. We see police reports on that and many are repeat offenders who have been deported more than once.
Stop your silly petty nitpicking. As I said, we can tell when the Left is lying (other than seeing and hearing what you say) by simply examining what you have to say to build your lie. If you have to cherry-pick, if you have to edit, if you have to “explain” or “interpret” then you are lying. The quotation you cited does not say all Mexicans are rapists, or criminals. It says that some are and some aren’t.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but crossing our border without prior permission from our government is a crime. So who is willing to break our laws to enter the country illegally? People with problems, that’s who, to a great extent. People without jobs, people without much in the way of job skills, people who are poorly educated, people who are not thriving in their own country, people with little to look forward to, people who do not like their lives—people with problems. You don’t run the risk of detainment, possibly arrest, if you are not running away from problems. And some of those problems are associated with criminal behavior, detention, prosecution or fear of prosecution in their own country. To assert that people take the risks they take to break our laws and live in a country where they might be arrested at any time do so without any problems where they are is simply blatantly stupid.
One of your big lies is CHILDREN IN CAGES. What total crap. Children behind chain link fencing, exactly like the chain link fencing that surrounded my schools when I was young, exactly like the chain link fencing that to this day surrounds nearly all elementary schools. Why? So children don’t run off and get lost. So children are kept safe. The medodramatic photos, by the way, of children behind chain link fences were taken during the Obama/Biden years, when none of you hypocritical liars cared.
You nailed it, Amazona. I know, personally, people who claim they heard, live on TV, Trump call all Mexicans rapists and that Nazis are fine people. He never said any such thing, of course. But a deliberate and malicious lie was floated in the MSM and it has stuck in the minds of Trump’s opponents.
Why don’t we just send them tons and tons of the crap we have accumulated over the past few years and set them all free of our terrible overarching governess? Truth matters not to those that do not believe.
This is not a North / South issue but one of Truth and Lies. I, for one, prefer to be on the side of Truth.
BTW, crewman4238,
Can you please give me the exact number of people involved in the STEM fields America has held up??? You know, the number of nuclear scientists, mathematician and other global thinkers being stopped? Who are held up? I am sure that Mexico has a few ~ like every country but I don’t think we (as Americans) hold them hostage at the boarder. Are you really that big of a moron?,
Is he that big a moron? Obviously, the answer is yes. Not that he lacks basic IQ, but that he has chosen to abandon it and turn his faculties over to a knee-jerk reaction to anything to do with President Trump. There is a distinct moronic quality in refusing to think, in choosing to simply react blindly with gleeful enthusiasm to anything hateful, spiteful or nasty said about the president and to refuse to examine any of this for truth or fairness or accuracy. And there is a moronic aspect in willingly exhibiting this kind of braindead hate-driven control over basic intelligence or decency, in simply not caring about coming across as morally and intellectually deficient.
It takes a moron to find no value in dignity, to willingly beclown himself over and over as he barges in where he is not only not wanted but is scorned, to deposit what he knows is mental and emotional garbage and then to come back and do it again when he has had his nose rubbed in it. There is no dignity in choosing to be this kind of person.
We don’t know if this kind of behavior is due to being paid to be what is the intellectual version of a human sacrifice or just the public expression of some weird and twisted pathology but yes, it is also a form of being a moron.
“REMEMBER WHEN?”
I think is appropriate here…
REMEMBER…….
…when “hippie” meant big in the hips?
…And a “trip’ involved travel in cars, planes and ships?
…when “pot” was a vessel for cooking things in?
…And “hooked” was what grandmother’s rugs would have been?
…When “fix” was a verb that meant “mend” or “repair”?
…And to be “in” meant existing somewhere?
…When “neat” meant well organized all tidy and clean?
…And “grass” was a ground cover, normally green?
…When “groovy” meant furrowed with channels and hollows?
…And “birds” were winged creatures like robins and swallows?
…When “fuzz” was a substance real fluffy, like lint?
…And “bread” came from the oven and not from the mint?
…When “roll” was a bun and “rock” was a stone?
…And “hang up” was something you did with a phone?
…When lights, not people, were “turned on and off”?
…And the “pill” was something that you took for a cough?
…When “swinger” was someone that swung on a swing?
…And “pad” was a sort of soft cushiony thing?
…When “far out” meant distance, a long way away?
…And no-one thought twice when you said you were “GAY?
–Author unknown–
Certainly, we can see how the Left has through academia changed the meaning of words over the last 50 years, however, in retrospect, meaning of symbols never change, a snake was a snake in Adam and Eve’s day, and a snake is a snake in our day, and it is the embodiment of evil. While the cross, at the same time, embodies God’s love for mankind.
Note: I think the above story was aired on the late Paul Harvey’s radio show many years ago.
I think the main concern right now, is censorship. Kind of like the left is a big proponent of regulations, and there is no limit to the regulations. First, they want to regulate your income in the form of taxes, next they want to regulate your car, what kind it is, and what type of fuel it consumes, next they want to regulate what you drink and eat, and how much, next they want to regulate what you can read, and what you can’t read, what you are taught in school, and what’s not allowed to be taught in school, and so on. These regulations would in time, go even farther up the scale, which would encroach on every aspect of freedom of every day life. What this does is, regulation is about control, regulations give the government increasing amounts of control over personal individual freedoms. It’s the kind of stuff that revolutions and wars are made of. Of which, I am wholly on board, because resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.
That into consideration, censorship is a type of regulation. No public forum should be granted immunity from any type of damage if it is going to remain a public forum. There needs to be a prerequisite to joining a forum that says “This is a Liberal leaning forum, you must be an individual of left-leaning persuasion before you can join.” Then a little box, with with two choices Yes or No. Then they don’t have to remove any comments, and they don’t have to put up disclaimers such as they routinely do President Trump on a daily basis, or the outright removal of persons accounts because they are of the conservative persuasion. This would prevent being held liable to freedom of information laws. You set the rule that there is no risk of having to censor anyone because those present hold your viewpoint.
It is of no particular concern of who the CEO is of said forum or media outlet, if you will…no concern that they own the company, media site. They are or should be required to acquiesce to the demands of freedom of information based on the First amendment of the Constitution if it is to indeed be a public forum (public meaning every persuasion, of every background). The only exception being terrorist threats.
If we don’t make these media outlets bound by the freedom of information, then the 1st amendment is as good as dead. We might as well not even have a constitution. Our Founders died in vain, and everyone thereafter who have fought in world wars. Well, I think our Founders and those who have honorably served this nation will be in a much better place than those who chose to not defend the same.
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” Agent K and apparently our government who has relied on really bad models, idiot “experts” that knowingly lie to the American public and panic-porn to try and keep the majority of the sheeple in line. Even the CDC (corrupt) who will “investigate” the CCP Covid-19 outbreak in China over a year later has already committed to they will find no fault. Personally, I believe it is just as much the US fault as our CCP counterparts but that is another story for another time.
But even the corrupt CDC buries that approximately 6% (less than 20,000) people have actually died from Covid-19 and the rest died “with” whether it was an automobile accident, shooting or other means. Now they are pushing that ‘The darkest days in the battle against COVID are ahead of us’ with Christmas and New Years—what happened to the massive super spreader event known as Thanksgiving? Why do we never hear of Biogen’s elite medical conference on February 26-27 which has been proven as the nation’s largest provable super spreader event. How come all of the evidence of masked versus un-masked gets rabbit-holed?
With consideration that the elections and the means of voting have been considered critical infrastructure on several fronts since 2001 why did we just go through the apparent fraudulent election and why are both sides not hammering for a complete investigation? My best educated guess is because both sides are so deep in corruption and grifting that it would expose them all.
First, there is no reason for the voting machines to be connected to the internet or the internet of things. They should be “air gapped” from everything else including even a secure intra-net. There is or should be a “chain of custody” that cannot be failed. When, as a platoon, we were required to use public transportation such as an airlines—everyone else went on one flight and carried our (two of us) SRB (Service Record Book) and health records. The two us remaining were armed and took the weapons and SRB/Health records of everyone else to the tarmac and these were loaded last and the cargo area was sealed. We had the matching identification tag and boarded last. First off we verified the seal was correct and intact. Then the cargo area unsealed and our records and equipment was taken off first separate from everyone else’s’ luggage. Hell, even the piss samples for drug tests had a better CoC (Chain of Custody) than our voting—which again is critical infrastructure.
There is no need for “thumb drives” or other memory devices to have access to any voting machine and if one becomes “stuck” or “clogged” if the event cannot be resolved like a standard scanner/printer—it should be retired/replaced with a functional unit. Once a vote is cast—the paper ballot should be dropped into an irretrievable “lock box” that is more secure than Al Gore’s version. The votes and the images of a voting machine shall never part except to be transferred to a secure location under the watch of observers from both parties (all parties if you prefer). Before anything else there should be a simple reconciliation of votes cast to number of ballots present and then the information can be downloaded from the machine while the matching ballots are marked / contained for any recount or forensics needed.
Same basic theory with absentee ballots—first they need to be requested with good cause. They need to be returned on or before the date of the election and with signature matching would need to be counted, but not released, before election has finished in that state. If a State mails out, say 200,000 absentee ballots – it should have the same or less returned otherwise every one of them should be quarantined for forensic analysts.
Same argument is made over Voter Id which should be required as most if not all States have free photo Id. I could continue but for something that is considered sacred and critical—I think we could do much better as Americans.
I have said that I think vote counting machines should (1) only count ballots that are clearly and unambiguously marked to show a distinct choice and (2) be, as you say, air-gapped and not connected to any other device or to any communication venue—internet, ethernet or cellular. They should be dumb machines only a step above an old fashioned calculator—they can scan for where dots are on a piece of paper, they can record what they see, and I think they should then mark the ballot with a mark or code of some sort to show that it has been scanned, so it can’t be scanned again unless with a different kind of machine programmed to read that code, re-read the ballot and then mark it with a second code. This way, we can know that any ballot represents only one vote. The code would be the serial number of the machine followed by a sequential numbering of the ballots run through that machine and the rescanned ballot would be marked similarly by the second, unrelated, machine.
Let the tally be recorded on something like a thumb drive—but it is locked into the machine and can only be removed after all the counting is done, by a certified election official with witnesses, and a solid chain of custody. If a machine fails for some reason, it is set aside and replaced with another, not “fixed” or tweaked in any way other than to remove a paper jam, and that only with witnesses, video recording and record keeping. The jammed ballot, if torn and not readable, is coded and a replacement ballot with the same code is created with witnesses who initial the replacement, so that if necessary the damaged ballot can be cross-referenced with the replacement ballot.
When the counting is officially over the locked thumb drives are removed with witnesses, secured and held in a location separate from the physical ballots and the machines. Every person touching a ballot, a machine or a thumb drive must be accounted for.
So machine ABCDEFG987654321 which counted 56,789 ballots would have a record of stamping each ballot with its own serial number followed by the number showing where in the ballot count this ballot fell, and it would have an internal memory card showing an image of each ballot counted plus the same information on its thumb drive. If a dispute arises, the internal memory card of the sequestered machine would have to match the separate and isolated thumb drive, and then the recounted ballots would be coded by the second counting machine with its own redundant recordings. And all records would have to match—who got how many of the votes as well as the records of the ballots.
I am a firm believer in strong deterrence–make cheating simultaneously very very hard and very very dangerous if caught by having severe and enforced penalties and the chances of cheating will diminish.
Election officials are sworn in as officers of the court, with a high standard of accountability and a high level of punishment for violation of very stringent and clearly explained laws.
Those bleating about how committed they are to making sure no one is “disenfranchised” can mount campaigns to do something to actually help those few who don’t have photo IDs by finding those people and walking them through the process. If they are squealing about not enough polling places then they can petition their legislatures for more, or do something proactively instead of after the fact complaining about alleged “voter suppression”. If a person is not mentally or emotionally competent to make his or her own choice then that person doesn’t vote. Period. No one can coach someone or tell him or her how to vote, or fill in a ballot for him or her.
Get rid of Motor Voter and purge all voter registration rolls, and purge those rolls every two years. Cross reference DMV registrations with visas granted to remove people who were allowed to register even though they only had visas allowing them to be here. I would require everyone, upon receiving a letter about his or her registration, to have to respond by signing and returning a form that says he or she (1) is a citizen (2) legally allowed to vote (3) is registered in only this one precinct or state and 4) is not voting anywhere else, under penalty of perjury. Naturalized citizens have to enter the information about when and where they were naturalized. Native born citizens enter their place of birth and birth dates. If such a form is not signed and returned then that person is removed from the registration rolls.
I just got locked out of my new iPad because it won’t accept the four digit code I entered, and which I use on my other Apple devices. The security to get into a piece of personal electronics is far superior to that required of those choosing our president and members of Congress.
This morning I took a glance at my NYT email and saw an article that referred to a a far-right German terrorism suspect . I immediately questioned the “far-right” reference, so I looked a little deeper into the story. My skepticism is based on the Agenda Media’s common usage of the term “far-right” to identify anyone or anything they think will upset or offend people.
Sure enough, as the article referenced in the NYT email unfolds, we learn that a young man is suspected of being a terrorist, with the aim of assassination of one or more German officials. A lieutenant in the German Army, he had disguised himself and posed as a Syrian refugee, allegedly part of a far-right plot to carry out one or several assassinations that could be blamed on his refugee alter ego and set off enough civil unrest to bring down the Federal Republic of Germany.
Disclaimer here: I don’t know exactly how the term “right” is defined in terms of European politics. In the United States it merely means commitment to a form of government in which the federal government is severely restricted regarding size, scope and power, with most authority left to the states or to the people. I’m not clear on how that translates into European forms of government. But using logic, one would assume that “Right” would be, in political terms, the opposite of “Left” and the Left is clearly defined wherever it raises its ugly head. Therefore, I proceed on the belief that someone on the Right in Europe is not in agreement with the Left, to some degree.
So, if someone defined by the NYT as a “far-right radical” wants to bring down the Federal Republic of Germany, one might think this would be because this government is Leftist. Again, trying to apply logic to a NYT article, a difficult feat at any time. So I looked up the political leanings of the Federal Republic of Germany, and learned: emphasis mine
The government is parliamentary, and a democratic constitution emphasizes the protection of individual liberty and division of powers in a federal structure. Hmmm. It sounds like the Federal Republic of Germany is based on what I, at least, consider a right-wing political philosophy. So why would a “right-wing radical” want to bring it down?
Maybe we need to know what led to the identification of this man as a “right-wing radical” . And then we get to the political agenda part of the NYT article. This guy loved Hitler.
Case closed.
As usual, a NYT article is based on a wholly false premise, which makes the entire article false. Not just false, but egregiously dishonest. I’m not a writer for the NYT, with credentials that should indicate at least some basic skills in research and some basic understanding of the world about which I choose to write. But we are talking about the NYT, which means if those skills are possessed by the writer they are suppressed in the interest of writing absolute garbage, with the agenda of smearing the NYT version of “the Right”—what I call the Invented Other that is the bogeyman that hides under the beds of so many hysterical Lefties.
But a retired woman rancher of a certain age out in the hinterland of Flyover Country was able to do what a NYT writer could not do, or at least chose not to do. That is, research. And it took only a minute or two to learn that Hitler himself said, of himself, “I am a socialist”. (Hint to NYT writer: Socialism is a leftist political model.) I already knew Hitler was the head of the National Socialist Party. I already knew that before he stabbed his good buddy Stalin in the back by invading Russian territories his National Socialism lay firmly in the warm bosom of closely linked Leftist political structures, a triad of Communism, Socialism and Fascism,
So, as one might expect, the NYT is once again touting an entirely false, completely worthless, article about, basically, nothing—but it is a vehicle to repeat the libel that the “right wing” is Hitleresque. And so it has dripped a little more of its propaganda poison into the bloodstream of America.
As usual, a little research leads to more information which leads to more research, and so it goes.
A troll here once sneered “So Hitler’s party HAPPENED TO BE CALLED National Socialist, but that doesn’t mean it was socialist”. It turns out that this is a common effort to separate Hitler from socialism, because socialism has been sanitized in the empty American mind as harmless and even virtuous, and socialists can’t afford to be linked to a monster like Hitler. Ergo, the redefinition of Hitler’s socialism as “not really socialist”.
A typical effort says: Nazism, confused as it was, was based on race, and fundamentally different from class-focused socialism.. See the Identity Politics not just at work here, but defining this statement? Robert Wilde appears to be totally ignorant of, or at least dismissive of, the core structures of “socialism” and “Nazism”, which are governments based on a massively powerful Central Authority with little or no personal liberty left to the people, and chooses not to see past the labels of race or class so he can pretend that a race-based system is not at all the same as a class-based system so shut up.
He rather frantically goes on: Twenty-first-century commentators like to attack left-leaning policies by calling them socialist, and occasionally follow this up by explaining how Hitler, the mass murdering dictator around whom the twentieth century pivoted, was a socialist himself. There’s no way anyone can, or ever should, defend Hitler, and so things like health-care reform are equated with something terrible, a Nazi regime which sought to conquer an empire and commit several genocides. The problem is, this is a distortion of history. So he does what he condemns, and tries to smear the Other by linking IT to Hitler.
He is unhappy that “left-leaning policies” are “attacked……by calling them socialist”. And he goes on, blithely distorting history as he condemns what he calls the distortion of history. However, his entire premises are based on labels and identity, evidently with zero comprehension of the underlying political structure linking the parties.
But if we look at the political structure of Hitler’s socialism we see the same core ideology as we saw in Stalin’s Russia: that of State control, and loss of individual liberty in the interest of the State.
One “explanation” of the determination that fascism is really a right-wing construct is its relationship to industry, which under communism is owned by the State but under fascism is owned by individuals. This is what Hitler had to say about that: emphasis mine
The party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth… There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism… Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers.
Other quotations of Hitler show his political ideology, which he himself describes as “socialist”. Again, the emphasis is mine
After all, that’s exactly why we call ourselves National Socialists! We want to start by implementing socialism in our nation among our Volk! It is not until the individual nations are socialist that they can address themselves to international socialism. (Can there be a better example of the efforts of the International Left to make the United States a truly socialist country?)
…………………..
It is not Germany that will turn Bolshevist, but Bolshevism that will become a sort of National Socialism. Besides, there is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separate us from it… The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will.
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In socialism of the future…what counts is the whole, the community of the Volk. The individual and his life play only a subsidiary role. He can be sacrificed—he is prepared to sacrifice himself should the whole demand it.
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There is a difference between the theoretical knowledge of socialism and the practical life of socialism. People are not born socialists, but must first be taught how to become them.
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National socialism is the determination to create a new man. There will no longer exist any individual arbitrary will, nor realms in which the individual belongs to himself. The time of happiness as a private matter is over.
Like terrorists who tell us “we want to kill you” and then surprise the naive and the stupid by proceeding to try to kill us, the Left tells us what it has in mind for us, and the same naive and stupid people will be surprised and dismayed when in fact the Left does what it said it always intended to do and strips us of our personal liberties. When they achieve the level of power the naive and stupid are so willingly helping them achieve, they will tell them, and us, The time of happiness as a private matter is over. and all some of us can do is say “We told you so” as we prepare to try to take our country back.
Hey everyone, back in the saddle after one of the best Christmases in recent memory at my youngest daughter’s and her fiance’s house in southern Michigan. Even the 4 hour drive through, at times, heavy snow (thank God for All-Wheel-Drive), didn’t dampen the enjoyment of being with 3 generations of my family for 3 days. What a pleasure to see our 8-month-old great granddaughter play with a musical toy, and her soon-to-be-7-year-old big sister build a gingerbread house with her grandma.
I got an email this morning linking to this article at The American Thinker, that poses an interesting theory of how the opening and counting of the Electoral College votes might play out. What a strange ending it would be to the strangest election in my lifetime.
If you haven’t read the article by Alexander Macris linked to in the AT article, it is even more interesting. I tried reading USC 15 (Counting electoral votes in Congress) linked to in the Macris article, but got a migraine by the 3rd line. Not to worry, says Macris, it’s probably unconstitutional anyway. We live in strange times.
The Macris article is the kind of exploration of possibilities I like, so I read it all, dense as it sometimes was. It did an excellent job of laying out the complexities of the situation.
But my favorite part was the bibliography at the end, with its final recommendation, which I took to be a commentary on the complexities and confusion:
I recommend the following for further reading to every American who wants to understand and prepare for what may come:
Bruce Ackerman, “Jefferson Counts Himself into the Presidency,” 90 V. L. Rev. 2004
Akhil Amar and Vikram Amar, “Is the Presidential Succession Law Constitutional,” 48 Stanford L. Rev., 1995
Edward B. Foley, “Preparing for a Disputed Presidential Election,” 51 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 2018
John Harrison, “Nobody for President,” 16 J.L. & Pol., 2000
Vasan Kesavan, “Is the Electoral Count Act Unconstitutional?” 80 NC L. Rev. 2001
Stephan A. Siegel, “The Conscientious Congressman’s Guide to the Electoral Count Act of 1887,” 56 Fl. L. Rev. 2004
Jade Jia Ying Wu , “Learn to Speak Mandarin: A Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Conversational Mandarin Chinese”
In the third line of USC 15 is the phrase papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes. “purporting” = “alleging” which means a claim might, or might not, be accurate.
So if the claim of being an actual count of the electoral votes is challenged, with evidence to support the challenge, it would seem that at that point the “…papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes..” would be dismissed for lack of certainty. Unlike the Magical Thinking of the Left, being declared certain is not the same as BEING certain.
Spook, I hoped you were in Michigan and having a wonderful time. Glad you’re safely back, though.
The AT article is great, as usual, and does present an interesting possibility. I do think Mike Pence has the grit and passion for what is right to be able to do the right thing here.
I think the entire issue rests on this comment in the article:
An election is a process of counting votes for candidates. Only valid, lawful votes may be counted. A valid lawful vote is:
Cast by an eligible, properly registered elector as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.
Cast in a timely manner, as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.
Cast in a proper form as prescribed by laws enacted by the state Legislature.
Any process that does not follow these rules is not an election. Anything that proceeds from it cannot be regarded as having any lawful import
Hard to believe we were all saying “finally, the moment of truth” on Tuesday morning, November 3rd.
And it was, at midnight of November 3.
I had an interesting conversation with my future son-in-law over Christmas. He’s a long-time union member, traditional Democrat who hated Trump with a passion until he saw that Trump was accomplishing a number of things that he liked. He’s still not a fan of Donald Trump the person, but he’s come to believe that Trump was the right man at the right time to begin to reverse a dangerous trend toward Socialism in this country.
He asked me what my biggest fear was if Harris and Biden were to take office on January 20th. I answered unequivocally that it was the threat of Leftists to get even with Trump and all of his supporters, citing the call by several prominent Democrats to create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He said that sounded like Nazi Germany, and asked how that might work in a country like the United States because in Nazi Germany they rounded up Jews and various other undesirable people, herded them into box cars and shipped them off to concentration camps. I said my best guess, given the lack of extensive rail networks in the U.S., was a Harris/Biden administration would utilize the thousands, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of school buses that are sitting idle in Democrat-controlled states where schools are shut down to haul Trump supporters off to reeducation camps where they could either be deemed redeemable, tried and imprisoned or eliminated. His first question was, what if we resist? I said, yeah, that is the 64 million dollar question, isn’t it?
Smaller, at first. Pack the courts and rule that “hate speech” isn’t covered by 1A. Then make employment conditional upon positive acceptance of SJW dogma. After that is done, then comes the re-education camps.
I’m guessing failure to accept SJW dogma would result in not only unemployment but also loss of any unemployment compensation. That, I think, would be the line in the sand for most Conservatives. Millions of people with nothing left to lose would be a formidable force.