“In the Washington D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Va., carjackings have made the news lately. Thieves steal cars at Virginia gas stations and race across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac and into Maryland to relative safety.
The Department of Justice doesn’t seem to be doing anything about enforcing the federal laws prohibiting transport of stolen goods across the Virginia-Maryland state line.
If the carjacker was named James O’Keefe of Project Veritas, things would be very different.
The saga of James O’Keefe’s quite possibly completely legal acquisition of Ashley Biden’s diary, and the resulting DOJ secret seizure of his emails from the Microsoft Office 365 cloud, is disgraceful. The lawyers involved should be ashamed, and perhaps even sanctioned by the bars to which they belong. It is an example of a Justice Department even more politicized than it was under Eric Holder, something few thought possible.
It also is a warning about storing documents and communications on someone else’s computer, aka the Cloud.
First, the basic facts. President Biden’s daughter Ashley rented a room in a seedy part of Delray Beach, Fla. When she moved out in the summer of 2020, she left behind bags of her belongings. She ostensibly planned to retrieve them eventually, but never did. A new tenant moved in and found the belongings in her new-rented room.
Among the belongings was Ashley Biden’s diary.
Through twists and turns, all initiated by the new tenant in Ashley Biden’s old room, the diary came to O’Keefe. Project Veritas paid $40,000 for the diary but ultimately decided not to publish it. An employee of Veritas eventually flew from New York to Florida and dropped it off at a police station.
That would have been the end of it, had it been the New York Times or CNN instead of Project Veritas or James O’Keefe.
The reason the diary is in the news still is that Democrats and lawyers at the Justice Department want to disappear O’Keefe.
Why? O’Keefe has done more damage to the left and the Democrat agenda than most all House Republicans combined over the last decade. He has wrecked ACORN, exposed gangsterism in Democrat campaigns and among union activists, and shown media like NPR and CNN to be handmaidens of crazy.
And so, that wasn’t the end of the story of the President’s daughter’s diary, because the person who had it was named James O’Keefe.
We now know that the Department of Justice secretly seized O’Keefe’s emails from the Microsoft Office 365 cloud.
The secret seizure also included emails having nothing to do with Biden’s daughter, and therefore revealed to the government the scores of other investigations Project Veritas is undertaking.
The confiscation included all contact information from O’Keefe’s Microsoft Office 365 cloud account — including most likely this author’s — as well as all of the affected employees. It also included emails and files from the Microsoft Office 365 account predating the saga with the Biden diary.
All in secret.
The purported federal predicate is the interstate transport of stolen goods — Ashley Biden’s diary.
What we have here is the weight of the federal government coming down on a political opponent of the ruling party who touched on a matter of potential family embarrassment for the President.
Had you told an American two decades ago such a thing would be possible, they would have scoffed.”
Indeed, I was a Justice Department lawyer, and at least in my section, there was a concerted effort to avoid any appearance of abuse of power. I once needed to obtain something from a very, very large American newspaper, and the hoops I had to jump through to even suggest compelling evidence were astonishing. They were designed to avoid any perception that the Department was abusing press freedom or intimidating political opponents of the party in power.
Things sure have changed at the Southern District of New York. There, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Sobelman, Mitzi Steiner, and Jacqueline Kelly have fought to keep the seizure of O’Keefe’s papers secret, even after the investigation was publicly revealed in November 2021. Kelly’s LinkedIn page says she heads the criminal civil rights unit at the Southern District of New York. Kelly clerked for an Obama-appointed federal judge and went to Columbia law school and Cornell. Of course she did.
One basis in law to keep secret a seizure of documents on the Microsoft 365 cloud is that it would reveal the existence of an investigation. When FBI agents battered down the front door of O’Keefe’s home in November 2021, the investigation was no longer secret. Yet these three DOJ lawyers failed to inform a federal judge in multiple subsequent pleadings that the federal government had secretly seized O’Keefe’s emails.
Meanwhile, the left has formed a whole new group to agitate for the disbarment of republican lawyers who represented President Trump.
Perhaps a group should be formed to seek the disbarment of Justice Department lawyers who engage in abuse of power, misconduct, and misrepresentations to courts. After all, there is no shortage of worthy lawyers inside DOJ to target for discipline.”
——
A free country with a neutral press would be all over this. But our media is a joke and stares at it feet because the right journalist was targeted in their biased minds. They’re pathetic for not speaking up on this.
“Nations change course slowly, like giant ocean liners. True disasters take a long time to unfold. If you think things look terrible now, you’re not using your imagination. The Biden Administration has only been in power for a little over a year. They got their crowbar in the door early with COVID, but we’ve barely tasted what the professional political class has in store for us.
Imagine gas at $10 a gallon, or $15. Imagine food staples so scarce you have to buy them with a ration card (displayed in a government-mandated phone app that tracks your family’s consumption). Imagine a new pandemic with a pathogen much deadlier than COVID, that actually kills a substantial number of the people it infects. Imagine an infrastructure attack that erases peoples’ bank accounts. Imagine a real, global war.
I’ve already written in support of Ukraine here, and I have been warning about the danger of a Russia-China alliance for a long time. But something about this Ukraine business rubs me the wrong way: All the people who updated their profile pictures with vaccination status to posture and to shame their friends have now updated their profile pictures again with Ukrainian flags. The mainstream media is in lockstep support. We’re bombarded with ridiculous stories about the “Ghost of Kiev” and Ukrainian farmers dismantling Russian tank columns. Last Friday, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush visited a Ukrainian church together to lay flowers.
Something is definitely wrong here.
When we see the real establishment out in such force, it should set alarm bells off in our brains: We may not understand the nature of the lie, yet. But we can be certain they are lying to us.
It used to puzzle me that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were so close and personable, after all the terrible things they and their supporters had said about each other. But that was back in those innocent days before I realized that the distinction between political parties is superficial compared to the real distinction between power on the one hand and ordinary people on the other. Clinton and Bush have no disagreements severe enough to challenge their joint commitment to being in charge. There may be no honor among thieves—and that’s all politicians are—but they afford each other broad recognition and support, as members of the same class.
We should be cautious here because the long-term goals of establishment politicians line up much better with America’s enemies than they do with the goals of most Americans: Expensive gasoline limits our personal mobility, and can be used to pressure us en masse toward electric cars, which offer less freedom of movement and can be switched off remotely. Expensive food leaves us with less discretionary money to spend, which means a more controlled economy. And a war, among other things, is the greatest opportunity of all for government to expand its power. (If you doubt that, just remember that metered parking in cities was introduced as a temporary revenue-raising measure during World War II.)”
So I guess the Oscars finally had something watchable…..
Will Smith punching and cussing out Chris Rock. They cut the sound on the US broadcast, but the foreign feeds did not. I’ll give you the clean version.
Fake news doing what they do, which is lie to those stupid enough to read their garbage product.
How can you tax unrealized gain? What if the positions become unrealized losses after the imposition of tax? The government pays the person back? If they have to sell to gain liquidity to pay this nonsense they get hit with capital gains? Confiscatory.
How can you tax unrealized gain? What if the positions become unrealized losses after the imposition of tax? The government pays the person back? If they have to sell to gain liquidity to pay this nonsense they get hit with capital gains? Confiscatory.
“By a margin of 52% to 40%, voters believe that “cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.” That’s per a Rasmussen Reports survey from this month. This stands in stark contrast to the countless news stories editorializing about “no evidence of voter fraud” and “the myth of voter fraud.”
It isn’t just Republicans who believe this cheating occurred. Even 34% of Democrats believe it, as do 38% of those who “somewhat” support President Biden. A broad range of Americans think this: men, women, all age groups, whites, those who are neither white nor black, Republicans, those who are neither Republicans nor Democrats, all job categories, all income groups except those making over $200,000 per year, and all education groups except those who attended graduate school.
And with good reason. New research of mine is forthcoming in the peer-reviewed economics journal Public Choice, and it finds evidence of around 255,000 excess votes (possibly as many as 368,000) for Joe Biden in six swing states where Donald Trump lodged accusations of fraud. Biden only carried these states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – by a total of 313,253 votes. Excluding Michigan, the gap was 159,065.
The point of this work isn’t to contest the 2020 election, but to point out that we have a real problem that needs to be dealt with. Americans must have confidence in future elections.
Some Trump allies, such as attorney Sidney Powell, who famously promised to “Release the Kraken” and then provided no evidence, have helped to discredit these concerns.
Courts have rejected challenges to the 2020 presidential vote, generally citing the lack of evidence that any alleged fraud would have altered the outcome in a particular state. The Republican plaintiffs argued that since their observers couldn’t watch the vote counts or were prevented from seeing other evidence, they couldn’t provide such proof without investigations backed by subpoena power. Still, while some judges have agreed that irregularities had occurred in 2020, but weren’t willing to grant discovery in the absence of evidence that fraud could reverse the election results. Republicans thus faced a Catch-22 situation.
Recounts haven’t been useful in resolving fraud concerns, as they merely involve recounting the same potentially fraudulent ballots.
Signature verification is far from perfect, as election employees have as little as five seconds to check a signature. Amidst unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election, many states didn’t even try to verify signatures. If someone mailed in multiple ballots, there was virtually no way to catch them. And without tamper-resistant photo IDs, fraud is difficult to prove. Unless someone tries voting multiple times in the same precinct, there is no way to catch them.
My research provides three tests of vote fraud.
First, I compared precincts in a county with alleged fraud to adjacent, similar precincts in neighboring counties with no fraud allegations. Precincts tend to be small, homogeneous areas, and many consist of fewer than a thousand registered voters. When comparing President Trump’s absentee ballot vote shares among these adjacent precincts, I accounted for differences in Trump’s in-person vote share and in registered voters’ demographics in both precincts.
While precincts count in-person votes, central county offices are responsible for counting absentee or mail-in ballots. A county with systemic fraud may count absentee or mail-in ballots differently from a neighboring county. We can try to detect this fraud by comparing the results in bordering precincts that happen to fall on opposite sides of a county line. These precincts will tend to be virtually identical to each other – voters may simply be on the other side of the street from their precinct neighbors.
In 2016, there was no unexplained gap in absentee ballot counts. But 2020 was a different story. Just in Fulton County, Georgia, my test yielded an unexplained 17,000 votes – 32% more than Biden’s margin over Trump in the entire state.
With the focus on winning the state, there is no apparent reason why Democrats would get out the absentee ballot vote more in one precinct than in a neighboring precinct with similar political and demographic characteristics.
Next I applied the same method to provisional ballots in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Contrary to state law, voters were allegedly allowed to correct defects in absentee ballots by submitting provisional ballots on Election Day. My analysis found that such permissions in Allegheny County alone contributed to a statistically significant 6,700 additional votes for Biden – in a state decided by fewer than 81,000 votes.
Finally, artificially large voter turnouts can also be a sign of vote fraud. This fraud could come in the form of filling out absentee ballots for people who didn’t vote, voting by ineligible people, or bribing people for their votes.
Republican-leaning swing state counties had higher turnouts relative to the 2016 election. Democratic-leaning counties had lower turnouts, except for the Democratic counties with alleged vote fraud, which had very high turnouts.
My estimates likely understate the true amount of fraud with absentee ballots, as I didn’t attempt to ascertain possible in-person voting fraud. Allegations have arisen of many ineligible in-person voters in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In Fulton County, Georgia, 2,423 voters were not listed as registered on the state’s records, and 2,560 felons voted even though they had not completed their sentences.”
The US faced some of their best weaponry and armor in Iraq and cut thru it like a hot knife thru butter. They know it too, that’s why they keep threatening nukes.
“So far, Russia’s conventional military forces have been waging the war against Ukraine, and for this first month many of the reports have been about seeming Russian failures or stalls or of the Russian military being “bogged down.” However, since propaganda on both sides is also a large factor in this war, much of this was initially considered to be possible or even probable Ukrainian propaganda and exaggeration.
There’s almost certainly still some of that. And it remains possible that through sheer numbers and willingness to take and inflict heavy casualties that Russia will win militarily in the end. That’s the traditional Russian way of war. But over time I think it’s become more clear that the Russian military actually does have some grave problems.
Some people were well aware of those failings already, as this video makes clear:”
“So, is the Russian military at least somewhat of a facade-like Potemkin village? If so, that doesn’t mean they still can’t inflict great damage – they can – but it certainly hampers them in that effort. But the deleterious effects for the Russian forces may be even greater in an invasion of Ukraine, because reports are that mud season has been a problem, and troops were not even told they would be fighting in Ukraine (where many of them might have relatives and friends). So there may be a significant amount of increased internal psychological conflict among the troops and morale may be even lower than usual.”
Military equipment is extremely expensive, as is maintaining a well-trained standing military force. (See the Pentagon budget).
Remember? This is why the USSR dissolved–they nearly went bankrupt trying to match the US military. We saw their state-of-the art equipment in 1996 and that’s when the US military realized the days of the USSR were numbered.
So yes, a Potemkin village is an analogy that’s been discussed among people I know.
And the guy we watch on Youtube (because he uses maps!), keeps saying with a laugh, “At this rate, the Ukrainian farmers have the fifth best military in the war.”
If it wasn’t so tragic . . . well, it’s nothing but tragic.
It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic and sad.
In Europe, Biden called for regime change in Russia, said U.S. troops were being sent to Ukraine, and suggested he would use chemical weapons against Putin.
Weird that a supposed minority has a majority of them identifying as said minority. It's almost like they're being indoctrinated to believe that the norm is to be part of the group.
You do not have 20 alphabet students. You have 20 students who are telling you what you want to hear so they will receive praise and attention. Classic grooming techniques.
The bill I signed today protects Florida parents like January Littlejohn. School officials manipulated her daughter to “transition,” calling her a male name & pronouns without January’s knowledge or consent. This is wrong & today’s legislation will ensure it doesn’t happen again. pic.twitter.com/qH4VKUgmkO
I’m surprised O’keefe is still taken seriously. Many of his donors have left and he seems ever so desperate to remain relevant. Given his various litigation settlements, some costing over 100K, its no wonder the National Review and Washington Review want nothing to do with him . And now he’s chasing the diary of a 40 year old social worker.
Of course, the DOJ and FBI are political. The Palmer raids, the Red Scare, Cointelpro, etc are all examples of a political DOJ/FBI. They even investigated MLK and Gandhi — O’keefe should be happy to be in such company. But seriously, if you are harassing the daughter of any president you will be investigated.
Your 8:15 am post is weird. Any time someone starts their article with a paragraph of “imagine” you might want to disregard the rest. He’s obviously fear mongering for effect. And when he goes on to doubt the standard narrative on Ukraine in favor of the Russian narrative, you know its time to ignore him.
The column on voter fraud is equally bizarre. He compares the results of votes on either side of the county line and concludes the differences are implausible. That conclusion itself is implausible — sometime road, highways and streets are very real political boundaries. Even in the middle of my political district a street a block from my house is a very real boundary between the socialist bloc in my neighborhood and the liberal bloc across the street. The US election was legitimate and every time Trump enablers say otherwise is more propaganda for the authoritarians in the world who say democracy is a farce.
Its not the actual equipment. Much of the Ukraine military is still using Soviet era equipment especially in terms of heavy armor and jets. The difference is training, strategy, command/control and use of NCOs. Since 2014, the Ukraine military has been trained by US, UK and Canadian military. Corruption, once rampant, has been rooted out. One of the basic tenets of the Canadian military since WWI has been decentralized decision making and full disclosure right to the grunt level. This encourages initiative and prevents a stagnant offensive. Meanwhile the Russian army isn’t much different than the Soviet era –secretive with little regard for the grunts. Rampant corruption has led to very little maintenance. Russia officers have routinely pocketed money meant for maintenance — normally this wouldn’t be an issue unless the military was actually used. And now the military is being used, its an issue.
There’s also some weird strategic errors. Fighting in Russia has traditionally featured a summer and winter offensive whereas fall and spring were the mud seasons. Both the Germans and the Soviets never launched offenses during the mud seasons. Now we see the Russia armor bogged down in mud….. they should know better. Similarly, standard defense of large countries with less manpower and military power is to retreat and stretch the supply lines of the superior enemy. The Soviets did this in WWII. Canada’s defense plans against a US invasion until the 1950s also featured the same strategy. And yet the Russians appear not to have predicted the Ukrainians using the same strategy. And then there is the poor morale….
The DeSanis signing ceremony was weird. He was signing a bill meant to discourage or curtail the discussion of gender and sexuality among gr K-3 children. At the signing ceremony, there were several children from grades K-3 — doesn’t their presence contradict the actual purpose of the bill. If deSantis actually cared about the children would he not have signed the bill quietly away from the children? I can just imagine some of these kids leaving the signing ceremony wondering about gender and sexuality issues.
Obviously a primary class who identifies over 50% as LGBQT can be kids pandering to their teacher or a teacher over reporting. On the other hand, students are often assigned to a particular teacher in elementary school based on the teacher’s ability/personality and the student’s perceived need. Its why my classroom routinely has LGBQT students and my colleagues do not. Teachers from lower grades will assign me students they feel will benefit form my classroom atmosphere compared to my colleagues. And my colleagues are only too happy to encourage this tradition. Its become part of my acknowledged expertise. At the same time, I hope that outside observers don’t take this as a hidden agenda on my part. Currently I have two students with gender identity issues and four with ambiguous sexuality compared to my teaching partners who have only one (and who has expressed a desire to be in my class next year) . Trust me, I have no agenda — I’d rather not deal with these issues.
Wandering Views 
Of course, because we’re a banana republic now under Slow Joe.
“Secret Seizure of James O’Keefe Cloud Email, Abusive DOJ Lawyers and a Vindictive Father President”
https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2022/03/26/secret-seizure-of-james-okeefe-cloud-email-abusive-doj-lawyers-and-a-vindictive-father-president-n1584457
“In the Washington D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Va., carjackings have made the news lately. Thieves steal cars at Virginia gas stations and race across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac and into Maryland to relative safety.
The Department of Justice doesn’t seem to be doing anything about enforcing the federal laws prohibiting transport of stolen goods across the Virginia-Maryland state line.
If the carjacker was named James O’Keefe of Project Veritas, things would be very different.
The saga of James O’Keefe’s quite possibly completely legal acquisition of Ashley Biden’s diary, and the resulting DOJ secret seizure of his emails from the Microsoft Office 365 cloud, is disgraceful. The lawyers involved should be ashamed, and perhaps even sanctioned by the bars to which they belong. It is an example of a Justice Department even more politicized than it was under Eric Holder, something few thought possible.
It also is a warning about storing documents and communications on someone else’s computer, aka the Cloud.
First, the basic facts. President Biden’s daughter Ashley rented a room in a seedy part of Delray Beach, Fla. When she moved out in the summer of 2020, she left behind bags of her belongings. She ostensibly planned to retrieve them eventually, but never did. A new tenant moved in and found the belongings in her new-rented room.
Among the belongings was Ashley Biden’s diary.
Through twists and turns, all initiated by the new tenant in Ashley Biden’s old room, the diary came to O’Keefe. Project Veritas paid $40,000 for the diary but ultimately decided not to publish it. An employee of Veritas eventually flew from New York to Florida and dropped it off at a police station.
That would have been the end of it, had it been the New York Times or CNN instead of Project Veritas or James O’Keefe.
The reason the diary is in the news still is that Democrats and lawyers at the Justice Department want to disappear O’Keefe.
Why? O’Keefe has done more damage to the left and the Democrat agenda than most all House Republicans combined over the last decade. He has wrecked ACORN, exposed gangsterism in Democrat campaigns and among union activists, and shown media like NPR and CNN to be handmaidens of crazy.
And so, that wasn’t the end of the story of the President’s daughter’s diary, because the person who had it was named James O’Keefe.
We now know that the Department of Justice secretly seized O’Keefe’s emails from the Microsoft Office 365 cloud.
The secret seizure also included emails having nothing to do with Biden’s daughter, and therefore revealed to the government the scores of other investigations Project Veritas is undertaking.
The confiscation included all contact information from O’Keefe’s Microsoft Office 365 cloud account — including most likely this author’s — as well as all of the affected employees. It also included emails and files from the Microsoft Office 365 account predating the saga with the Biden diary.
All in secret.
The purported federal predicate is the interstate transport of stolen goods — Ashley Biden’s diary.
What we have here is the weight of the federal government coming down on a political opponent of the ruling party who touched on a matter of potential family embarrassment for the President.
Had you told an American two decades ago such a thing would be possible, they would have scoffed.”
Indeed, I was a Justice Department lawyer, and at least in my section, there was a concerted effort to avoid any appearance of abuse of power. I once needed to obtain something from a very, very large American newspaper, and the hoops I had to jump through to even suggest compelling evidence were astonishing. They were designed to avoid any perception that the Department was abusing press freedom or intimidating political opponents of the party in power.
Things sure have changed at the Southern District of New York. There, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Sobelman, Mitzi Steiner, and Jacqueline Kelly have fought to keep the seizure of O’Keefe’s papers secret, even after the investigation was publicly revealed in November 2021. Kelly’s LinkedIn page says she heads the criminal civil rights unit at the Southern District of New York. Kelly clerked for an Obama-appointed federal judge and went to Columbia law school and Cornell. Of course she did.
One basis in law to keep secret a seizure of documents on the Microsoft 365 cloud is that it would reveal the existence of an investigation. When FBI agents battered down the front door of O’Keefe’s home in November 2021, the investigation was no longer secret. Yet these three DOJ lawyers failed to inform a federal judge in multiple subsequent pleadings that the federal government had secretly seized O’Keefe’s emails.
Meanwhile, the left has formed a whole new group to agitate for the disbarment of republican lawyers who represented President Trump.
Perhaps a group should be formed to seek the disbarment of Justice Department lawyers who engage in abuse of power, misconduct, and misrepresentations to courts. After all, there is no shortage of worthy lawyers inside DOJ to target for discipline.”
——
A free country with a neutral press would be all over this. But our media is a joke and stares at it feet because the right journalist was targeted in their biased minds. They’re pathetic for not speaking up on this.
LikeLike
Are you not entertained?
“The Coming Disaster”
“Nations change course slowly, like giant ocean liners. True disasters take a long time to unfold. If you think things look terrible now, you’re not using your imagination. The Biden Administration has only been in power for a little over a year. They got their crowbar in the door early with COVID, but we’ve barely tasted what the professional political class has in store for us.
Imagine gas at $10 a gallon, or $15. Imagine food staples so scarce you have to buy them with a ration card (displayed in a government-mandated phone app that tracks your family’s consumption). Imagine a new pandemic with a pathogen much deadlier than COVID, that actually kills a substantial number of the people it infects. Imagine an infrastructure attack that erases peoples’ bank accounts. Imagine a real, global war.
I’ve already written in support of Ukraine here, and I have been warning about the danger of a Russia-China alliance for a long time. But something about this Ukraine business rubs me the wrong way: All the people who updated their profile pictures with vaccination status to posture and to shame their friends have now updated their profile pictures again with Ukrainian flags. The mainstream media is in lockstep support. We’re bombarded with ridiculous stories about the “Ghost of Kiev” and Ukrainian farmers dismantling Russian tank columns. Last Friday, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush visited a Ukrainian church together to lay flowers.
Something is definitely wrong here.
When we see the real establishment out in such force, it should set alarm bells off in our brains: We may not understand the nature of the lie, yet. But we can be certain they are lying to us.
It used to puzzle me that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were so close and personable, after all the terrible things they and their supporters had said about each other. But that was back in those innocent days before I realized that the distinction between political parties is superficial compared to the real distinction between power on the one hand and ordinary people on the other. Clinton and Bush have no disagreements severe enough to challenge their joint commitment to being in charge. There may be no honor among thieves—and that’s all politicians are—but they afford each other broad recognition and support, as members of the same class.
We should be cautious here because the long-term goals of establishment politicians line up much better with America’s enemies than they do with the goals of most Americans: Expensive gasoline limits our personal mobility, and can be used to pressure us en masse toward electric cars, which offer less freedom of movement and can be switched off remotely. Expensive food leaves us with less discretionary money to spend, which means a more controlled economy. And a war, among other things, is the greatest opportunity of all for government to expand its power. (If you doubt that, just remember that metered parking in cities was introduced as a temporary revenue-raising measure during World War II.)”
LikeLike
So I guess the Oscars finally had something watchable…..
Will Smith punching and cussing out Chris Rock. They cut the sound on the US broadcast, but the foreign feeds did not. I’ll give you the clean version.
And yeah, Chris kinda had it coming.
https://twitter.com/GPollowitz/status/1508271330797441024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1508271330797441024%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fgregp-3534%2F2022%2F03%2F27%2Fheres-the-completely-bonkers-uncensored-clip-of-will-smith-smacking-the-sit-out-of-chris-rock-at-the-oscars%2F
LikeLike
Fake news doing what they do, which is lie to those stupid enough to read their garbage product.
——
LikeLike
Huh. That’s not what the media keeps telling us, because they lie.
“New Peer-Reviewed Research Finds Evidence of 2020 Voter Fraud”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/03/28/new_peer-reviewed_research_finds_evidence_of_2020_voter_fraud_147378.html
“By a margin of 52% to 40%, voters believe that “cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.” That’s per a Rasmussen Reports survey from this month. This stands in stark contrast to the countless news stories editorializing about “no evidence of voter fraud” and “the myth of voter fraud.”
It isn’t just Republicans who believe this cheating occurred. Even 34% of Democrats believe it, as do 38% of those who “somewhat” support President Biden. A broad range of Americans think this: men, women, all age groups, whites, those who are neither white nor black, Republicans, those who are neither Republicans nor Democrats, all job categories, all income groups except those making over $200,000 per year, and all education groups except those who attended graduate school.
And with good reason. New research of mine is forthcoming in the peer-reviewed economics journal Public Choice, and it finds evidence of around 255,000 excess votes (possibly as many as 368,000) for Joe Biden in six swing states where Donald Trump lodged accusations of fraud. Biden only carried these states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – by a total of 313,253 votes. Excluding Michigan, the gap was 159,065.
The point of this work isn’t to contest the 2020 election, but to point out that we have a real problem that needs to be dealt with. Americans must have confidence in future elections.
Some Trump allies, such as attorney Sidney Powell, who famously promised to “Release the Kraken” and then provided no evidence, have helped to discredit these concerns.
Courts have rejected challenges to the 2020 presidential vote, generally citing the lack of evidence that any alleged fraud would have altered the outcome in a particular state. The Republican plaintiffs argued that since their observers couldn’t watch the vote counts or were prevented from seeing other evidence, they couldn’t provide such proof without investigations backed by subpoena power. Still, while some judges have agreed that irregularities had occurred in 2020, but weren’t willing to grant discovery in the absence of evidence that fraud could reverse the election results. Republicans thus faced a Catch-22 situation.
Recounts haven’t been useful in resolving fraud concerns, as they merely involve recounting the same potentially fraudulent ballots.
Signature verification is far from perfect, as election employees have as little as five seconds to check a signature. Amidst unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election, many states didn’t even try to verify signatures. If someone mailed in multiple ballots, there was virtually no way to catch them. And without tamper-resistant photo IDs, fraud is difficult to prove. Unless someone tries voting multiple times in the same precinct, there is no way to catch them.
My research provides three tests of vote fraud.
First, I compared precincts in a county with alleged fraud to adjacent, similar precincts in neighboring counties with no fraud allegations. Precincts tend to be small, homogeneous areas, and many consist of fewer than a thousand registered voters. When comparing President Trump’s absentee ballot vote shares among these adjacent precincts, I accounted for differences in Trump’s in-person vote share and in registered voters’ demographics in both precincts.
While precincts count in-person votes, central county offices are responsible for counting absentee or mail-in ballots. A county with systemic fraud may count absentee or mail-in ballots differently from a neighboring county. We can try to detect this fraud by comparing the results in bordering precincts that happen to fall on opposite sides of a county line. These precincts will tend to be virtually identical to each other – voters may simply be on the other side of the street from their precinct neighbors.
In 2016, there was no unexplained gap in absentee ballot counts. But 2020 was a different story. Just in Fulton County, Georgia, my test yielded an unexplained 17,000 votes – 32% more than Biden’s margin over Trump in the entire state.
With the focus on winning the state, there is no apparent reason why Democrats would get out the absentee ballot vote more in one precinct than in a neighboring precinct with similar political and demographic characteristics.
Next I applied the same method to provisional ballots in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Contrary to state law, voters were allegedly allowed to correct defects in absentee ballots by submitting provisional ballots on Election Day. My analysis found that such permissions in Allegheny County alone contributed to a statistically significant 6,700 additional votes for Biden – in a state decided by fewer than 81,000 votes.
Finally, artificially large voter turnouts can also be a sign of vote fraud. This fraud could come in the form of filling out absentee ballots for people who didn’t vote, voting by ineligible people, or bribing people for their votes.
Republican-leaning swing state counties had higher turnouts relative to the 2016 election. Democratic-leaning counties had lower turnouts, except for the Democratic counties with alleged vote fraud, which had very high turnouts.
My estimates likely understate the true amount of fraud with absentee ballots, as I didn’t attempt to ascertain possible in-person voting fraud. Allegations have arisen of many ineligible in-person voters in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In Fulton County, Georgia, 2,423 voters were not listed as registered on the state’s records, and 2,560 felons voted even though they had not completed their sentences.”
LikeLike
Joe did that! 😜
LikeLike
Overrated. Their military, and it’s equipment.
The US faced some of their best weaponry and armor in Iraq and cut thru it like a hot knife thru butter. They know it too, that’s why they keep threatening nukes.
“The Russian Military: Hype Versus Reality
Is it somewhat of a Potemkin village?”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/03/the-russian-military-hype-versus-reality/
“So far, Russia’s conventional military forces have been waging the war against Ukraine, and for this first month many of the reports have been about seeming Russian failures or stalls or of the Russian military being “bogged down.” However, since propaganda on both sides is also a large factor in this war, much of this was initially considered to be possible or even probable Ukrainian propaganda and exaggeration.
There’s almost certainly still some of that. And it remains possible that through sheer numbers and willingness to take and inflict heavy casualties that Russia will win militarily in the end. That’s the traditional Russian way of war. But over time I think it’s become more clear that the Russian military actually does have some grave problems.
Some people were well aware of those failings already, as this video makes clear:”
“So, is the Russian military at least somewhat of a facade-like Potemkin village? If so, that doesn’t mean they still can’t inflict great damage – they can – but it certainly hampers them in that effort. But the deleterious effects for the Russian forces may be even greater in an invasion of Ukraine, because reports are that mud season has been a problem, and troops were not even told they would be fighting in Ukraine (where many of them might have relatives and friends). So there may be a significant amount of increased internal psychological conflict among the troops and morale may be even lower than usual.”
LikeLike
Military equipment is extremely expensive, as is maintaining a well-trained standing military force. (See the Pentagon budget).
Remember? This is why the USSR dissolved–they nearly went bankrupt trying to match the US military. We saw their state-of-the art equipment in 1996 and that’s when the US military realized the days of the USSR were numbered.
So yes, a Potemkin village is an analogy that’s been discussed among people I know.
And the guy we watch on Youtube (because he uses maps!), keeps saying with a laugh, “At this rate, the Ukrainian farmers have the fifth best military in the war.”
If it wasn’t so tragic . . . well, it’s nothing but tragic.
LikeLiked by 3 people
It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic and sad.
LikeLike
He’s not wrong, and Putin knows it too.
“Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Says Biden Is “All Talk,” Accusing Him Of Not Being Courageous…”
LikeLike
Flee from evil.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1508508056572751872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1508508056572751872%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fbrettt-3136%2F2022%2F03%2F28%2Freport-fourth-grade-teacher-says-20-of-her-32-students-have-come-out-to-her-as-lgbtqia%2F
———
LikeLike
———-
https://twitter.com/DanFriedman81/status/1508527324861538305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1508527324861538305%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fbrettt-3136%2F2022%2F03%2F28%2Freport-fourth-grade-teacher-says-20-of-her-32-students-have-come-out-to-her-as-lgbtqia%2F
Thankfully, or she’d continue indoctrinating and grooming.
LikeLike
Again, flee from evil.
LikeLike
And thank you Gov. DeSantis, for protecting the kids from these predators masquerading as educators.
LikeLike
Leading educator lades and gentlemen…..
——-
LikeLike
I’m surprised O’keefe is still taken seriously. Many of his donors have left and he seems ever so desperate to remain relevant. Given his various litigation settlements, some costing over 100K, its no wonder the National Review and Washington Review want nothing to do with him . And now he’s chasing the diary of a 40 year old social worker.
Of course, the DOJ and FBI are political. The Palmer raids, the Red Scare, Cointelpro, etc are all examples of a political DOJ/FBI. They even investigated MLK and Gandhi — O’keefe should be happy to be in such company. But seriously, if you are harassing the daughter of any president you will be investigated.
Your 8:15 am post is weird. Any time someone starts their article with a paragraph of “imagine” you might want to disregard the rest. He’s obviously fear mongering for effect. And when he goes on to doubt the standard narrative on Ukraine in favor of the Russian narrative, you know its time to ignore him.
The column on voter fraud is equally bizarre. He compares the results of votes on either side of the county line and concludes the differences are implausible. That conclusion itself is implausible — sometime road, highways and streets are very real political boundaries. Even in the middle of my political district a street a block from my house is a very real boundary between the socialist bloc in my neighborhood and the liberal bloc across the street. The US election was legitimate and every time Trump enablers say otherwise is more propaganda for the authoritarians in the world who say democracy is a farce.
LikeLike
Its not the actual equipment. Much of the Ukraine military is still using Soviet era equipment especially in terms of heavy armor and jets. The difference is training, strategy, command/control and use of NCOs. Since 2014, the Ukraine military has been trained by US, UK and Canadian military. Corruption, once rampant, has been rooted out. One of the basic tenets of the Canadian military since WWI has been decentralized decision making and full disclosure right to the grunt level. This encourages initiative and prevents a stagnant offensive. Meanwhile the Russian army isn’t much different than the Soviet era –secretive with little regard for the grunts. Rampant corruption has led to very little maintenance. Russia officers have routinely pocketed money meant for maintenance — normally this wouldn’t be an issue unless the military was actually used. And now the military is being used, its an issue.
There’s also some weird strategic errors. Fighting in Russia has traditionally featured a summer and winter offensive whereas fall and spring were the mud seasons. Both the Germans and the Soviets never launched offenses during the mud seasons. Now we see the Russia armor bogged down in mud….. they should know better. Similarly, standard defense of large countries with less manpower and military power is to retreat and stretch the supply lines of the superior enemy. The Soviets did this in WWII. Canada’s defense plans against a US invasion until the 1950s also featured the same strategy. And yet the Russians appear not to have predicted the Ukrainians using the same strategy. And then there is the poor morale….
LikeLike
The DeSanis signing ceremony was weird. He was signing a bill meant to discourage or curtail the discussion of gender and sexuality among gr K-3 children. At the signing ceremony, there were several children from grades K-3 — doesn’t their presence contradict the actual purpose of the bill. If deSantis actually cared about the children would he not have signed the bill quietly away from the children? I can just imagine some of these kids leaving the signing ceremony wondering about gender and sexuality issues.
Obviously a primary class who identifies over 50% as LGBQT can be kids pandering to their teacher or a teacher over reporting. On the other hand, students are often assigned to a particular teacher in elementary school based on the teacher’s ability/personality and the student’s perceived need. Its why my classroom routinely has LGBQT students and my colleagues do not. Teachers from lower grades will assign me students they feel will benefit form my classroom atmosphere compared to my colleagues. And my colleagues are only too happy to encourage this tradition. Its become part of my acknowledged expertise. At the same time, I hope that outside observers don’t take this as a hidden agenda on my part. Currently I have two students with gender identity issues and four with ambiguous sexuality compared to my teaching partners who have only one (and who has expressed a desire to be in my class next year) . Trust me, I have no agenda — I’d rather not deal with these issues.
LikeLike