Thursday, February 25, 2021

In a dangerous threat to our democracy, House Democrats to question election results

Sorry, I forgot. It's only a threat to Democracy if Republicans question election results!
The House Administration Committee gathered virtually Friday afternoon to finalize the process by which it will adjudicate Hart’s claim, which was filed under the Federal Contested Elections Act. The committee has been largely silent since Hart first made her contest in December, but the hearing suggests that it is preparing to review the matter further
In question is the outcome of just one district — but Democrats hold only a five-seat majority in the House, making even a small change in numbers significant…
“We are glad to see the House Committee on Administration taking action towards ensuring that every legally-cast vote is counted in this race and that all Iowans’ voices are heard,” Hart campaign manager Zach Meunier said in a statement. “Every legal voter in this country has a right to have their ballot counted and the remedy here is clear — count the ballots.”
Most observers believed that this was over and that Democrats would not touch the concept of "questioning election results" with a ten foot pole after the Capital Riot melt-down. In fact, because the Hart Campaign failed to exhaust their legal options within the State of Iowa, the Federal Contested Elections Act shouldn't even legally apply here. 

But now it appears that the power hungry Pelosi clinging to her ultrathin five seat majority might just do the unthinkable and actually "overturn" the legally certified election results in Iowa. At least they are mulling the possibility. Personally I couldn't think of a better GOP 2022 election campaign issue than being able to show that Pelosi and the Democrats literally overturned a Republican certified election winner to seat a Democrat who legally and officially lost.

At issue are a specific number of ballots identified by the Hart campaign that were deemed to be illegal under Iowa election laws. Hart is insisting that the ballots were improperly declared illegal, basically providing a ballot by ballot explanation as to why the ballots were turned in under unusual situations. In many cases providing affidavits from those who submitted the ballots. 

The bigger issue, of course, is that if you open up every election to start looking at rejected ballots, seeking out individuals to provide specific information, when does that end? If we allow these particular ballots to be counted (in spite of everyone being in agreement that they were technically illegal), how can we be sure that the hundreds of other ballots that were rejected for similar reasons do not have similar explanations. At the very heart of equal protection under election law is the idea that all ballots are treated the same way. 

So I might argue that short of Pelosi and gang looking at every single rejected ballot, calling everyone associated with those rejected ballots, allow those people to provide their explanations, and then taking everyone at their word, that the very concept of allowing any rejected ballots to count is unconstitutional. But more to the point, the constitution provides that States make their own election laws and must (under the constitution) follow those election laws. As long as those laws were followed, then Iowa followed the constitution, did what was right, and they certified the correct person as winner of that particular seat. 

So either way, such a challenge and any attempts by Democrats to overturn the certified election results of this Iowa race would make them complete hypocrites regarding any and all criticism of anyone associated with challenging the Presidential election results. If they follow through with this power grab, then they give up any moral or ethical high ground they act as if they have.

16 comments:

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

Tax records that former ? tried to keep secret for years are now in the hands of the New York district attorney.

Prosecutors obtained the records on Monday, according to a source, just hours after the US Supreme Court denied Trump’s last-ditch effort to keep the records private.

The millions of pages of documents, sources say, contain Trump’s tax returns spanning from January 2011 to August 2019, as well as financial statements, engagement agreements, documents relating to the preparation and review of tax returns, and work papers and communications related to the tax returns.


rrb said...





boy alky, you come right out of the gate on every single new thread looking to fuck it up from the first comment.

good job asshole.

THWAP!!!


LOL.

rrb said...

So either way, such a challenge and any attempts by Democrats to overturn the certified election results of this Iowa race would make them complete hypocrites regarding any and all criticism of anyone associated with challenging the Presidential election results. If they follow through with this power grab, then they give up any moral or ethical high ground they act as if they have.


true, but this challenge doesn't surprise me and it is one that I actually expected. Peloshee's majority is so razor thin it's not funny, so she needs every seat she can steal. couple that with her being the first speaker to fail on TWO impeachments, and she's looking for every bit of leverage she can find.

hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug with these clowns.


Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...

Prosecutors Now Have Trump’s Tax Records
CNN:
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has now obtained former President Donald Trump’s tax returns and related records.

The records include “millions of pages of documents.”


Ex-Girlfriend Turned In Capitol Rioter After Rude Text
WaPo:
“Standing on the Capitol steps on Jan. 6, Richard Michetti allegedly took a break from the rioting to argue with his ex-girlfriend over text message. After sending photos and videos of the mob and boasting how he had avoided tear gas, Michetti parroted Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Texted Michetti:
“If you can’t see the election was stolen you’re a moron.”

“The next day, the woman he had insulted promptly told the FBI that her ex was at the Capitol, handing over to law enforcement the string of texts, photos and videos he had sent to her.”

LOL


Making No Friends on Capitol Hill
NBC News:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) placed a sign outside her office Wednesday mocking Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL), whose office sits across the hall, after Newman hung a transgender pride flag next to her door in protest over Greene’s opposition to a LGBTQ rights bill, NBC News reports.

Newman’s daughter is transgender.


From Outcast to King of CPAC
First Read:
“Just five years ago, Donald Trump pulled out of speaking at the annual CPAC conference. That decision came during the throes of the 2016 GOP nominating contest, when fellow Republicans were questioning Trump’s conservative credentials and when there was talk about a possible walk-out to protest Trump’s scheduled speech.

“Now? Not only is Trump the featured Sunday speaker at this year’s upcoming CPAC conference in Orlando — coming after his defeat, after the GOP lost the Senate and after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — he’s reshaped CPAC and the conservative movement in his image.”

HE IS GOING TO RUN THE GOP.



Assessing the Impact of Absentee Voting
Alan Abramowitz:
Although eased absentee voting rules in last year’s presidential election contributed to higher voter participation rates, Joe Biden’s performance still tracked closely with Hillary Clinton’s state-by-state results in 2016 — he just performed slightly better across the board.

Abramowitz's conclusion:
“All told, the sharp increase in absentee voting in 2020 wasn’t disproportionately beneficial to either presidential candidate.”

Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...

TALK ABOUT REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY!!!!
What Terrible Things Did Neera Tanden Tweet?

Dana Millbank:
“Can you believe that Neera Tanden called Hillary Clinton the ‘anti-Christ’ and the ‘real enemy’? Oh, wait. It was Ryan Zinke who said those things. Fifty-one Republican senators (and several Democrats, including Joe Manchin) confirmed him as secretary of the interior in 2017.

“And how about the times Tanden allegedly called the NAACP a ‘pinko organization’ that ‘hates white people’ and used racial epithets? My bad. That was Jeff Sessions. Again, 51 Republican senators (and one Democrat, Manchin) voted to confirm him as attorney general in 2017.

“Surely Tanden went beyond the pale when she “liked” a tweet calling then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry a ‘traitor’ and ‘Vietnam’s worst export,’ and when she suggested Clinton supporters leave the country. Except Mike Pompeo was the one who did those things. He won confirmation as secretary of state in 2018 with the votes of 50 Republicans and six Democrats, including Manchin."

Anonymous said...

Roger failed to include this from the story.
"An inverted yield curve for US Treasury bonds is among the most consistent recession indicators."


Roger, ran off, a shame , I wanted more of his economic wisdom and debate him on the inverted bond curve.

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

You denied to acknowledge the President intended to stop counting ballots and destroy the Constitutional republic, but instead you tirade about one congressional seat.

Indy describes you to tee

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

Scott's fantasy

It’s 2021, and president donald trump will shortly be sworn in for his second term. The 45th president has visibly aged over the past four years. He rests heavily on his daughter Ivanka’s arm during his infrequent public appearances.

Fortunately for him, he did not need to campaign hard for reelection. His has been a popular presidency: Big tax cuts, big spending, and big deficits have worked their familiar expansive magic. Wages have grown strongly in the Trump years, especially for men without a college degree, even if rising inflation is beginning to bite into the gains. The president’s supporters credit his restrictive immigration policies and his TrumpWorks infrastructure program.

The president’s critics, meanwhile, have found little hearing for their protests and complaints. A Senate investigation of Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential campaign sputtered into inconclusive partisan wrangling. Concerns about Trump’s purported conflicts of interest excited debate in Washington but never drew much attention from the wider American public.

Allegations of fraud and self-dealing in the TrumpWorks program, and elsewhere, have likewise been shrugged off. The president regularly tweets out news of factory openings and big hiring announcements: “I’m bringing back your jobs,” he has said over and over. Voters seem to have believed him—and are grateful.

Most Americans intuit that their president and his relatives have become vastly wealthier over the past four years. But rumors of graft are easy to dismiss. Because Trump has never released his tax returns, no one really knows.

Anyway, doesn’t everybody do it? On the eve of the 2018 congressional elections, WikiLeaks released years of investment statements by prominent congressional Democrats indicating that they had long earned above-market returns. As the air filled with allegations of insider trading and crony capitalism, the public subsided into weary cynicism. The Republicans held both houses of Congress that November, and Trump loyalists shouldered aside the pre-Trump leadership.

The business community learned its lesson early. “You work for me, you don’t criticize me,” the president was reported to have told one major federal contractor, after knocking billions off his company’s stock-market valuation with an angry tweet. Wise business leaders take care to credit Trump’s personal leadership for any good news, and to avoid saying anything that might displease the president or his family.

Caliphate4vr said...

Absolutely freaking ridiculous

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

The media have grown noticeably more friendly to Trump as well. The proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner was delayed for more than a year, during which Time Warner’s CNN unit worked ever harder to meet Trump’s definition of fairness. Under the agreement that settled the Department of Justice’s antitrust complaint against Amazon, the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has divested himself of The Washington Post. The paper’s new owner—an investor group based in Slovakia—has closed the printed edition and refocused the paper on municipal politics and lifestyle coverage.

Meanwhile, social media circulate ever-wilder rumors. Some people believe them; others don’t. It’s hard work to ascertain what is true.

Nobody’s repealed the First Amendment, of course, and Americans remain as free to speak their minds as ever—provided they can stomach seeing their timelines fill up with obscene abuse and angry threats from the pro-Trump troll armies that police Facebook and Twitter. Rather than deal with digital thugs, young people increasingly drift to less political media like Snapchat and Instagram.

Trump-critical media do continue to find elite audiences. Their investigations still win Pulitzer Prizes; their reporters accept invitations to anxious conferences about corruption, digital-journalism standards, the end of nato, and the rise of populist authoritarianism. Yet somehow all of this earnest effort feels less and less relevant to American politics. President Trump communicates with the people directly via his Twitter account, ushering his supporters toward favorable information at Fox News or Breitbart.


Despite the hand-wringing, the country has in many ways changed much less than some feared or hoped four years ago. Ambitious Republican plans notwithstanding, the American social-welfare system, as most people encounter it, has remained largely intact during Trump’s first term. The predicted wave of mass deportations of illegal immigrants never materialized. A large illegal workforce remains in the country, with the tacit understanding that so long as these immigrants avoid politics, keeping their heads down and their mouths shut, nobody will look very hard for them.

“The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty.”

African Americans, young people, and the recently naturalized encounter increasing difficulties casting a vote in most states. But for all the talk of the rollback of rights, corporate America still seeks diversity in employment. Same-sex marriage remains the law of the land. Americans are no more and no less likely to say “Merry Christmas” than they were before Trump took office.

People crack jokes about Trump’s National Security Agency listening in on them. They cannot deeply mean it; after all, there’s no less sexting in America today than four years ago. Still, with all the hacks and leaks happening these days—particularly to the politically outspoken—it’s just common sense to be careful what you say in an email or on the phone. When has politics not been a dirty business? When have the rich and powerful not mostly gotten their way? The smart thing to do is tune out the political yammer, mind your own business, enjoy a relatively prosperous time, and leave the questions to the troublemakers.

Anonymous said...

Cali, the child abuse by the Teacher's union and The Dark Winter President has no boundaries.

rrb said...



good job alky.

several plagiarism's with zero relevance to the post.

THWAP!!!



Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/

David Frum

rrb said...


the full frontal assault on the First Amendment that fascists like Frum and the alky dream about -


Lawmakers are looking beyond the social media companies when it comes to cracking down on misinformation.

Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., sent letters to top executives at AT&T, Verizon, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Charter, Dish, Cox, Altice, Google parent Alphabet, and Disney-owned Hulu on Monday, urging them to address misinformation on their services. They linked disinformation and conspiracy theories to the radicalization of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as lawmakers moved to affirm President Joe Biden’s victory.

“Misinformation on TV has led to our current polluted information environment that radicalizes individuals to commit seditious acts and rejects public health best practices, among other issues in our public discourse,” the lawmakers wrote in the letters.

Eshoo and McNerney asked the providers how they determine whether to carry a channel and how they attempted to manage the spread of disinformation and incitement of violence between the 2020 election and Jan. 6 insurrection. Eshoo and McNerney identified Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network as channels that aired misinformation in the lead-up to the riot and that have spread false information about Covid-19.

The lawmakers also asked the companies if they planned to continue carrying the channels and why.


https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/capitol-riots-democrats-ask-tv-providers-about-role-in-spreading-misinformation.html

Secret Angel said...

Abolish the FBI.

The final straw for many in the bureau is the dishonest response to the January 6 swarm at the U.S. Capitol. For starters, the FBI had intelligence about Antifa’s plans to infiltrate the crowds of Trump supporters and incite violence.  But the FBI also was manipulating some of the very groups labeled as “white supremacists”, e.g. the Proud Boys.

rrb said...



https://turcopolier.com/can-we-reform-a-fbi-that-behaves-like-a-gestapo/


show your work, not so secret Alky Angel.

LOL.

THWAP!!!