Wednesday Afternoon Sugarlinks – Bridge Truther edition

by | Nov 11, 2020 | Daily Links | 323 comments

Local News

Brent Spence Bridge to be closed for several days after fiery semitruck crash, officials say

Covington Fire Chief Mark Pierce said one of the trucks was carrying 110 pounds of potassium hydroxide and 400 gallons of diesel fuel, causing the bulk of the fire.

Pierce said the potassium hydroxide won’t have an impact on anyone in the area and most of it has been diluted with water.

Covington Police Chief Robert Nader said a “code red” was put out in the area because officials weren’t sure what chemicals had leaked. It has since been lifted.

Bridge inspectors and EPA officials have responded to the scene but have not started their inspection due to the extremely high temperatures of the bridge. Officials said the fire burned at up to 1,500 degrees.

A truck fire can’t melt steel beams!!!

Also, have been crossing that bridge since the late 1980s and I have never heard it called the Brent Spence bridge.


Epic Matt Welch rant via Liz Wolfe

Comments bitch about Rand Paul and the hairstyles of both Welch and the other one.


The Right-Wing App That Rocketed to No. 1 After the Election

For years, some right-wing pundits have tried to orchestrate a conservative exodus from established social media networks to greener and less fact-checked pastures. Finally, in the aftermath of an election that President Donald Trump is trying to contest in part through a barrage of disinformation, a platform looking to siphon off right-leaning users is now seeing a boom in downloads.

The aftermath of Joe Biden’s election victory saw Parler, a social network “without violence and no censorship,” rocket to the top of the Apple App Store’s download charts over the weekend. Parler is a microblogging platform that closely resembles Twitter with its endless feed of short posts (there’s a 1,000-character limit), verified “influencer badges” for well-known pundits and politicians, and hashtags. The main difference is that the platform is far more permissive when it comes to misinformation and hate speech.

Slate has discovered Parler and they are shook! Shook, I say!

The sober and sage Slate comments are more proactive. Calls for it to be banned from the App store, for the FBI to investigate it, that it will “generate” a mass-shooting soon, that it is a Trump conspiracy to spread conspiracies, and that everyone there are Nazis.

Social media is cancer. Choosing a different form of cancer still means you have cancer. When Twitter bans you, they are actually attempting to cure your cancer. Don’t break open an old transformer and start chugging PCBs. 

 

 


About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

323 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “Covington Fire Chief Mark Pierce said one of the trucks was carrying 110 pounds of potassium hydroxide”

    That’s a lie.

    • Larry Joe

      That’s a suspiciously small amount of anything.

      • Not Adahn

        Eh, that’s way more KOH than you’d need to dissolve a body.

        I mean, so I’ve heard.

    • blackjack

      The lie is that a bridge is named after a guy named Brent. That’s my IRL first name and there just ain’t nobody noteworthy named that. I know, there’s the basketball player and the former head of national security and I think some news guy, but otherwise, no. I’ve only personally encountered two other people with that name. Everyone messes it up. I have to answer to pretty much anything that starts with B. Brett, Burt, Brad, you name ( sorry, pun) it!

      • blackjack

        Yeah, but first name?

      • db

        Brent Spiner?

      • The Hyperbole

        Reminds me of our old painter Brett, my dad constantly called him Brent, I’d correct him but would Brett just laugh and said he was used to it. Hell of a good guy and died way too young from lung cancer, and now I’m sad, thanks a lot Brent.

      • blackjack

        I knew I was the one guy you don’t like!

        I have a good friend named Brett and our wives (literally) mix up our names. It’s that bad.

  2. Rebel Scum

    Brent Spence Bridge to be closed for several days after fiery semitruck crash, officials say

    Could’ve avoided this if it was a full truck.

    • Not Adahn

      More like the Bent Spence bridge, amitrite?

      • blackjack

        SEE! That’s what I’m talking about!

      • C. Anacreon

        Ease up, Bundt cake.

    • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

      Do I wish horrible traffic jams on your hometown? I do not!

      • UnCivilServant

        I do. I want nothing but gridlock!

  3. Rebel Scum

    It is good to know that freedom of speech is now a “far-right” position.

    • The Other Kevin

      The funny thing is that nobody ever said the left would be censored in any of those apps.

      • juris imprudent

        They can’t venture off the social media map – out there at the edge where it’s labeled There Be Dragons.

    • bacon-magic

      The far-right is the cause of all this! – proggie with molatov in hand

  4. The Other Kevin

    “The main difference is that the platform is far more permissive when it comes to misinformation and hate speech.”

    I don’t expect it to be very long before there is legislation to either have these apps banned, or add some type of “uniform regulations” which will make them enforce the same censorship rules as Twitter and Facebook.

  5. Count Potato

    Joanne Nosuchinsky is so adorable.

    • Chafed

      Her last name sounds made-up.

      • C. Anacreon

        You’re right, there’s no such Insky in the phone book.

  6. R C Dean

    For years, some right-wing pundits have tried to orchestrate a conservative exodus from established social media networks to greener and less fact-checked pastures. Finally, in the aftermath of an election that President Donald Trump is trying to contest in part through a barrage of disinformation, a platform looking to siphon off right-leaning users is now seeing a boom in downloads.

    The aftermath of Joe Biden’s election victory saw Parler, a social network “without violence and no censorship,” rocket to the top of the Apple App Store’s download charts over the weekend. Parler is a microblogging platform that closely resembles Twitter with its endless feed of short posts (there’s a 1,000-character limit), verified “influencer badges” for well-known pundits and politicians, and hashtags. The main difference is that the platform is far more permissive when it comes to misinformation and hate speech.

    Bullshit flagged, for your convenience.

  7. Rebel Scum

    Here is @mattwelch’s epic rant about drug legalization

    What is with his hair. He looks like a downsy John Lenon.

    • The Other Kevin

      Maybe a DJ from 1978?

      • SugarFree

        Jackson Browne cosplay?

      • blackjack

        Here comes those tears again!

      • B.P.

        Tom Petty. Right down to the blazer-over-tee.

    • The Other Kevin

      The replies are all “He needs to be removed!” “Civil war!” blah blah blah. Dollars to doughnuts says these same people supported Gore and Clinton not conceding right away.

    • Sean

      @JoeBiden won this electio

      Not yet, he hasn’t.

    • TARDis

      The peaceful transition of power is a cornerstone of our democracy.

      The repetitive surrendering of our liberties and human rights courtesy of the fake opposition party constantley ratcheting to the next tooth of tyranny is more like it.

      • TARDis

        constantly dammit

  8. Count Potato

    “EXCLUSIVE: Meet Joe Biden’s seventh grandchild Navy Joan Roberts – the two-year-old lovechild Hunter tried to deny he had with stripper – who was notably absent from the stage as the president-elect celebrated with his other grandkids

    On Saturday night, after Joe Biden announced he won the 2020 presidential election, he welcomed six of his grandchildren on stage. Missing was Navy Joan Roberts – the two-year-old daughter Hunter Biden fathered with stripper Lunden Roberts then shamefully denied was his. Her family have never discussed her in public but when she turned two in August, Roberts’ sister Randi Jo posted a rare photo of Navy Joan on Facebook, her face turned away from the camera to protect her anonymity (pictured)”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8937993/Meet-Joe-Bidens-seventh-grandchild-Navy-Joan-Roberts.html

    They probably rented some other bastard.

    • blackjack

      What does her hair smell like?

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        At that height? depends

    • ElspethFlashman

      Joe is probably paying the child support for that kid.

    • B.P.

      “Hunter was similarly absent for much of the 2020 race before reappearing Saturday night to celebrate his 77-year-old father’s narrow win. As he took to the stage…”

      I told you lot two weeks ago that Hunter Biden would be on that stage, rubbing America’s face in it as an act of ritual humiliation.

      • R C Dean

        I recall that. I was kinda skeptical, but leaving him off would (also?) have been bad optics.

      • B.P.

        The media can bury bad optics. Only right-wing loons slinging their influence-peddling falsehoods would notice his absence.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      I guess the predictable outcome of banging strippers is you end up with a bastard named “Navy.”

  9. Count Potato

    “Election was fair and fraud free, international observers invited by the State Department report – but they warn Trump supporters tried to intimidate poll counters

    The Organization of American States, led by Secretary General Luis Almagro, sent in a team of 28 election observers from 13 different countries to watch the vote happen in Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan and Washington, DC.

    ‘While the OAS Mission has not directly observed any serious irregularities that call into question the results so far, it supports the right of all contesting parties in an election, to seek redress before the competent legal authorities when they believe they have been wronged,’ they wrote in a report released Friday.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8937865/Election-fair-fraud-free-international-observers-invited-State-Department-report.html

    Why?

    • Rebel Scum

      they warn Trump supporters tried to intimidate poll counters

      Surely they can provide evidence of this assertion.

  10. Not Adahn

    I had no idea Enya had a side project.

  11. Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

    Also, have been crossing that bridge since the late 1980s and I have never heard it called the Brent Spence bridge.

    Really? I’ve never heard it called anything else.

  12. Rebel Scum

    If Donald doesn’t concede the terrorists win.

    Sciutto said, “Yep, that’s it fair. Let’s put some teeth on that if we can for a moment because they are sitting members of Congress who were around in their positions at the time of 9/11, and the 9/11 commission report specifically cited the shortened transition after the 2000 election for having an impact on national security. I’m quoting here, ‘It hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees.’ The fact is we have experienced for how shortened transition makes a difference in national security. Why aren’t we hearing from Republicans about that, granting that potential danger?”

    Goldsmith said, “I mean you’re absolutely right, the 9/11 commission were in a situation very analogous to this, where the General Services Administration would not certify the winner and therefore delayed access by the president-elect to intelligence briefings and early pre-clearances for classified information. They said that that was one of the reasons that may have led to 9/11, and we’re going to be doing basically the same thing because they’re not allowing the Biden– president-elect Biden to have access to these resources. I can’t explain why some Republicans are acting this way. Maybe they don’t understand the implications. It’s a very dangerous game that they’re playing.”

    • Floridaman

      Because the exact same thing was done to them, both in 2000 as they admired and 2016?

    • Sean

      Really starting to sound desperate, aren’t they?

    • Floridaman

      Because the exact same thing was done to them, both in 2000 as they admitted and 2016?

  13. LJW

    Was looking over the Coronavirus numbers today. What the hell is going on in Germany? 143 Deaths per million, while every other country hovers between approximately 600 and 750. Then you have Japan and South Korea who are 15 and 10 deaths per million. I’m no scientist, but I suspect someone is lying. Now is it the Axis powers or everyone else?

    • Derpetologist

      If there is an advantage to be gained in lying about a number, the numbers will be lied about. Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.

      The British governor of Hong Kong famous for his benign neglect:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Cowperthwaite

      ***
      He refused to compile GDP statistics arguing that such data was not useful to managing an economy and would lead to officials meddling in the economy.[5] He was once asked what the key thing that poor countries could do to improve their growth. He replied: “They should abolish the office of national statistics.”
      ***

    • Urthona

      It’s been widely reported than in Germany to be counted as a COVID death you must be a confirmed COVID case and that must be a major contributor to death.

      It’s just a different standard. Why it’s very difficult to compare places who use different metrics.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ?

        Germans are sticklers on that sort of thing. They like their paperwork very neat and accurate.

      • TARDis

        And? I just expect you to write neatly and spell your name correctly. Is that so much to ask?

      • C. Anacreon

        Bingo. In the US if you have a diagnosis of covid at the time of death, or even suspicion of having covid, you are going into the covid death pile.
        If they actually counted only the deaths ’caused’ by covid in this country, we’d have a much lower number overall, and better statistics too.

    • grrizzly

      Population in some countries have pre-existing cross-immunity to COVID-19. Probably because they had exposure to similar coronaviruses in the past. That seems to be the most likely explanation for very low death numbers in East Asia. As for Germany, as Urthona said, they have higher standards to count COVID deaths. Also, more than 20% of Germans are from East Germany and the average death numbers in Eastern Europe are on average noticeably lower than in the West. I mentioned a few times the BCG vaccine but it could be some other factor.

    • mrfamous

      My understanding is that Germany is being strict about only counting deaths _from_ COVID, not deaths _with_ COVID. So if they counted deaths the same way we are (anyone who dies and has had a positive COVID test within the last few months, regardless of the proximate cause), their numbers would be higher.

      All you really need to know about the death totals from COVID in this country is that the median age of death for COVID deaths is actually higher than all cause median age of death in this country.

  14. R C Dean

    Dispatch from the memory hole:

    During the first presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Chris Wallace of Fox News asked Biden if he would “pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified,” to which the former vice president answered, “yes.”

    “Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted, and will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?” asked Wallace of Biden at the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

    “Yes,” answered Biden.

    • UnCivilServant

      Clearly by “Independently certified” he meant “by the media”

  15. Drake

    Just me or does this seem a bit fishy?

    Election Summary Report for Gwinnet County, Georgia.
    Total Population: 936,250
    Total Registered Voters: 581,467
    Voter Participation: 408,268 (70.21%)
    Ballots Cast?

    811,836.

    1.36 ballots per registered voter.
    1.99 ballots per participating voter.

    • UnCivilServant

      Didn’t they lower the voting age?

      • Floridaman

        Yeah to 18 but that was a while ago.

      • UnCivilServant

        They’d have to have lowered the voting age to about 9 and had 100% turnout to have that many votes cast.

    • Urthona

      I don’t know. It seems pretty likely that 200,000 unregistered people voted.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Is that total population, or total voting age population?

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        947,037 total according to world population review. 811k would be roughly 86% of total population voting. Georgia as a whole has 23% under 18. This seems like a clearly fraudulent result, but doesn’t Georgia have some idiotic rule where you can vote in State without residency if you state your intent to move there?

    • The Hyperbole

      Precincts Reported 0 of 156 (0.00%)

      How do they have vote totals if no one has reported.

    • R C Dean

      What’s a participating voter? Someone who is listed as having actually cast a ballot?

      • Drake

        I think so. That’s how they do it in some states like Michigan. They keep a count of ballots cast as well as the votes. During a recount, precincts like this with way more votes than ballots get disqualified. When Hillary started a recount in MI in 2016, they immediately tossed a bunch of Detroit precincts for this reason – at which point she cancelled the recount.

    • PBRstreetgang

      EXPLANATION

      According to Sorenson, Gwinnett County is the only county in the state that has to comply with Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires that certain “states and political subdivisions provide language assistance during elections for certain language minority groups who are unable to speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process.”
      According to census data, Gwinnett has reached that threshold of Spanish speakers in the county that mandates the ballots be sent in both English and Spanish.
      So, for every ballot the county sends out, there are not one, but two sheets – with one in English and one in Spanish.
      Some voters return both sheets. Others return just one. But either way – Sorenson said the county is mandated by law to count both sheets in its ballot summary report.
      By federal Law, Gwinnett County cannot remove that field from the summary report, even though he says he knows it creates confusion for voters.

      • Urthona

        Ah ha!

      • rhywun

        I don’t get it.

        My ballot was in English/Spanish/Chinese/Russian/Arabic/whatever.

        One ballot.

        Are they incapable of combining the needs of “certain language minority groups” on to one ballot?!

      • Urthona

        I voted for Senor Trumpero.

      • R C Dean

        Some voters return both sheets. Others return just one. But either way – Sorenson said the county is mandated by law to count both sheets in its ballot summary report.

        Well, that’s stupid. Both sending two ballots to one voter, and requiring that both be counted if returned. Why not do the espanol ballot on the back of the ingles ballot?

        Also, can we be sure that, when they get two ballots from one voter, they aren’t couting both ballots?

      • The Hyperbole

        The vote totals are only 405,692 so they aren’t counting all the 800,000+ ballots, which ones they are counting isn’t clear. but something is obviously odd about how they define/count ballots vs votes.

      • Count Potato

        Also, if someone can vote, that means they became a citizen, and should be able to fill out a ballot written in English.

    • Heroic Mulatto

      How is he a carpetbagger?

      • UnCivilServant

        His terrible taste in luggage.

      • Rebel Scum

        An outsider, especially a politician, who presumptuously seeks a position or success in a new locality.

        When he ran for the House. . .

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Maybe it’s because NH is teeny-tiny, but calling someone who moves from one congressional district to another in the same state a “carpetbagger” is a bit of a stretch to me.

      • Rebel Scum

        I wanted to use the term “carpetbagging cunte”. Sue me.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        I do admit the alliteration just rolls off the tongue fantastically.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        When you really dislike someone, and are in Georgia, what else awould you call them? Sherman?

      • Heroic Mulatto

        I believe it depends on whether you live closer to Georgia State or Georgia Southern.

  16. Stinky Wizzleteats

    I haven’t been paying attention so maybe this common knowledge but it looks like Mark Esper was fired for slow walking our exit from Astan:

    http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=391228

    If Biden ultimately wins I’m going to bet our withdrawal’s dead.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Interesting. Of course the immediate media reason for the firing was because he wouldn’t go all Bonus Army on the peaceful protestors like Trumpfuhrer wanted him to.

    • Gadfly

      If Biden ultimately wins I’m going to bet our withdrawal’s dead.

      If that article is correct, it sounds like the Trump admin is cleaning house so it can get a withdrawal done before power transitions to a Biden White House. Color me skeptical, but if it comes to pass the Trump is in fact the president who withdraws the US from Iraq and Afghanistan that would be an accomplishment.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I hope this is true and Rudy’s not just flapping his gums as he’s often wont to do. We’ll see I reckon.

      • Drake

        I am wondering how the audit and recount in GA is going to handle this mess. Can they recover the original votes and total them elsewhere? If so, and this analysis is accurate, they’d ordered to do so in all these states.

        I also hope the company is fined, sued, and prosecuted out of business and everyone involved is jailed.

      • Rebel Scum

        Developing: Nancy Pelosi’s Chief of Staff Is Chief Executive and Feinstein’s Husband a Major Shareholder at Dominion Ballot Counting Systems

        I wonder if there are any Team Red congresscritters with any connections.

      • R C Dean

        Nancy Pelosi’s Chief of Staff Is Chief Executive

        What the everloving fuck? Both of those should be full time jobs, and it is a massive conflict of interest that no board should tolerate for an instant.

        And no state should ever have contracted with them, given its management and majority shareholder. Who the fuck approved those contracts?

      • See Double You

        As we know from the Hunter Biden Ukrainian saga, conflicts of interest don’t matter if you’re related to the most powerful politicians in the world.

    • Rebel Scum

      *makes popcorn*

    • Not Adahn

      Supposedly Jimmy O’Keefe has released the interrogation audio of the maybe whistleblower who may or may not have recanted but has definitely been put on unpaid leave.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I saw a vid of the guy last night saying that the claims that he recanted are horseshit.

      • Sean

        ^^ This.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The WaPo is blatantly lying now. I expect no retraction from them on this.

    • Urthona

      Is this real?

      • Drake

        I’m really not sure. It was real in the one Wisconsin county were they hand-counted after discovering the “glitch”. If it’s real, I hope it becomes crystal clear in GA during their recount.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        “The reporting system sometimes does not reflect the actual vote counts and from time to time needs to be corrected”

        /media narrative in 48 hours

      • db

        I’m not sure. It’s based on a python script that parses the .json files sourced from the New York Times web site. I have no idea what exactly that accomplishes. The function in the python script (linked from the URL provided above) is:

        import json

        def findfraud(NAME):
        with open(NAME + '.json', encoding="utf8") as f:
        x = json.load(f)
        TotalVotesLost = 0
        for i in range(len(x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"])):
        if i != 0 and x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i]["votes"] * x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i]["vote_shares"]["trumpd"] x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i-1]["votes"] * x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i-1]["vote_shares"]["bidenj"]:
        print ("Index : " + str(i) + " Past Index : " + str(i-1))
        print (x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i]["votes"] * x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i]["vote_shares"]["trumpd"] - x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i-1]["votes"] * x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i-1]["vote_shares"]["trumpd"])
        TotalVotesLost += x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i]["votes"] * x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i]["vote_shares"]["trumpd"] - x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i-1]["votes"] * x["data"]["races"][0]["timeseries"][i-1]["vote_shares"]["trumpd"]
        print (str(str(TotalVotesLost) + " Flo"))

      • db

        I am not a python programmer, but I can run the script in a python interpreter and it returns results consistent with the claims on the web site, but I’m not sure what the above code is actually doing to the json stream (maybe a coder here can help). They say the data files are provided by Edison Research, but I don’t see how the data can show that votes were “changed” or “lost” from what is provided.

      • db

        It’s hardly a convincing analysis. The article linked does a horrible job of describing what exactly the claim and evidence are. It just throws numbers out and then provides links to the data and scripts.

      • DEG

        You lost the formatting when you cut and pasted it here. Indentation is important for python. I think you also lost some operators. That first if makes no sense to me.

      • db

        I tried to use a code tag, buess it didn’t work. Anyway, the script is linked above, in the URL Drake provided.

      • DEG

        Ah. I looked at the pastebin link first, which is very different.

        The script is in the linked rar file.

        First quickie pass through thoughts: findfraud flags where Trump’s vote total goes down but Biden’s goes up. i.e. if Trump vote counts goes down between t0 and t1, but Biden’s goes up between t0 and t1, the script flags those instances. Findfraud2 looks for instances where the vote totals go down, i.e. if t1 has fewer votes than t0, flag it.

      • db

        Yeah I should have mentioned where the script was. It took me a while to find it too.

        It seems to sum those increase and decreases and then report them at the end as a net advantage/disadvantage for one of the candidates. I just wonder how valid this method is, and what exactly the data source is. Like, is it a real time series of reports from the central counter, or local precincts, or what?

    • R C Dean

      Sounds too good/bad to be true.

      I guess we’ll see. If some rando on the internet can do it legitimately, then it should be reproducible. The great thing about electronic systems is that they leave tracks.

      • Urthona

        My thoughts also.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I can tell you one thing, if Trump had won, and those votes had been flipped from Biden to Trump, the media would be losing their shit over voting machines possibly getting hacked.

      • Count Potato

        Even when nothing like that happened in 2016, CNN repeated “Russia hacked the election” 1,204,956 times.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yep. Now imagine an actual goddamn voting machine unquestionably switching votes to Trump. Holy shit.

      • Urthona

        Are we sure anything flipped? or is this dude really just looking at the late counted ballots and saying most went Biden? we already know that happened.

      • Fatty Bolger

        No, we’re not sure. It could be a quirk of the data or have some other explanation. There was definitely a case where a machine flipped a vote count, though.

      • B.P.

        “Sign in to confirm your age. This video may be inappropriate for some users.”

      • DEG

        Looks like it is completely gone now.

        Usually I use nsfwyoutube to get around having to sign in even though I have Google accounts that I could use. I tried using nsfwyoutube for this video, and the video is gone.

      • Drake

        Use the bitchute link.

  17. prolefeed

    I was thinking about the Iron Law, and what future incentives would result from various possible SCOTUS actions about fraud in a given election.

    If a state was won by Trump, but election fraud flipped the results to Biden:

    1) SCOTUS declines to hear a case, upholding the count and results as is.

    Outcome: massive uptick in cheating for the next elections, since no consequences suffered at all.

    2) SCOTUS hears a case, but issues a narrow ruling only disqualifying the most blatantly fraudulent ballots.

    Outcome: possibly even more cheating than in scenario 1, since they’d want to pad the results enough to ensure the few ballots that would be thrown out couldn’t change the results.

    3) SCOTUS hears a case, issues a broader ruling throwing out a lot more fraudulent ballots, possibly even flipping a state back.

    Same as number 2, except inventing even more creative ways to cheat, to ensure that enough cheating would survive to keep the state from flipping back.

    4) SCOTUS hears a case, says there was clearly massive amounts of fraud, even though they can’t determine which particular ballots were cheats, and so SCOTUS declares that state election invalid and denies the state any EC votes this election.

    This basically turns what would have been a win without intervention into a tie. So, more cautious incremental cheating if it looks like the state could be narrowly won without massive cheating. Over the top, blowout cheating if they knew they’d otherwise certainly lose, since a tie still beats a loss. Rioting breaks out anyway, despite this being a pretty good outcome for the cheaters, and SCOTUS vilified by MSM.

    5) SCOTUS hears a case, declares the massive cheating deserves the most severe punishment, flips the state back to “punish” the cheaters.

    Perhaps a bit more cautious cheating next time around, but hey, the cheaters weren’t actually punished, since a loss just got turned back into a loss. Even more rioting breaks out at this, MSM loses their shit even more, calls for court packing and impeachment and removal of SCOTUS judges etc.

    6) A few token sacrificial lambs go to jail for the most obvious cheating, the big fish go free.

    The lambs get handsomely compensated when they get out, to encourage protecting the big fish during the inevitable ramp up in cheating next time.

    7) A bunch of cheaters go to jail.

    Waaay more cautious cheating in the future.

    • Urthona

      Nothing will happen and the media will report that there was no fraud. Cheating continues at present or greater rate. End of story.

  18. Derpetologist

    one more military comment for today’s holiday

    There is an island called Ch’odo about a mile away from the shores of North Korea. During the Korean war, there was a base there where US military linguists monitored the enemy aircraft comms and fed the info to US pilots. To keep the Reds from getting wise to it, the info was presented to make it appear as though it came from radar intercept.

    Decades later, Reagan let the cat out of the bag when that Korean airliner got shot down:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VA4W1wDMAk

    He plays the Soviet pilot’s messages around the 5:30 minute mark.

    from wiki

    ***
    In mid-February 1952 the USAF installed early-warning radar on Cho-do which could detect aircraft taking off and landing at Chinese airfields along the Yalu River. In May a tactical control center was added and this was used vector F-86s against MiG-15s[4]:104 The base was later used for communications interception duties[4]:106 including providing advance warning of an air attack on Taehwa-do on 30 November leading to a USAF ambush that resulted in the destruction of 12 communist aircraft.
    ***

  19. DEG

    Bridge inspectors and EPA officials have responded to the scene but have not started their inspection due to the extremely high temperatures of the bridge. Officials said the fire burned at up to 1,500 degrees.

    Video of a 2013 tanker truck fire on I-81 near Harrisburg. If I remember correctly, PennDOT had to replace some of the overpasses due to damage from the heat of the fire.

  20. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “Don’t break open an old transformer and start chugging PCBs.”
    Don’t tell me what to do.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      hmmmm poly-chlorinated biphenols…. drools

  21. SP

    REMINDER! Please send in your Thanksgiving recipes: sp @ this website. I have received ONE so far. Thank you, Aloysious. 🙂

    • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

      The Family Fight
      Ingredients:
      1 Angry Trump voting uncle
      1 Republican Father
      1 Democrat Mother
      3 Progressive millenials (wholly supported by Mother and Father and properly contemptuous )

      Marinate all ingredients for 9 months in a mixture of lockdowns, propaganda, and fear
      Add a contested election result
      Preheat Nation with weeks of fact checking and media announcements.

      Serve with a healthy side of booze

      • Gustave Lytton

        That calls for after dinner armaments.

      • TARDis

        Fork Fight!!!

      • rhywun

        NY is locking down again, to 10 or 4 – not clear from the article and I don’t expect it to be. I guess families will find out what the edict is when the goons come around to pick up the offending family members.

        Just keeping us on our toes 🙂

      • Tulip

        Oh, don’t worry. They’ll only go after the Jews

      • rhywun

        Well, until they run out of Jews.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        Well, the Jews and the Gypsies.

        Ok, maybe the Jews and the Gypsies and the Gays.

        Maybe the Jews and the Gypsies and the Gays, and the Catholics.

        Possibly the Jews and the Gypsies and the Gays, and the Catholics and the Poles

        Certainly no more than the Jews and the Gypsies and the Gays and the Catholics and the Poles and the Lutherans

        Definitely no more than the Jews and the Gypsies and the Gays and the Catholics and the Poles and the Lutherans and the Slavs

      • Not Adahn

        But remember! The Covid strains from NJ, CT, PA, MA or VT are completely harmless to NYers and you don’t have to quarantine if you come from there, regardless of their “positivity rate>”

      • Gadfly

        3 Progressive millenials

        I think this recipe would have more spice if one of the millennial children was a self-supporting Trump voter. Trump did win ~45% of the millennial vote according to CNN exit polls, so it would be reasonable odds for 1 out of 3 in a family where the parents are split ideologically, and it would add extra layers of conflict to the fight.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        I am a firm believer in fiddling with recipes.

      • db

        Sounds like an evening I would have other plans for.

    • Derpetologist

      Believe me, I am fighting against the stupidity. I don’t go looking for trouble, but when it comes my way, I do push back. Whatever I can do to get my little part of the Army to run in a sane, humane, and efficient way, that is what I do.

      One of the nice things about the Army is that if you actually have courage, they try to keep you around.

      I only need to get promoted one more time to be eligible for the pension. I won’t get demoted or kicked out unless I piss off a battalion commander, and officers usually like me anyway.

      So the only remaining challenge is keeping my weight down, and my exercise bike is doing the trick for that.

    • Derpetologist

      30 minutes of phone time every Sunday?!

      LUXURY!

      I think I got 30 minutes total during all of basic training.

      In the future, the SERE course will require you to spend a weekend camping in the mountains without electricity.

      • Gustave Lytton

        We had pay phones that I think we were allowed to use once, maybe twice. And that wasn’t on Thanksgiving either.

      • Gustave Lytton

        And that was also for 14 weeks of OSUT.

      • dbleagle

        I think SERE is safe for now since it is run by the USAJFKSWCS at Ft Bragg.

        Big sections of the military got way way spoiled during the deployments of the last 19 years. Wondering if the contractor run dining facility was getting low on your favorite Baskin Robbins flavor will not be your worry against China or Russia.

        If the military wants to survive, phone and internet service home for the troops can’t exist. Individuals phones and computers will need to be confiscated. No stray electrons or internet footprint can be permitted.

        There will be some “traumatized” people by this. Their traumas will shift as the missiles and long range precision fires begin to arrive. The survivors won’t consider the earlier issues by the time the drone swarm attacks start.

      • wdalasio

        No stray electrons or internet footprint can be permitted.

        That was my thought. In this day and age electronic security must be a big deal in combat. A radio transmitter seems a pretty good way to get your adversaries to target you.

      • Not Adahn

        ISTR people tracking our troop movements via their fitbits.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Wait, you mean Pvt Snuffy/Snuffette can’t update their wall with the latest pictures from their bivouac site? Monster!

      • LCDR_Fish

        I thought official SERE was still up in the mountains of ID/eastern WA (maybe not any more – one of my retired AF coworkers went through in the 70s and has some stories)

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        I propose a new SERE. You have to survive 3 weeks posting as a conservative on twitter facebook and youtube, without being banned, AND succeed in getting at leats three posts shared!

      • Derpetologist

        [uptwinkles at Jarflax’s idea]

        I can imagine a documentary about it in 20 years.

        ***
        Gravelly voiced announcer: These SERE school candidates will spend the next 3 weeks posing as College Republicans and will attempt to maintain a banner that says “There Are Only 2 Genders”
        ***

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgsqLLYy3JA

      • juris imprudent

        Oh my friend if only it were so. There is a whole big chunk of US Army that believes they will be using host nation cell service in operations. And this is after seeing what the Russians did in Ukraine. The big mission command initiative is still trying to get as much individual soldier PLI as possible fed into the big commander’s screen. I like to refer to that as the new blue screen of death.

      • Derpetologist

        All the near peer talk is just an excuse to ramp up military spending, in my view. It’s very unlikely that there will be anything more than proxy wars and skirmishes between 2 nuclear powers.

        Terrorism was blown off as a minor threat during the Cold War. That was the right move.

        The Forever War is a racket.

        A sane defense policy would combine modest land-based nuclear deterrence, a light overseas footprint, a large reserve, a small standing army, and an even smaller navy.

        Raids and assassinations should be the bulk of the combat.

        I do not expect that to happen for various political reasons.

    • wdalasio

      Only question I have is, “Is he wrong?” Do you really want an army who just can’t get by without a half hour to check in at home every week? I’d think the point of drill instructors is to get their recruits combat ready. Somehow, I don’t think that includes calls to mom and dad or their girlfriend.

      • R C Dean

        Sodomy, rum and the lash is a battle-tested military personnel, err, incentive system.

      • blackjack

        The very first thing I saw when I went to NYC, back in ’90, was on the way to the hotel from the airport. The driver of the cab was a Paki or a Sihk or something. We stopped at a light next to a Sean Connery look-a-like in a new Jaguar. He rolled down his window and the driver rolled his down to see what he wanted. I was expecting him to ask directions in a British accent. Instead he railed off a string of insults and expletives. It was like, ” Fuck you you rat bastard, asshole, cunte, son-of-a-bitch, cocksucker dick.” And the Paki/Sihk guy spit it all right back at him in different order. I had no idea what prompted either of them to be pissed at the other. Then, the light changed and we both drove off. It was…weird.

      • B.P.

        I think that, for certain quarters of NYC, this counts as, “What’s up?” “Not much, you?”

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        How do you get the squirrels to thread?

      • bacon-magic

        It’s called nesting.

      • Not Adahn

        *applause*

  22. DEG

    Berlin, NH councilors delay action on mask ordinance

    After receiving testimony, including from parents, the public and members of the religious and medical communities, the City Council on Monday decided to delay action on a municipal face-covering ordinance until Nov. 16.

    Following a nearly three-hour hearing in which the council and public participated via Zoom or telephone, the consensus of the council was to fine tune the language of the proposed ordinance and also to get input on it from the Berlin Police Department regarding enforceability.

    As written, the ordinance requires that employees of all businesses “shall wear a face covering over their mouth and nose when interacting with the public and whenever they are within six feet of a co-worker or a customer.”

    Members of the public who enter any business, “including without limitation any outdoor area where business of any sort is conducted, work site, or government building must wear a face covering, such as a fabric mask, scarf, or bandana over their nose and mouth,” the proposed ordinance states.

    There would be exemptions for very young children and persons who cannot wear a face covering for medical reasons.

    Monday’s public hearing was expected to end with a vote by the council on whether to implement the ordinance and to possibly set fines for violators, but it ended with doubt as to whether an ordinance was even the best mechanism to get people to wear face coverings.

    • Heroic Mulatto

      Anyone who has spent time in Berlin and experienced its paper mill stench would be surprised at this delay. You’d think you’d do anything to avoid having that noxious odor fill your nostrils.

      • grrizzly

        Your own shit doesn’t stink.

      • TARDis

        Last week’s sauerkraut begs to differ.

    • DEG

      Not bad.

      • LCDR_Fish

        A little classier than Q is https://www.pinupsforvets.com/ – seems like the kind of visit you’d like if you were stuck in a shitty VA hospital. (I just buy the calendars)

      • DEG

        Very nice.

  23. DEG

    NH restaurant owners worried about upcoming season

    With temporary closures because of potential COVID-19 exposure becoming more frequent, restaurants are bracing for a disquieting winter.

    Keith Murphy, owner of Murphy’s Taproom in Bedford and Murphy’s Diner in Manchester, said Friday he has serious concerns about the next few months.

    “I am extremely worried. Outdoor dining at both my restaurants is what kept us going since April or May,” Murphy said. “Our outdoor tables are always in very high demand, and we were able to keep pace with traditional sales because of that.

    “But now that we are moving inside, there is definitely a slump. We still get some business, but it is nowhere near where it is supposed to be or what it has been.”

    • Drake

      Just seat them in a snow bank – that will make them less likely to catch a cold because science.

    • Nephilium

      Several places here in Cleveland are announcing that they’re doing a temporary closing until Spring already.

  24. DEG

    Clown Prince says further restrictions unnecessary. We’ll see if he flip-flops.

    Gov. Chris Sununu on Thursday dismissed the need for more COVID-19 related restrictions as seven of 10 New Hampshire counties experienced “substantial” numbers of cases and neighboring governors acted to slow community spread of the virus.

    The soaring case count was predicted with the advent of colder weather, Sununu said.

    He did not rule out imposing restrictions in the future and said he could take action in regions of the state with the most cases.

    “We are confident this can and will be managed,” Sununu said during his weekly COVID-19 briefing.

    • Ownbestenemy

      We are hoping that is what Sisolak says too.mmbut a month ago he already gave us the stern father talk.

  25. Nephilium

    Fantastic. So Ohio will now have a new group to investigate retail stores and punish them if any visitor or employee is violating the mask order.

    A new order for social gatherings as well. Dancing and games have now been banned.

    Bars, restaurants, and fitness centers are being threatened to be closed again a week from tomorrow.

    • Urthona

      With all states hitting record highs regardless of mask ordinances, don’t we already know for a fact they are a waste of time?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Think how much worse it’d be without the masks though. There’d be like a one hundred percent infection rate or something.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The people saying COVID’s going to disappear as an issue if Biden wins were naive. The various layers of government are never going to give up this power.

      • Nephilium

        Motherfucker is comparing the ‘vid to the Blitz.

        One of the few joys of all of this is going to be voting against him in 2 years.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I plan on getting the hell out of here well before that. My only regret is that I won’t be able to vote against that asshole.

      • Nephilium

        As I sit here, I do think of one potential comparison to the Blitz… how long did England keep the rationing boards around after the war?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Wasn’t it something crazy like the early ‘50s?

      • Gadfly

        Just looked it up, and yeah, it did continue into the 50s, apparently in large part due to the country voting Labour in immediately after the war and not voting them out until the Conservatives decided that running against rationing was a winning platform in 1951.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        53 or 54, I think.

      • Nephilium

        Yeah. That was my point.

        Masks now! Masks tomorrow! Masks forever!

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        We shall go on to the end. We shall fight with masking, we shall fight with poverty, we shall fight with growing fear and growing weakness in the air, we shall destroy our economy, whatever the cost may be. We shall destroy our liberties, we shall foment depression, we shall burn down our fields and close our shops, we shall run to the hills; we shall never reopen!

      • rhywun

        I always assumed the lockdowns would ramp up, whether because President Elect And Don’t You Forget About It or weather I don’t know. But yup, it’s happening™.

      • DEG

        Yep.

      • Not Adahn

        It has to be really awful when Biden takes office so his heroic victory o’er the plague can be that much more heroic and presidential.

      • R C Dean

        Ding ding. If they start ramping down now, by the time Biden takes office there won’t be much of a miraculous salvation to proclaim.

      • zwak

        I read somewhere the other day that Biden universal mask mandate was illegal. And I think that put a huge damper on it. They planned an “Everyone Wears a Mask and Its Gone” idea, and it turns out they can’t do that.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Next up, new enforcement group to check handwashing and clean underwear. Because it’s too important to leave it up to each individual.

    • B.P.

      Remember when the smart set used to make fun of the Baptists for being uptight?

    • Bill Door

      So you are saying we are now in Footloose. Can’t have any of that illegal dancing because it incites the immoral COVID!!!1!!!!!11!

    • Bill Door

      So you are saying we are now in Footloose. Can’t have any of that illegal dancing because it incites the immoral COVID!!!1!!!!!11!

    • Agent Cooper

      Punish the peasants!

    • Ayn Random Variation

      Cool they can add this to my 10% pay cut. Any more privilege and I’ll be living on the sidewalk

    • rhywun

      Does this mean I get my NJ taxes back since I won’t be commuting there for the foreseeable future…?

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        No, it means you will pay those and Illinois and California and New York taxes in a spirit of solidarity.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I propose a swift kick in the ass for the people proposing this.

      • See Double You

        They’re fucking malevolent. They really think we’re just tax cattle.

    • C. Anacreon

      You forgot the TW for Zero Hedge!

      Unsurprisingly, the first comment had to do with those Jew bankers being behind all of this.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        You clicked on the comments? Yeah, don’t do that.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Because our education system has gone to shit.

      • blackjack

        Our education system seemed like shit when I was an inmate. Little did I know.

        I got kicked out of Jr. high because I was the druggie kid and got caught with some pot. They confiscated everything I had on me, including my two tickets to see Iron Butterfly and Steppenwolf at the Oxnard auditorium. I was dating the principal’s daughter. They gave me an IQ test and decided I was too smart to stay in Jr. high and “promoted” me to high school. Never saw that girl again AND I never saw Steppenwolf or Iron Butterfly. I did get a half a year off of school, so there’s that.

      • TARDis

        Well that sucks. Not getting to see Steppenwolf or Iron Butterfly I mean.

      • blackjack

        Yeah, I was pissed. I kept telling them to give me the tickets back, they had nothing to do with the pot. They knew and they just wanted me punished in any small way. Bastards.

  26. Count Potato

    “‘BEAT IT’: The New Yorker fires Jeffrey Toobin

    The New Yorker fired Jeffrey Toobin following an investigation into the Zoom Dick incident in which the staff writer was caught masturbating during a video call with colleagues last month.”

    https://thepostmillennial.com/beat-it-the-new-yorker-fires-jeffrey-toobin

  27. Count Potato

    “Biden to push for mask-mandate in all 50 states”

    https://thepostmillennial.com/biden-to-push-for-mask-mandate-in-all-50-states

    “Biden Covid advisor wants a full national lockdown ‘like they did in New Zealand and Australia’

    Dr. Michael Osterholm, a coronavirus advisor to presumed President-elect Joe Biden, is suggesting he lockdown the country once he takes office. Osterholm said on Wednesday that he believes a lockdown lasting four to six weeks may help lower Covid cases.

    “If we did that, then we could lockdown for four-to-six weeks.” Osterholm attests that lockdowns have worked elsewhere, “like they did in New Zealand and Australia.”

    Osterholm serves as director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and he believes the country is headed for “covid hell,” unless Biden declares a full lockdown.”

    https://thepostmillennial.com/biden-covid-advisor-wants-a-full-national-lockdown

    Looks like anyone who voted for Biden to make covid go away is an idiot.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      To think that I listened to that asshat Osterholm at the beginning of this…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        JFC

        They’re insane.

      • db

        Wait, so we can shut down our tax base and then pay the lost wages that…the tax base…would have generated had it not been shut down? And…the tax base…will produce less tax revenue…

        …so the money will come from the tax base…

        that is taxed on lower revenue…

        I’m completely fucking lost.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And who is going to feed the country?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Fiat money for the win is the lesson here I think.

      • rhywun

        Printing presses go BRRRRR.

        Does that help?

      • db

        We are ever so fucked.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        Well, I always wanted to be a billionaire, but I will admit I expected more supercars and super model sex, and much less starvation and homelessness.

      • Gustave Lytton

        How far away are we from machine guns go BRRRR?

      • C. Anacreon

        Printing presses go BRRRRR.

        But the Mazda goes “hmmmmmm”.

      • Not Adahn

        Dogs. Looooove. Trucks.

      • B.P.

        A snake eating itself by the tail.

      • Bill Door

        “Soooo greasy.”

      • Bill Door

        “Soooo greasy.”

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        Ok so we are going to go another 10th of a year’s GDP in debt so we can all play grasshopper. We have solved the problem set out in Atlas Shrugged. the solution to the ant’s unwillingness to support hordes of grasshoppers is to eliminate ants entirely and all be grasshoppers. This will be the shortest socialist utopia since the pilgrims starved that first winter.

      • Fatty Bolger

        And I have the same question I had the last time: What happens when the four to six weeks are up? The virus just goes away?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Repeat until everyone starves to death.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yeah, just like magic…this is an endemic disease now, it ain’t going nowhere.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      NZ and Oz ore sparsely populated islands for fuck’s sake so its at least feasible there although unnecessary. Motherfucker’s going to cause a Great Depression.

      • rhywun

        That’s what America wants, apparently.

      • See Double You

        Democracy is just the evil we do together.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “Osterholm said on Wednesday that he believes a lockdown lasting four to six weeks may help lower Covid cases.”

      Not even a guarantee from the proposer, just a may lower….

      Let’s destroy our economy because it might help.

      I can’t even begin to process the stupidity of this.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        Giving me 100 million dollars in an offshore account will probably cure Covid AND get Trump out of the White House peacefully.

      • Fatty Bolger

        You mean it might… bend the curve?

      • See Double You

        Only two weeks to go!

    • mrfamous

      How about, no? Last I checked, there was something called “due process” before you could place me under house arrest.

    • Sean

      Boy, they certainly have some “ideas”.

    • Gadfly

      I hope a bunch of R govs tell him to pound sand. Why should Texas and Florida have to follow unconstitutional edicts from a president they voted against? (Yes, no one should have to follow such edicts, but in places that voted for this dude that’s going to be a hard sell, since they literally voted to be caged.)

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Most people had no idea.

      • Gadfly

        Anyone who voted for him without realizing this has no excuse and will get no sympathy from me. That was literally one of the main take-aways from the second debate, they couldn’t have made it clearer that Trump was the no more lockdown candidate and Biden was the yes more lockdown candidate.

      • Ted S.

        I didn’t vote to be encaged.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        Democracy means you get special bonuses courtesy of your fellow citizens.

  28. LCDR_Fish

    Guess my buddy does have decent connections – he says he doesn’t get too much crap from folks about not enforcing masks in his restaurant (although I think he’s gotten a phone call or two from Karens). In there for lunch today and there was a Statie just chilling with some other folks. Didn’t see him wear a mask the entire time – so I’m guessing no big deal.

  29. Count Potato

    “The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to ban natural gas in new buildings, legislation that will apply to more than 54,000 homes and 32 million square feet of commercial space in the city’s development pipeline.

    The measure, designed to help the city cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve safety, will extend to buildings that apply for a building permit after June 30.

    Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, sponsor of the legislation, called it “an incremental but important move to help save our planet.””

    https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1326326747260981249

    https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/No-more-natural-gas-in-new-San-Francisco-15717658.php

    • Gustave Lytton

      Have they considered how they’re going to continue to gaslight SF residents without gas?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The stupid, it burns.

      • Grumbletarian

        Sadly, it burns at too low a temperature to be used to heat your home.

    • Count Potato

      “The AP has called the Presidential race for Joe Biden. See more on Google.

      Robust safeguards help ensure the integrity of elections and results. Learn more”

      — Totally neutral platform

      • rhywun

        AP is no more trustworthy than fucking NPR.

        I can only laugh at this shit.

      • limey

        Literally listening to John Cochrane talk about this right now.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Shiva’s a bit of a kook but he’s also brilliant. That’s something else to look into I suppose.

    • Count Potato

      “This report summarizes the results of our review of the GEMS election management system, which counts approximately 25 percent of all votes in the United States. The results of this study demonstrate that a fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes. This tampering is not visible to election observers, even if they are standing in the room and watching the computer. Use of the decimalized vote feature is unlikely to be detected by auditing or canvass procedures, and can be applied across large jurisdictions in less than 60 seconds.”

      http://blackboxvoting.org/fraction-magic-1/

      • R C Dean

        *jaw drops*

        *insert caveat – if true*

      • R C Dean

        a fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes

        I mean, are you fucking kidding me? The vote counting software was written so that the outcome could be pre-programmed? There is no innocuous reason for such a thing. It can’t be accidental.

        OK, poll time. If this turns out to be true, would you approve of the death penalty for the people responsible for this?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Nope, just a long long stay in a federal supermax. From what I hear that’s worse then death anyway.

      • Urthona

        I’m against the death penalty.

        and yes.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        In honor of tarran, I pick the boats.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Now that was a creative execution method, right up there with the Brazen Bull.

      • TARDis

        Agreed.

        Options:

        Brazen Bull
        Spanish Donkey

      • TARDis

        IR Slow

      • juris imprudent

        Only if it is a very public execution, with the corpses on display until they rot.

      • Grummun

        anyone can see in its MS Access tables

        This is worth the death penalty.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I read through it. Unless they just made everything up, it’s a convincing case that this particular system includes a weighted race feature that is probably turned on by default. That alone is an abomination.

      • db

        I am working my way through reading the whole thing. According to the blackboxvoting report, the feature was ostensibly created for some very specialized races in California that actually are supposed to (why in the world, I have no idea) apply different weights to different voters based on an external database. But Sacramento apparently never used the feature, and possibly not even this software.

        Why in the world that feature would be enabled by default for all elections everywhere is a huge question. And why are all references to it contained only in the developer’s manual, and why are there undocumented features allowing reports to show the fractionalized votes, which are disabled by default?

        The whole thing stinks. Now, it was written in 2016, so can we assume that someone noticed this four years ago and corrected it?

        Probably not, unfortunately.

      • db

        From Section 5:

        We used a simple Excel spreadsheet to plan desired results for each location, then injected allocations into GEMS. Smith, a programmer, used a USB stick containing a Visual Basic script to interact with GEMS. For Harris, who has no programming skills, Smith created a demonstration utility to read GEMS, display races, candidates and vote subgroups, then inject percentages typed into it to GEMS. Using exactly the same utility, Harris weighted results in Glades County, Florida against Mark Foley (U.S. Representative) and Charlie Crist (Florida Attorney General) races. In Marin County, California she controlled Measure F to defeat a private corporation named Veolia’s bid to take over a water project, this time using only the absentee votes. She weighted the 2010 Shelby County, Tennessee sheriff’s race to give it to Randy Wade.

      • juris imprudent

        From wiki on Premier Election Systems

        In March 2009, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified Diebold’s GEMS version 1.18.19 after the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project discovered that GEMS had silently dropped 197 ballots from its tabulation of a single precinct in Eureka, California.[33] The discovery was made after project members conducted an independent count using the ballot counting program Ballot Browser.

        Curiously, there is no discussion of anything here dating later than 2010 or so.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Now if that’s the case we really are broken beyond repair. We need to go back to paper ballots and dipping voter’s thumbs in ink.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Voting software should be open source. If not, the code must be made available under FOIA.

        How much do you want to bet that the contracts the government signed allows the providers to hide their code?

      • Count Potato

        “Voting software should be open source.”

        That’s what I said yesterday. Also, how difficult or complicated could honest voting software be? It’s basically just an adding machine.

      • juris imprudent

        Intellectual property bitches.

      • juris imprudent

        On most govt contracts, the company retains all intellectual property rights to the product created. I’ve worked on stuff where we tried to change that – with little success.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It was 50/50 Office Space or Richard Pryor in Superman.

      • DEG

        Note the date – 2016.

    • grrizzly

      Dr. Shiva is a kook. I voted against him in the Senate primary.

  30. Gustave Lytton

    Good news everyone! Biden is going to stop the border wall and revoke Trump’s executive order. Apparently a President can just do that to their predecessor’s EOs. Could someone let those HI judges know about this new legal development so they don’t accidentally overturn the wrong thing?

    • C. Anacreon

      In place of the border wall, can Biden just have them place big signs saying “come on in! free stuff!”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s pretty much what Obama did in Central America except with flyers.

    • Urthona

      The border well sucks ass, but In glad we got to spend many millions on it and then killed it.

      lol government.

  31. Rebel Scum

    This is the ‘Dodgeball’ of elections. When Trump prevails in court I am picturing a meme of Biden’s head on White Goodman’s fat body at the end of the movie captioned “I won that election”. ///Double-fault

    • Sean

      Lol

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If Trump does win it’s going to be not so much Dodgeball and more Escape from New York, at least in the cities.

    • Urthona

      He will not even get the results of one state changed much less the multiple he needs to win.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Look at Debbie Downer over here.

      • Urthona

        Yup.

        Not feeling it.

      • Drake

        I think it’s a coin toss right now. I believe some states will flip. PA might be so fucked up they aren’t allowed Electors or the state legislature picks them.

        It’s going to be a wild month or 2.

      • creech

        Penna. has legislature controlled by Republicans. Historically, they will roll over for the Dems.

  32. robc

    Most important question: is it the I-71 bridge or the I-75 bridge.

    Being from Louisville, it is obviously 71.

    • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

      It is both. They run together through Northern KY, the merge point is the bridge. This is going to totally screw traffic up for millions of vehicles.

      • robc

        I am saying it is the 71 bridge…75 just happens to share it.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        71 doesn’t go anywhere anyone sane wants to go. I admit 75 is not much better, but Lexington is nice and you can take it to Florida. 7i runs from Louisville to Cleveland; what’s the point?

      • Nephilium

        I don’t know…

        17450 Engle Lake Dr, Middleburg Heights, OH 44130

        Is right off of route 71, and pretty popular.

      • DEG

        /looks it up on Google maps

        It’s Garden Food Service right?

        😉

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        Google maps showed me a Fed Ex store at that site. I knew Cleveland sucked, but even in North East Ohio there must surely be something better than a mail drop?

      • Gender Traitor

        DDG gives the correct answer.

      • limey

        startpage also good? I’ve been using that

      • Nephilium

        Look a little closer to 71…

        They’ve got storage tanks visible from the freeway.

      • DEG

        Google maps showed Fat Head.

        I decided to have a little fun.

      • Nephilium

        DEG:

        I figured, I was correcting Jarflax.

        There’s a reason I only provided the address. There is a street view that lets you see the size of the building.

      • Jarflax cancelled Cancelled

        I was just busting balls. It is a time honored tradition for Cincinnati and Cleveland to hate each other, and Louisvillains pronounce my city Cincinnatuh so they must be given hell (and I lived in Lexington for a decade so hating Louisville is de riguer)

  33. ignoreLander

    Y’all really need to archive Slate, Salon, Huffpost, Buzzfeed, Yahoo, et al, prior to posting them in the Glibs links. Those who don’t know any better click on them and give them traffic.