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Are We Watching Failure Theater? Because Team Trump’s Actions Don’t Make Any Sense.
Maybe Giuliani, Murtaugh, Stepien, etc. have some different, better course of action planned that I cannot begin to guess at, but otherwise what’s happening (or not happening) isn’t making any sense.
Let’s be honest; everyone knew from the onset that no judge is going to set aside the results, or delay the certification of the election, and no state legislature is going to send a different slate of electors without incontrovertible evidence of election fraud in sufficient volume to change the outcome.
One would think the Trump legal team would therefore prioritize the pursuit of that evidence, and try and secure court orders to state and local authorities to provide full access to *everything* (documents, records, the ballots themselves) so that the Trump Campaign can conduct a full in-depth audit of the vote and forensic examinations of ballots in the suspect counties in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.
I am not in the loop on what the Trump team’s strategy is, but I have yet to see any filings in any state making such a request. At the very least we should be seeing requests for court orders to impound the records, documents, machines, and ballots. Instead, we’ve seen Trump suffering predictable defeat after defeat from lawyers aiming for the impossible. You cannot expect a judge to order a remedy, especially one like setting aside election results, based on a criminal allegation you cannot readily prove in court.
What bothers me even more is the lack of any evidence of the logistical ramp-up to carry out audits across multiple states that we should be seeing now. I’ve not seen anything like the level of recruitment and mobilization of equipment and manpower that will be needed to carry out the sort of investigation that can prove the election was stolen (or not).
It’s already been almost two weeks since the election and the clock is ticking. The only way this can be done within the timeline is by a massive mobilization of volunteers, crowdsourcing, data analytics, and forensic analysis on an industrial scale.
So where is the call for volunteers, for data and forensics experts, software testers, investigators, and auditors? Where are the logistics pros to orchestrate this operation?
The Trump Campaign is right now supposed to be recruiting folks like RedState’s Scott Hounsell*, data analysts and statisticians, to help identify locales with statistical anomalies and other red flags – e.g. 95% turnout, incredible vote swings, impossible margins – for investigation.
✱ Please read Hounsell’s analyses of the results in GA, WI, MI and PA.
Once so directed, investigators can do the document tracing and investigate and verify the audit trails. Who took custody of this ballot box? Who delivered it? How many people voted in the precinct? How many ballots were inside when it left the precinct? Where’s the voters’ register? Who received the ballot box at the counting center? When? How many ballots arrived at the counting center? etc.
Volunteers can be coordinated to methodically verify addresses (physically and otherwise) and check information against public records, identify potential signature mismatches, with separate verification teams and AI/ML applications to validate the data.
Volunteers in their thousands can also be deputized by the campaign to physically sort out ballots and identify the suspicious, e.g. ballots with only the Presidential race marked. These (and others) can then be subjected to extra scrutiny by forensic teams.
Out of the President’s 70 million voters, there are certainly more than enough who know something about ink forensics and the use of spectrophotometers and other forensic equipment. Thousands of people using the exact same pen brand in the exact same color in the exact same patterns across multiple jurisdictions with different races, particularly when it comes to absentee ballots, is incontrovertible evidence of fraud.
I also expect that the President’s 70 million supporters include computer forensics experts and software analysts who will only be too happy to examine the tabulating machines’ logs and validate the software.
In other words, this should be a coordinated endeavor involving a massive number of people, akin to a military operation. Even without Big Tech, with Parler, MeWe, Signal, etc. and 70 million passionate supporters from all walks of life, there is a no lack of avenues for coordination, manpower or expertise.
Given the deadlines, and the fact that even the very best logistics experts know you must respect the one most unforgiving resource, time, the lawyers need to start convincing some judges (Justices, preferably) that this is an accounting/audit problem; red flags mean we get to take an in-depth look at the books, it serves the public’s interest, and it can be done within the necessary deadlines. Most helpful would be securing the support of the Republican leaders in charge of the affected State Legislatures (GA, MI, PA, and WI) as amici for their petition.
The best time for this, mounting up the resources for the audits and filing the necessary suits, was last week. The next best time is *now*, and the very moment Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas are able to receive petitions in their chambers.
Again, maybe there’s a better plan that we’re not privy to and I’m wrong, and we’re not seeing failure theater.
But bitter experience and Occam’s Razor suggests otherwise.
I just hope I’m wrong.
Published in Elections
Unfortunately, you are not wrong. The machinery of the GOP is not geared for action. I like the term “failure theater”. It’s apt. There has been a lot of it going around.
I hope you are, too.
There is no doubt that election cheating occurred though we’ll never know whether it was sufficient to swing the election. Unfortunately the time constraint coupled with the inability to determine what path a ballot took after it gets into the box (machine) means there is virtually no chance that we will see any states results reversed, let alone a sufficient number to give Trump another term. The time to clean up this mess was before the election, not a week or two before but months if not years before, starting with clearing the voter rolls of the deceased and those who have moved to another state.
So does that mean it’s just theater? Maybe, but just maybe theater with a purpose if it gives impetus to finally cleaning up the voter rolls and stopping some of the dirty tricks we saw Nov 3rd. I can’t see another reason to put much into it. Sadly anyone on the winning side of this election will fight any and all reforms tooth and nail, including most of the R’s returned to Congress.
We are all going nuts, but law suits are a competitive event and always difficult to predict. I have a lawyer friend who says never to put anything in the hands of a judge if you can avoid it. We won’t see the evidence until it is played out. Meanwhile, added to the suits, Pennsylvania’s lawyers have been accused of making physical and economic threats against Trump’s lawyers. (Behind the paywall at the Epoch Times.) And that is before a judge as well. That doesn’t sound like the Pennsylvania side is confident in their case, nor dedicated to the rule of law.
Some articles are saying it’s to keep the base energised for the Georgia run offs and also donating to pay off campaign debt.
And yet, Trump has never relied on the machinery of the GOP to do anything.
While I appreciate the obvious depth of your knowledge of the technical and scientific details which must go into an effort of this sort, I still must question how you, or any of us, know that none of these requisites have been undertaken at this point. Having spent most of my life at the Bar, I am painfully aware of the fact that the persuasiveness of one spokesperson does not equate to a case winning strategy, but I have been mightily impressed by the several interviews I have heard of Sidney Powell and the evidence she has outlined in those interviews of the gargantuan computer manipulation she alleges was conducted by Dominion and its subsidiaries in shifting thousands of votes at a time from Trump to Biden. I also note, very sadly, the sickening cowardice shown by the Jones Day firm and the Porter Knight firm in being intimidated out of the representation of the Trump Campaign — by The Lincoln Project, one of the favorites of some of the Never Trumper colleagues here — at a time when they were needed the most, thereby leaving the entire responsibility for the effort in the hands of the much-maligned Rudy Guliani and what appears to be a small team of associates.
And, again, based on what I have learned about the Pennsylvania case with the Secretary of State assuming authority only the State Legislature has under the Constitution of the United States to change deadlines, etc., it seems to me that this case should be accepted by the Supreme Court in view of the obvious flouting of the Constitution by both the Secretary and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in creating several “COVID 19” exceptions to the clear language written by the Pennsylvania Legislature into its Election Code. If they do not accept this case and grant writs of review, it will be, to be as respectful as I can possibly be to the High Court, very, very, very difficult to understand why, in view of the clear Federal issue presented.
I have spent my life, both at the Bar and personally, being an ardent believer in Sir Winston’s admonition “Never Give Up, Never Give Up……” and I am very thankful that we finally, four years ago, got a President who lived that credo and refused to give up, in the face of the most sustained attacks ever seen by a President in modern times, if not ever. I simply cannot find it in my heart to believe that the American people would actually vote for a cognitively challenged, corrupt, dishonest, used up old Pol who spent 47 years doing nothing but lining his and his family’s pockets, over very possibly the most productive President in American History. Therefore, I simply cannot give up hope. Yet.
No matter what CNN says I should do! (Or, sad to say, Fox News.)
When Rudy is heading your legal strategy it’s all over.
The entirety of Trumpism is a scam to make money of off gullible fools. Considering the credulity of Trump supporters knows no limits when it comes to the BS the man utters I am not surprised by how any of this is playing out.
The reason there isn’t some massive ramp up of investigations is that there isn’t anything of substance worth investigating. Trump knows he lost, his lawyers who have to argue in court know their cases are frivolous, and their pursuit of them borders on contempt, and the entertainment people in Conservatism Inc. know this is all kayfabe. But one reads Ricochet and there is nothing but ontological certainty that Trump was robbed and Democrats rigged the whole thing somehow, they seem to be the only ones taking this this seriously. Because they feel it to be true and they can’t accept that reality doesn’t match their feelings.
Truly it is pathetic to witness. I assume like Democrats got over the Gore loss in 2000 the Ricocheti will recover from this too, but they will probably spawn more and longer lasting conspiracy theories than Gore’s loss did.
I expect the desperation and frothing at the mouth will increase. I shall continue to keep pointing out that their beliefs are both stupid and wrong.
Trump lost, fair and square. Nothing can change that reality, and because it is reality it will not be overturned in court, or by recounts.
Trump has been plagued with rumors of chaos, disorder, and disarray since he became a candidate in 2015. He has succeeded in the middle of it all.
There’s this thing called “beginner’s luck” that is the result of the beginner making chaotic choices that are unexpected to the expert opponent. The beginner wins because the expert is used to dealing with other experts that know the things you should or should not do.
Using chaos as a tactic is not 3-d chess. It’s just being unpredictable. And since our elites are staid, stale, and conventionally predictable, it appears to work.
My feeling is never put anything in the hands of a lawyer if you can avoid it.
You left out that he maligned Clarence Thomas for partisan reasons.
I think that John Bolton got it right on ABC’s “This Week”:
“President Donald Trump‘s former national security adviser urged Republican Party leaders Sunday to acknowledge and explain the presidential election result to their supporters rather than continuing to appease the president as he promotes baseless claims of voter fraud.
“‘I think as every day goes by, it’s clearer and clearer there isn’t any evidence,’ John Bolton said on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ dismissing Trump’s claim that President-elect Joe Biden’s victory is illegitimate. ‘But if the Republican voters are only hearing Donald Trump’s misrepresentations, it’s not surprising that they believe it.’
“‘It’s critical for other Republican leaders to stand up and explain what actually happened: Donald Trump lost what, by any evidence we have so far, was a free and fair election,’ he continued.”
https://ricochet.com/827124/are-we-watching-failure-theater-because-team-trumps-actions-dont-make-any-sense/
As the age old line goes: “Don’t get me started on that!” I was about to run up on my word limit, but you raise one of the main reasons I could not possibly have a lower opinion of this wretched hulk of corruption. And, the irony is that Justice Thomas will very likely go down in history as one of the truly great Justices of all time. My Lady and I have had the indescribable good fortune to have met him on two occasions and he is, in addition to a great scholar and man of solid integrity, a wonderful, warm, friendly and humorous person to be around!
Sincerely, Jim.
As a lawyer for most of my years, I enthusiastically endorse the first statement and remorsefully endorse the second. Jim.
A little harsh at this moment? I do think it’s odd that donations to a recount fund get siphoned off to pay off campaign debt, but still.
One of my bosses used to say that if the lawyers got involved, you’d already lost.
Quoting from your bio: ” … so naturally I am a conservative. I believe America is truly the greatest nation on earth today, and that while I was born in a foreign land I know in my heart I was born to be American.” May I assume that where you came from, you could not freely, with zero prospect of accountability, malign those who disagree with you and insult everything about them, including their intelligence and honesty? May we assume where you came from you might be expected to face serious consequences for calling those you disagree with “gullible fools” and other insulting phrases? May we assume that where you came from there was no functioning legal system which assured, as ours does, that every citizen, even a Head of State you apparently hate with the heat of a thousand suns, has a right to pursue every single possible legal remedy available, without the prior approval or approbation of those who disagree with him or her? May we assume that where you came from, no one, not even the richest or most powerful, could have the benefit of legal representation of a lawyer of the unparalleled excellence of Sidney Powell, who has outlined multiple instances of computer manipulation of votes in favor of your apparently favored candidate?
Too bad you hate your adopted Nation to this degree.
Unlike say, Bidenism.
Because a real effort at something like this simply cannot be kept secret.
You also need to have access to documents, records, machines and ballots that require the courts to give orders to recalcitrant officials. Trump hasn’t asked – because if he did, we’d know.
And finally, I’m no expert; it’s simply common sense.
I would humbly suggest that “Team Trump’s actions” fail to make sense only if you adopt all your assumptions.
On the other hand, they make perfect sense if you adopt different assumptions, such as “Trump lost and his lawyers know it,” or even the less severe “Trump got ripped off but the practical time to have stopped it was before the election.”
At what point do we look at the facts (as Trump’s lawyers presumably are doing) and adjust our assumptions, rather than quizzically wondering why everyone is acting so darn irrationally?
We can certainly know, generally, how large the volume of fraud was. We need to get over this idea that voter fraud is the one crime that is invulnerable to forensic interrogation.
Like I’ve explained, matching the voters’ registers, ballot box movement records, tabulation machine logs, sending out volunteers to verify addresses, having volunteers match voters against public records and graphologically & spectrographically analyzing the ballots themselves, can yield a range of how many ballots were invalidly cast.
From there you can tell if the results can be accepted as valid.
It simply requires manpower and equipment.
I think that’s a great observation about the reason for much of his success, in the course of which he’s exposed the hollowness at the core of the elites of both parties. In the more stylized and rigid world of litigation I still don’t think it will work.
@martinknight, @randywebster, @sisyphus, @cm, and especially @garyrobbins and @valiuth, see a most interesting column which just came up on The Federalist by John Daniel Davidson, entitled “Republicans Have Good Reason Not To Trust The Election Results” which makes several good points relevant to this discussion, including:
Yours truly, NOT a conspiracy theory addled rube or delusional far-right extremist.
Here’s the thing though; no one has ever tried to prove voter fraud in America since Nixon in 1960. The loser is encouraged to just concede and afterwards it’s bad form to pursue any further investigation.
According to the conventional wisdom, election fraud literally cannot happen – apparently anyone who tries to pad the tally for a favored candidate spontaneously combusts.
The point here is that there should be an actual attempt to investigate. This isn’t it.
Is that because Trump’s lawyers are of The Swamp and Trump doesn’t recognize it, or because Trump has sold out and become part of The Establishment, or is there some other reason that makes all this fall into place? Without that, the rest is conjecture that doesn’t go anywhere.
When you’re staring at a locked door, you can imagine all kinds of amazing things behind it, or you can find a key. A lot of what I’ve been seeing for the past week is story-telling about the Magical Mystery Fraud just beyond the door, but nobody is exactly rushing to fish a key out of his pocket to prove it.
His actions make perfect sense if you want to build a scenario for a comeback in 2024. Or even to maintain a base of voters to hold political leverage.
Look, I’m pretty sure we were cheated out of this election in two or three states. But it’s impossible to prove. Conservatives will have to face that reality.
By the way, I apporve of Trump pushing this to the end. This will sustain an organization for the 2022 mid term election. Whether Trump will run again in 2024 and win the primary is another question.
That is a great observation. Well done Stina.
I don’t know about the debt but yes we need to win the Georgia runoffs.
Remember the Durham investigation?