It’s interesting to watch the juxtaposition of legislative process and the rancid lies told by the former guy and still megaphoned by his allies. Here’s a tidbit from the House Oversight Hearing on the Arizona Audit. When couched only in terms of provable fact, and not laced with hysteria and conspiracy theory, what transpired in Arizona is revealed for the stupid, futile — not to mention expensive — exercise that it was.
And it’s not surprising that it happened. Listen to this. Trump always questions elections.
One of best parts of today’s House Oversight hearing on the 2020 election was Rep. Stephen Lynch (I love this guy). Points out Trump accused Obama of stealing election from Romney, he accused Ted Cruz of stealing the Iowa caucus from him, etc. Trump never loses fair and square. pic.twitter.com/La2F1NMMgg
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 7, 2021
Vintage Trump. And then here’s the GOP’s own witness hanging them out to dry. When your witnesses testify against you, it’s horrifying to think what your adversaries might say, given the chance. At the very end the witness attempts to get in a shot about how he asked for a “co-liasion” and Democrats refused him. That’s the best argument he could come up with.
This runs a little over six minutes.
But if you think anything is going to substantively change, take a look at Josh Mandel, whose platform basically consists of the Big Lie.
Ohio US Senate Candidate @JoshMandelOhio: “I’m the only one in this race for US Senate…saying we should abolish the Jan. 6 commission…and replace it with a Nov. 3 commission to really investigate what happened when the Democrats stole the election.” pic.twitter.com/vCgcX8hdew
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) October 6, 2021
And he’s not the only one. Here’s another.
Republican US Senate candidate for Illinois. pic.twitter.com/8XbyYfMpvw
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 7, 2021
The 2022 election is going to be full of this. We can trumpet from the highest buildings that the House Oversight hearing conclusively proved that the Arizona audit was a sham and that the GOP’s key witness admitted before Congress that Joe Biden was legitimately elected by Arizona voters. What will happen is the witness, former Arizona secretary of state Ken Bennett, will be called a traitor, possibly harassed, for telling the truth.
And the beat goes on. And with every downstroke, Democracy dies another inch.
Dear Bobby: No, you’re not alone in believing in the Big Lie. Trump *lost* by more than 7 million votes. There was almost no fraud, and the known cases were all Rs doing things like voting for dead people, which everyone else knows is illegal.
Um, P J, I understood what you meant with this:
” the known cases were all Rs doing things like voting for dead people, which everyone else knows is illegal.”
But the wording is highly incorrect. It is PERFECTLY LEGAL to cast your own ballot for a dead person. What is illegal is casting a ballot AS a dead person (ie, assuming someone else’s name/identity to cast a ballot).
Voting FOR a dead person is basically just wasting a vote.
Voting AS a dead person is basically identity theft.
Joseph, you are going to have to do better than this to criticize P J’s language: “voting for dead people.” The language is indeed ambiguous, but the very first definition of “for” in Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition (copyright 2010) is: “in place of; instead of.”
I think that “R’s voted in place of dead people” or “R’s voted instead of dead people” gets across the idea that “R’s voted in the name of dead people” fairly well in a letter to the editor. Yes, I would have preferred more precise wording for an opinion column, but the wording is not “highly incorrect.”
Apart from my ability to look up the word “for” in a dictionary, what are my credentials to weigh in on this subject? They are from many decades ago, I admit, but here they are for your consideration: (1) grade of 98 in my high school vocabulary class; (2) score of 689 on the SAT verbal section; (3) top 2% of my high school graduating class; (4) National Merit Finalist; and (5) score of 710 on the GRE verbal test.
Much later in life, I received awards from the adviser of my junior college newspaper for my copy editing (when I went back to school to take journalism classes), and I later copy edited a weekly newspaper for four years, much to the satisfaction of the publisher.
Reminds me of the cartoon of a guy discovering a singing frog buried in a box. He hits on the idea of easy riches, rented a hall & filled it with a paying crowd. When the curtain rises, all the frog did was croak. The angry crowd left. As soon they left, the frog started dancing & singing. The cartoon ends with him trying to bury it again. I think they found it. Except now it’s bloated body rest in Florida.
Lindell is really in another universe: He claims someone voted last year who is 850 years old, and more than 2000 people over the age of 200 voted. He won’t provide further information, of course.
We probably all get different ads on this site, but all week when there are headline images of Trump, there’s this side ad that slides in of a human hand holding this gigantic like 24” flaccid cucumber with the word “problem??” ?
Anyway, this is scary in part because of what Zephyr Teachout writes about in her book on corruption. Corruption works and brings societies down when someone does something bad, and it goes unchecked, so the next person goes further, then further, then further.
Next time, it’s going to be a state legislature holding off on certification. Then one that nullifies the vote. Then we don’t have elections any more.