The judge thinks that the Sandy Hook families are really concerned about a couple of million dollars in what is essentially imaginary money anyway, since there’s no way they’ll collect any more than a small fraction of the $1.5 billion he owes them. They considered shutting down Infowars to be far, far more important and were essentially saying “Instead of Jones owing us about $1.5 billion that we’ll never see, we’ll say he now owes us $1.498 billion that we’ll never see”.

I’d want the same damn thing. I’d want Infowars seized and turned into a memorial site for the victims and promotes gun control legislation. Hell, I’d say “Hey, you can knock the judgement down to $1 billion if I get control of infowars.” It’s not that I believe infowars is worth anywhere close to $500 million in real money, but it’s certainly worth $500 million in imaginary money I’ll never see anyway just to make sure he doesn’t have it.

With that said, given this timeline this doesn’t surprise me in the least. Part of me is expecting that this whole case will be reversed on appeal, either through the SC, a Trump-friendly judge along the way, or somehow through Trump’s meddling. And honestly, there’s a non-zero chance that one of these kook judges says that somehow, Sandy Hook owes Jones ten figures. Because this is the timeline we live in.

This is the incoming Trump administration. Just paint the whole damn map red. Laws don’t really matter when the ones who enforce those laws can do what they want based on the legal theory of “because fuck you, that’s why.”

Trump has a lot more than a united government. He has total control over the Republican party. He has a Supreme Court totally subservient to him and who are willing to literally handwave away parts of the Constitution at will to protect him and create new powers on a whim for him to exploit. He has control of over half of the state governments. And all of these people are loyal to Trump. He can literally do what he wants. Those constitutional protections you think you have? Not if Trump says you don’t. Citizenship status? Not if Trump says you don’t. Those pesky “laws” meant to keep him in check? Who’s going to enforce them? Laws don’t mean jack shit if there’s nobody willing or able to enforce them.

Remember, the Supreme Court directly said that Trump could say “Yes, schedule a meeting for next Tuesday. Oh, and have Dolly Parton executed by Seal Team Six next weekend.” and Trump can’t even be investigated or questioned about it, much less prosecuted. The constitution no longer matters. It’s now just a really old piece of paper being protected by special equipment that will most likely be shut off because Elon Musk refuses to pay the electric bill.

He campaigned on this. This is what his supporters want. He’ll do this to the thunderous applause of the people he’s hurting while they simultaneously blame Biden, brown people, and transsexual children for the problems that Trump is imposing on them.

And the US voting base stood up on November 5th and declared that yes, they’d like more of that.

Everybody needs to remember that the US does not and never has recognized the ICC. Acknowledging this, by definition, would be giving the ICC acknowledgement and recognition of authority that would be in direct conflict with the US Constitution along with decades of US foreign policy. The US will never acknowledge anything having authority over it, explicitly or implicitly. Nor should they.

So in an effort to “cut government spending”, “reduce waste”, and "make the government more efficient, the first thing they did was to create three new positions out of thin air with absolutely no clear goals, and grossly overpay 3 people and counting to fill those positions…

This is not what is happening, though. I address this in another post, but this is a false equivilency. Screaming fraud because of heresay from a demonstable liar, and then refusing to accept the results even after the audit without just cause is not the same as seeing these questionable and verifiable facts and performing an audit in response,

From the point of view of your average voter, when Trump does it, it’s “hearsay from a demonstrable liar”, but when Harris asks, it’s “seeing questionable and verifiable facts”. Your average voter sees no difference. They see you saying that Trump was ridiculous for even suggesting it in 2020, then immediately seeing you doing the exact same thing in 2024. Like it or not, that is what the conclusion is going to be to your average voter. Doesn’t matter what the facts are.

particularly if the result is met with acceptance.

hahah

Haha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

How cute. You actually think you’d be able to convince people that the results were legitimate. Short of showing people video of Trump himself changing the numbers, you will never get people to believe that any overturning of the election is anything other than the deep state taking over. You want a repeat of J6 on steroids? Because that’s how you get a repeat of J6 on steroids.

To suggest that this response is occurring “the very first time an election doesn’t go your way” is dishonest,

No, it’s actually the truth. Dems said elections were safe and secure in the last election, and now you’re saying it was hacked in the very next election.

as there were no widespread claims of voter fraud nor calls for recounts and audits in the 2016 election. By and large, people accepted the results.

Good to know I’m not talking about the 2016 election. I am talking about the 2020 election. The one where half the country still thinks Biden stole it because reasons. We spent the past 4 years saying there is no election fraud, then in the very first presidential election, you’re saying there’s suddenly mass amounts of election fraud? But the last one was secure! And the next one will be too, pinky swear!

Your 2028 hypothesis is predicated on the idea that Democrat voters will deny objective reality

Did you not pay attention to the results of this election? You know, the one where GOP candidates up and down the ticket were campaigning on taking a giant shit on you, and the voters handed the government trifecta to the GOP while asking for more shit? Remember, nobody is saying there’s any downticket issues. Which means that the voters voted to hand the House, Senate, and several state governments over to the GOP.

How many people keep saying “But Gaza!”, despite Trump campaigning on making that situation exponentially worse? Or “the economy”? Democrats across the country either actively voted against their own best interests or opted to stay home, achieving the same result. So yes, Democrat voters absolutely will deny objective reality. We just saw plenty of it even beyond the Presidential race.

the way Trump voters have been. I suspect that would not be the case.

Recent evidence proves otherwise.

So what’s your plan? Tell everybody that our election integrity is an absolute joke, watch as Republican state governments do exactly nothing about it because it benefits them, then tell everybody to go vote in 2028 because voting in a rigged election will change things, I swear!

At the same time, might as well give Fox News a call and tell them to ask for their $800 million back, because you’ve just proven that those Dominion machines weren’t so safe and secure after all.

And that’s the point I’m trying to make. These analyses are trivially easy to do.

I’m also sure that both the Trump and Harris campaign have access to far more data than the general public. This kind of analysis should be done as a matter of routine by each precinct anyway (again, even if only to make sure that the tabulator isn’t throwing in a million votes for Mickey Mouse), and if Harris didn’t have half a dozen people on her team crunching these numbers over and over before she conceded, that’s a huge failure on her part.

And it’s the reason I don’t believe in this theory. Being able to check on this is rudimentary work; had there been any anomalies, we’d have known it on November 6, not November 21. The fact that not one district across the country (remember, all 50 states went redder) or one person from the Harris campaign spoke up and said “Hey…might wanna take a look at this.” speaks volumes.

And good luck getting people to vote ever again.

I get how you reach the outcomes you’re suggesting are possible, but I don’t think it’s as bleak as you’ve portrayed it, and simply rolling over as literal fascists rig the electoral process of the most powerful country in the world is straight up not a good idea.

But at some point, you’ve got to ask if the cure you’re proposing ends up being worse than the disease. You are talking about taking a giant shit on everybody who’s been saying that 2020 was a free and fair election when you immediately fling the same accusations the very first time an election doesn’t go your way. You are immediately and permanently throwing our election integrity into question on the highly unlikely chance there’s meat on that bone. No matter the results, you walk into 2028 with Republicans saying 2020 was stolen, Dems saying 2024 was stolen, and voters throwing up their hands and saying “why should I bother to vote if both sides are just saying hackers are gonna decide the outcome anyway?” and wondering why a shitload more people stay home in 2028.

I don’t think that’s a risk big enough to take on a theory that has little realistic chance of being true.

I’m just saying, scenario one would help me sleep a whole lot better. If people came out in droves specifically in swing states to only vote for Trump, then it is what it is. The fact it’s not a standard preliminary check, and it was passed over because the margins were just outside the bounds of automatic recount… it matters.

Statistical anomolies are a thing. Longshots sometimes pay off. And again, the only way this could happen is if the vote tabulations don’t match physical counts, which is a very prelimiary check in the process. If that had happened, we’d know it by now. I understand wanting checks and balances, but you’ve got to stay in the bounds of reality. “Hackers silently infiltrated networks nationwide and changed millions of vote counts” isn’t a reasonable position. It’s the plot to a Mission: impossible movie.

And if scenario two is the case, to hell with the machines, let’s get back to hand counting everything and waiting weeks for a final verified result. The machines are here to simplify counting and speed up reaching a consensus, if they are not accurate they have failed in their purpose and should be discarded from the process. This does not bring election integrity into question since there is a paper trail to back it up. If the machines are broken, miscounting or insecure - the public should know.

For what it’s worth, I agree with this. But remember…that’s still a really wordy way of saying that our elections are not and never were secure. You still bring the results of literally every election in the modern age into question. And you still ensure that nobody trusts our elections ever again.

Please answer the question of how our elections are both “fair” and “rigged” at the same time. You’re either saying our elections are fair, which would make the whole discussion moot, or you’re saying that hackers can just go in completely undetected and change millions of votes. Which one is it? Because the only answer I get to any of these questions are insults and downvotes.

Fair elections also include accepting the results of that election, and not immediately chasing conspiracy theories when you don’t like the results. Especially after you just got finished spending 4 years ridiculing the other party for doing the exact same thing.

Where are they getting these numbers on how many “bullet ballots” there were?

Just to answer this question, given the data, I’ve done more complex analyses during my lunch break at work.

If their database is anywhere close to modern, you can run an analysis on anything you want in seconds. Give any expert access to the data, and they could tell you how many votes were cast for Trump in East Bumfuck, Idaho between 10 and 11 AM in voting booth #4 in about 30 seconds.

Which is one of the reasons I remain skeptical. If Harris doesn’t have an expert who can crunch those numbers in real time as the data becomes available, that’s a failure on her part.

Because those “statistical anomolies” can only result in one of two things:

1. The machine totals and physical counts match. In this case, then yes, a shitload of people really did just vote for Trump and nothing else. This is a very preliminary check that should be being done at every polling station about 3 seconds after voting closes. There is never a situation where those two numbers should not match, down to the vote.

2. The machine totals and physical counts do not match. In this case, you are also admitting that our elections are not safe and secure. You give immediate legitimacy to the question of whether the same thing happened in 2020. And you give legitimacy to the belief that voting in 2028 won’t matter because failures of that magnitude nationwide cannot be fixed in just four years, and the election will just be stolen by hackers anyway. Oh, and civil war starts because nobody believes the results at all.

Those are your options. “We just want a simple verification” is little more than a reworded version of “We’re just asking questions!” that rabble-rousers on the right have been using for years.

I’ve said it repeatedly, and my position still stands. Nothing good will come out of going down this path. Nothing. There is no realistic scenario where the outcome of the election is changed, and even if there were, you’d never get anyone in this country to believe our elections are secure ever again.

If people go down this path and it goes nowhere, it only makes Democrats look like hypocrites for spending four years saying how our election integrity is safe, secure, free and fair only to immediately take that position and turn it on its head the second an election doesn’t go their way.

Even if there is meat on the bone…by admitting it, you are admitting that our elections aren’t free, fair, secure, and safe after all because that means that hackers were able to break into voting systems nationwide, in real time, change votes by the million, and go completely undetected. You would be saying that our election systems are in reality about as secure as my grandmother’s wireless hotspot, and you would be saying that the multiple levels of security and accountability that should have detected this in real time simply do not exist. You are saying that nobody, not one person in a red or blue state, looked at the vote tabulations from the machines, saw that the number in the tally was far higher than the number of people who physically showed up to vote, and said something. “Hey, George. The rolls say that we should have 3,598 votes cast according to our headcount, but the voting machine is giving me a total of 5,280. I think we need to take a look at this.”

And if that didn’t happen (because the headcounts and machine tabulations match), then people need to accept that a lot of people really did just show up to vote for Trump and nothing else. And in this political environment, that is a very real possibility. There are plenty of people who would gladly vote for Trump because “but Gaza” or “black woman bad” or “teh economy” or whatever. Casting a protest vote in a state like California or Massachusetts is a waste of time because those states are heavily blue, so there’s little reason to waste your time. But in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, that vote would actually matter, which would drive far more people to the polls.

If you’re following polls at this point, there’s problem #1. Polls haven’t got a thing about Trump right since he came down the escalator to shit on Mexicans. All polls have proven is that there are plenty of people who will gladly vote Trump while also gladly telling poll workers whatever they want to hear to get them off the phone, or simply faking support for Harris to muddy the results. As a prime example, look at Springfield, Ohio where the community spent months defending the Haitian community in public, then voted 2:1 in favor of Trump.

Try flipping the results of the election at this point, and Harris will never be considered a legitimate President. You will never be able to convince anybody that our elections are secure again. You are telling people “The 2020 election was safe and secure so Trump’s claims are entirely unfounded. But they really did steal the 2024 election and almost got away with it! And we pinky swear that the 2028 election will be safe and secure.” Good luck with that.

There absolutely will be riots. They will make January 6 look like a schoolyard fight by comparison. There will be civil war. I don’t care if you show the public video of Trump himself banging away at the keyboard and maniuplating the numbers himself. People will not believe it. Fake news, deepfakes, AI manipulation. Whatever the reason, they’ll refuse to accept it and they’ll refuse violently.

We need to face facts, instead of chasing fringe conspiracy theories. Donald Trump won. He won in a free and fair election, and we have to do our best to get through the next four years and try again in 2028. I would much rather focus on the fact that literally every single pick he’s made so far has been tied to some kind of sex abuse scandal or child sex ring so we can expose them and run them out of politics before they get confirmed and cause any more damage. Getting rid of Gaetz proved that we at least have a chance there, vs. wasting political capital on conspiracy theories that would just make everything worse regardless of the outcome. There is no path where Trump gets ousted, Harris is sworn in, and everybody lives happily ever after.

• Trump supporter: “The election of 2020 was stolen from Trump.”
• You: “That didn’t happen because our elections are safe and secure.”
• Trump supporter: “But didn’t you just get finished saying that the 2024 election was stolen by hackers manipulating totals for Trump?”
• You: “Yes, but that was the 2024 election. Completely different this time.”
• Trump supporter: "So how is it completely different? "
• You: “…”

or…

• You: “We have proof that due to systematic failures on multiple levels in literally every state in the country, vote totals were illegally manipulated to favor Trump.”
• Voter: So why should I bother voting in 2028 if the election is just going to be decided by hackers anyway?
• You: “Oh, we’ve solved all of the problems. Believe us, the 2028 election will be safe and secure.”
• Voter: “That’s what you said last time.”

Those are the conversations you will be having with people. You cannot simultaneously say that (a) the 2020 election was secure, (b) the 2024 election was stolen by Trump, and © the 2028 election will be secure. That absolutely will not pass the laugh test by your average voter.

So she’s trying to pull a Madison Cawthorn 2.0. She might wanna consider how well that worked out for him.

With that being said, does this really make sense?

She’s either lying through her teeth, or Madison Cawthorn was right all along. I’d say the odds here are about 50/50.

But let’s say she’s right (I know, I know, bear with me…)…doesn’t that just mean that she knows that the GOP are full of the same “groomers” that she has been crusading against for years? And that she’s OK with it, so long as she can use it for political capital? I mean, I get it…pride in the hypocrisy and all that. But how in the name of Jesus’ favorite camel does this make her look good? At all? At best, it means she’s complicit in allowing what would literally be the most powerful pedo ring on the fucking planet to continue to exist, and is perfectly fine with keeping that information from the public as long as it’s in her political best interest or she can use it to advance her own political career.

And that is her in the best possible light. It only gets worse from there. I just don’t see how this is anywhere close to being beneficial for her unless she’s got the goods. And if she’s got the goods, I have about a hundred million more questions.

No, he’s right. Nobody should be disqualified for a media report. All that would do is lead to everybody throwing wild accusations against everybody else.

However, reports from FBI investigations and the House Ethics Committee absolutely should be grounds for disqualification.

You’re missing my point slightly.

Yes, if Trump is dead-set on killing the DOE, we’re fucked. You’re right there. But unlike many of Trump’s other yes-men, Linda McMahon is not known to have the drive to do anything by herself. Go watch any of her WWE footage or any time she’s made a public statement. That woman hasn’t lifted a finger in her life without calling on her assistants to check on her nails. And we all know that Trump has the attention span of a methhead with ADHD. The silver lining is that if Trump decides to set his sights elsewhere, she’ll do little damage on her own, unlike a more ambitious yes-man who will take the initiative.

Think of it this way. It could have been Boebert. Or MTG. Or Jim Jordan. Plenty of cronies exponentially worse than McMahon if they were chosen, and all of which would have the initiative to do it themselves if Trump’s attention was focused elsewhere.