Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

An email went out to our entire campus staff today.

Some rectal haberdasher took down our campus American flag and ran it back up the flag pole - UPSIDE DOWN.

It was rectified as soon as it was reported and is now flying correctly.

For those not in the know, the American flag flying upside down is a distress signal. Someone wanted to make a political statement about today being election day.

Jerks. If you're going to be an ass, at least own it and do it on your own property.

It's kind of hard to say exactly what this is. The text message says “We have you in our records as not registered to vote,” the unbidden SMS advised. “Check your registration status & register in 2 minutes.”, except if you type in the domain name directly, you get a domain control panel login, not a live web site. And they're rather indiscriminate about whom they're blasting these to, including a 15 y/o Canadian boy who apparently has an American cell phone.

To register to vote or to update your voter registration, visit vote.gov and select your state or region.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/08/when-get-out-the-vote-efforts-look-like-phishing/

Oh, I love irony!

The PAC is now called Haley Voters For Harris, and after Miss Nik threw her support to Trump at the convention, they decided to throw their support - and their $400,000 - to Kamala!

Little Miss Nik didn't like this and sent them a cease and desist, saying they couldn't use her name, likeness, etc. So the people running the PAC, in their best Eric Cartman imitation, replied with (paraphrasing) "I can do what I want!" Nikki is a public figure, which loses her a lot of copyright protection, greatly weakening C&D threats.

From the article: “Kamala Harris and I are total opposites on every issue,” Haley wrote in a statement denouncing the group. “Any attempt to use my name to support her or her agenda is deceptive and wrong.” To which the group responded "“Our rights to engage with voters and encourage them to vote for Vice President Harris—who in our view is the clear better choice for the country—will not be suppressed,” and instantly gained another 3,000 followers!

I find this tremendously amusing.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/haley-voters-for-harris-pac-ramps-up-kamala-support-after-cease-and-desist-letter

This is fascinating!

The 12th Amendment specifies how electors are supposed to cast their ballots. And one stipulation is they cannot vote for a President AND Veep from their same state!

Trump and Rubio are both residents of Florida...

Now, when Bush and Cheney announced, they had both been residents of Texas. Cheney changed his residency to Wyoming, where he'd spent a lot of years and represented them in Congress. No problem there. In this case, I can't see The Trumpster moving back to NYC.

Rubio could resign from the Senate, but he's only two years into his third term. He could move back to Las Vegas where he spent some time in his childhood, but again, he's the elected senator from FLORIDA, not NEVADA. "Little Marco", as a certain orange shitgibbon likes to call him, seems eager for the position of Veep, and is rumored to be on the short list.

Here's how a possible election could turn out, from the article:

"So let’s say the Trump-Rubio 2024 ticket wins somewhere between 270 and 300 electoral votes (which is entirely plausible; Trump won 304 in 2016 and Biden won 306 in 2020). Trump would become president, but if Rubio is denied 30 electoral votes, the vice-presidency would be determined by a vote in the Senate (as also provided by the 12th Amendment). Senators would get to choose between the top two electoral-vote winners, i.e., the Democratic and Republican vice-presidential nominees. If the Senate is still controlled by Democrats at that point, you could have Donald Trump taking the oath of office on January 20, 2025, alongside his vice-president, Kamala Harris. The mind reels."

Wouldn't that be the greatest! Prez Trump and Veep Harris?! His red face as his BP soars would be such a wonderful compliment to his orange hair!

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-rubio-2024-ticket-could-spark-a-constitutional-crisis.html

I received a news mailing from Rolling Stone today:

"Election Day: Astrologers say Blood Moon spells chaos!"

DUH!

I could have told you that months, if not years, ago!

*SMH*

The Republican Party KNOWS that white people are not going to be a majority presence in the USA in the not distant future. It is a statistical certainty. So they try to gin up their numbers thru scare tactics and flat-out rigging the game. It's the only way they can win, honesty is a losing game and is for suckers. I have no idea what the outcome of the election will be, there's too many on-going attempts to disqualify mail-in ballots, etc., we certainly won't know Tuesday night or even Wednesday in many places.

But we will find out. At least until the lawsuits challenging results start getting filed.

Five dead. One invader shot while breaking in, three dead from other causes - one I'll talk about shortly. And one capitol police officer bludgeoned to death by an invader wielding a fire extinguisher. Stay classy, guys!

The self-own was an amazing Darwin Award, no idea if he took himself out of the gene pool before having kids. Apparently his social media feed had a photo of himself in a manly pose with two assault rifles with a caption along the lines of "Let's go get 'em!" Well, apparently he wanted to steal a painting, except he needed both hands to wrestle it off the wall and he was carrying a taser or a stun gun. So what would any true patriot do? He shoved it down his pants! And in the process of trying to wrangle the painting off the wall, the device discharged into his testicles, and it resulted in a fatal heart attack.

You cannot say the man didn't have balls.

The woman who was shot was a military veteran who served tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. She swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. She later became a massive QAnon believer and apparently decided that her oath to the Constitution became superseded to a wild fantasy with zero evidence behind it.

And if you believe there is evidence that the election was stolen or rigged, read on. I have words for that upcoming.


Our Beloved Leader, the Cheeto Benito, got himself permabanned from Twitter. I expected that to take about two weeks after the 20th, or some time around early February. But that was before this week. His personal account was already under suspension for inciting violence related to the invasion of Congress, after the suspension was lifted he tweeted that he would not be attending the inauguration of President-elect Joseph Biden. And Twitter permabanned his personal account.

Seems innocuous enough on the surface. Then my wife said that it could be viewed as a dogwhistle to his followers that "Hey, I'm not going to be there! Go the inauguration, bring your rifles! Have fun!"

Then last night he twice tried to tweet bile from the POTUS account. And they were immediately scrubbed. So Twitter has a team monitoring that account 24/7.

Then later or this morning he tried to tweet the same bile, including election fraud crap from his campaign Twitter account. And now that account is permabanned. Seems that Twitter has an policy for avoiding bans.... Whoulda thunk.

Anyone else you want permabanned, Donny? How about Giuliani? Or your kids? Please! Post on all your kids Twitter accounts!

Other Twitter permabans? Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn. Both posted tweets about election fraud. And Sidney has another problem: Dominion Voting Systems has sued her for $1.3 BILLION for defamation, and they won't take a settlement: they're going to push for discovery, and force her to reveal all documents that she alleged their machines were rigged to flip votes from Trump to Biden.

Donny's Facebook account is suspended until at least after the inauguration, as is Instagram. And, of course, on January 20th at noon the POTUS Twitter account becomes Joe Biden's. There's a dispute whether or not it will be wiped of followers. It was not wiped of Obama's followers when it was given to Trump, and now Twitter is saying it will be wiped when given to Biden.


Now Donny is saying that he's going to create an Even Better Version of Twitter. I'm sure it's going to be just as good as his health care plan. When did he reveal that? It was four years ago, wasn't it? I'm having problems remembering the details of it. Funny, I don't remember my premiums going down or my coverages going up. Well, I am a bit older now. And Donny is such a genius, he knows computers better than anyone! Though there was that health care setback: "Who knew health insurance was so complicated?" I, for one, didn't know computer programming was so complicated. Except that I've been doing it since the 1980s.


And while Congress was under siege, Governor Mansions in several states were attacked. In Washington, invaders - let's call them what they are - forced the locked gates open and rushed the residence where the governor and his family were - one person in the crowd was described as carrying a long arm, i.e rifle or shotgun. They did not gain admittance to the residence. On guard at the gate WAS A CADET. When BLM was protesting in Seattle, THERE WAS A RIOT SQUAD ON DETAIL AT THE MANSION. Not so on Wednesday.

The New Mexico Governor's Mansion was likewise assaulted. As far as I know, there were no injuries to the Duly-elected Politicians or their families in any of these attacks.

I believe the number of states where such assaults were attempted was 10-12 or so.


THIS. WAS. AN. ATTEMPTED. COUP.

It was timed to coincide with the certification of the electoral college votes.

They had pre-printed shirts that rifted on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Civil War shirt that said "MAGA Civil War" with the date 01/06/2020 printed on it.

All of this was coordinated through alternative social media sites like Parler, which has now been banned from the Google store and is on notice from Apple.


So Donny's coup failed. The question is, does he have something else up his sleeve? We shall find out.


Currently, there is a massive call to invoke the 25th Amendment on him and temporarily remove him from power as POTUS and put Mike Pence, that paragon of steadfastness, courage, and integrity in as Acting President until after Biden is sworn in. Unlikely to happen as Pence has stated he's not in favor of it and it requires Cabinet secretaries to vote for it, and they're resigning, trying to distance themselves from being for or against such an act to avoid Donny's ire.

Donny is likely to get impeached next week. So he'll be historic in yet another way: the only President to be impeached twice! I doubt a trial can be held in the Senate before the 20th when Biden is sworn in, especially with Pence being the tie-breaking vote. And even after the 20th, can Republican Senators, with so many of them backing the challenge of House Representatives to dispute the electoral college vote certification, grow enough backbone to remove Donny? A two-thirds vote is requited to convict, and with a 50/50 split, not very bloody likely.

But interestingly, apparently the trial can be invoked or continue past Donny's term of office! AND most interestingly, they can strip him of his pension, his travel allowance, his perpetual health care, AND HIS SECRET SERVICE PROTECTIVE DETAIL!

Potentially very interesting results.


Now, was the election rigged?

Okay. You come to me with many buckets of money and say "Wayne, rig the election. We want Biden to beat Trump!"

So I rig the election. And Biden wins.

Now, if you paid me to rig this election and ONLY Biden wins, and I go to all the work to rig SO DAMN MANY elections - think about how many precincts in how many cities that I'd have to rig - to make it so Biden wins WITHOUT getting 98% of the vote, and I didn't rig it so that MORE OF THE DOWN-BALLOT DEMOCRATS DIDN'T WIN? Look, Pelosi has what, an ELEVEN SEAT MARGIN in the House? The Senate is now split 50/50 with the Vice-President, as her role President of the Senate passing deciding votes in the event of ties.

You would want either your money back or a bunch of goons to lay a severe beat-down on me for doing a pretty inept job of rigging the election!

Most of the time when the opposing party takes the Presidency, they also take the House and Senate, for at least the first two years, with a reasonable margin. It's not an absolute rule. And this gives them a chance to get their agenda going, at least until the mid-term elections two years in. Then there's no telling what happens in the House and Senate.

But that didn't happen this time. Dems lost a lot of seats in the House, and two seats in the Senate were toss-ups until a run-off election was held just this week and historically, both flipped from Republican to Democrat and the Senate went from Senate Majority Leader "Moscow" Mitch McConnel to a 50/50 split. No "Blue Wave", I had zero confidence that it was going to happen.

IF THE ELECTION WAS RIGGED, WHY WEREN'T MORE DOWN-BALLOT RACES WON BY DEMOCRATS?. Please, if you firmly believe the election was rigged, explain that to me, either in a reply or a private message.


50-60 legal suits for various reasons challenging results were filed by attorneys hired by Donny. They screamed that they had incredible evidence of election fraud that they were going to present in court! And EVERY TIME they got before the judge, the judge would say "Do you have evidence to support your claim?" the attorney would say "No, your Honor." "Case dismissed", bang goes the gavel.

A lawyer can say whatever they want in public and on TV and online. And they're being paid (hopefully!) by Donny's campaign. So they'll parrot Donny's lies to please the client. But it's a different game inside that room when someone says "All rise! The Honorable Judge So-And-So Presiding. Court is in session." Attorneys are Officers of the Court, and they take a vow that they will always tell the truth While Court Is In Session. If they lie, they can PERMANENTLY lose their status as an attorney to appear on court. They take that quite seriously, so with one exception, they have folded every time they've appeared in court with one of Donny's bullshit claims.

The one suit that was upheld? They wanted a vote inspector/monitor/whatever to be able to stand closer to someone processing ballots. Upheld. Yay, good for them.


Look. Most of the Secretaries of State were Republicans. All of them have integrity and want the election to be fair and the count to be accurate. THEY RAN THE ELECTION PROPERLY. Was there fraud? Probably a little, there always is. But not enough to flip the election around. If there was, then you have to re-run it for Every. Single. Race. That includes every senator. Every representative. State and local. Every city council person and mayor. Every ballot initiative. Every proverbial dog catcher. Do we still have dog catcher races?

If one race was fixed, then ALL of them were tainted. You can't rerun JUST the presidential race. That means you might end up with a vastly different mix in the House and Senate, especially after the shit that went down Wednesday. Maybe the Dems would get two-third majorities in both the House and Senate. That could mean Statehood for the District of Columbia, expansion of the Supreme Court, Constitutional Amendments, all sorts of stuff.

The ballots were counted. And recounted. And recounted AGAIN. AND AGAIN.

THE COUNTS WERE ACCURATE. DONALD TRUMP LOST THE ELECTION. JOSEPH BIDEN WON. HALF THE COUNTRY DIDN'T LIKE IT WHEN HILLARY CLINTON LOST IN '15, I DON'T RECALL THE CAPITOL BEING INVADED BACK THEN.


And no, I'm not a registered Democrat, never have been. And no, I don't necessarily advocate some of the things in the preceding paragraph.


I don't know what's going to go down in the next eleven days, or after Biden is sworn in. I am confident that the election was fairly run: the fact that so many seats were lost in the House, by itself, is sufficient evidence for me. Occam's razor. I'm sure Donny has something else planned, but deprived of his social media bullhorn, it's going to be very tough to spring it. And now the DC area is going to be very prepared to defend the inauguration on the 20th, so I expect it to go smoothly and without interruption.

It will definitely be interesting to see what proceedings are brought against our current Self-Disgracing President over the next eleven days.

Stood in line for a good 45 minutes in 90 degree sun, and it felt really good after two hours in the library at about 70 degrees. I had my baseball hat on and was able to stand with my arms behind me in sort of a parade rest, so no sunburn.

I didn't expect much of a line for 2:15 in the afternoon!

Most people, like me, were masked, the voting stations were distanced and were cleaned between users. Even the pens were dumped in a bucket to be disinfected, so the virus was definitely being taken into account.

Early in-person voting started Tuesday in New Mexico at the County Secretary's station, and I was in the 1300s. Mail-in early voting started earlier, I wanted to do it in-person. Additional voting stations open in about two weeks.

Absolutely no griefing, no poll-watchers, no interference of any sort.

Rather interesting. First, each ballot is numbered (they are already so they can account for spoiled ballots). Second, you use a special pen to mark your candidate. When you mark your candidate, a hidden code is revealed, and you can go online and enter your ballot number and verify that your vote was properly counted for the selections that you made.

It's also inexpensive, using high-end commercial scanners, coming in at half the cost of dedicated systems.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/scantegrity