Donald Trump

[Marc]

On 7/9/2015 at 10:28 PM, Brant Gaede said:

Now I know why he won't be nominated and it's the same reason he shouldn't be. After years of insulting and bad-mouthing important people, there's no way he can unit the party behind his candidacy. He'd be less electable than Roosevelt in 1912 or Perot in 1992. Also, Goldwater in 1964. Can you imagine the other Republican candidates dropping out and throwing their endorsements to him?

--Brant

But Brant et al, he was nominated, and won, TWICE!!!!!!!!!!

MSK, our fearless leader, always correct.

Yet certain OLers,never learn

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Marc said:

Using hinky and Jenna Ellis in the same sentence has to be an oxymoron.

God bless my President, Donald JohnGalt Trump

Marc,

People who thought Biden had it sewn up--that the fraud worked--are getting testy.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

It might be a good time to 'crowd-source' some fact-checking. 

William,

You might want to start here. That was where I did a crash course in civics.

As to the document you posted, I almost didn't want to read it because it didn't mention the Certificates of Attainment that get sent to the Inspector of the United States.

From my link you will get better information than at Rense.  (Rense is good for other things, not this.)

The following is from the House of Representatives website.

Electoral College Fast Facts

Quote

Objections

The House and Senate met in a Joint Session on February 12, 1913, to count Electoral College votes for the 1912 presidential election.

Since 1887, 3 U.S.C. 15 sets the method for objections to electoral votes. During the Joint Session, Members of Congress may object to individual electoral votes or to state returns as a whole. An objection must be declared in writing and signed by at least one Representative and one Senator. In the case of an objection, the Joint Session recesses and each chamber considers the objection separately in a session which cannot last more than two hours with each Member speaking for no more than five minutes. After each house votes on whether or not to accept the objection, the Joint Session reconvenes and both chambers disclose their decisions. If they agree to the objection, the votes in question are not counted. If either chamber does not agree with the objection, the votes are counted.

• Objections to the Electoral College votes were recorded in 1969 and 2005. In both cases, the House and Senate rejected the objections and the votes in question were counted.

While it is true that, formally, the Certificate of Attainment is what counts at the Joint Session, the Governor of a state does not have the constitutional authority to issue one if it collides against the wishes of the Congress of that state. A state's legislature is the only body constitutionally empowered to determine a state's electors. 

What the seven states did was present their own slate of electors, slates that are different than will be on the respective Certificates of Attainment.

In essence, they will bring before the Joint Session of Congress a claim that the Certificates of Attainment for their respective states are invalid because the Governor usurped their constitutional authority. But they can only do that if one Senator and one Representative signs onto the objection. There are now several willing to do that and it looks like that is growing. So this will happen.

But from everything I have read so far, this has never happened before.

The most likely outcome I can see is that Mike Pence, who will preside over the Joint Session, will refuse to accept the electors of such states because that will force him to engage in an unconstitutional process, to sign his name to it. If that happens, Biden falls below 270 electoral votes and a Contingent Election is automatically triggered.

Then Trump will win since the president is voted on in the House on the basis of one vote per state. The Republicans have more states, even though they have fewer House members.

This is one of the checks and balances built in by the Founding Fathers to keep large cities from governing by default a thinner population on vast amounts of land. And, as we are seeing, it could help in the case of massive fraud, too.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is one of the best articles (by Ivan Pentchoukov at The Epoch Times) I have seen on the process in the news. It fills in information I didn't give (like the stuff about Certificates of Vote). As I said in my post on this process where I have links, I am a newbie at this stuff and trying to inform myself with correct information. So I am a witness to efforts right now, not an authority.

Electors in 7 States Cast Dueling Votes for Trump

That's behind a series of hoops you have to go through like signing up for their emails. I actually recommend that since The Epoch Times rocks--it certainly rivals WSJ, but you can read an archived version of the article here.

Here is a quote, but I recommend reading the whole article. I already did and want to read it again at least 2 more times.

Quote

Republican electors in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico cast alternative slates of votes for President Donald Trump on Dec. 14, as the certified Democrat electors in the same states cast votes for former Vice President Joe Biden.

While there’s precedent for dueling sets of electors casting votes in a presidential election, the number of states involved in the action sent the 2020 election into uncharted territory. Democrats successfully executed the same gambit in Hawaii in 1960 by casting an alternative set of votes for John F. Kennedy after the state’s governor certified the electors for Richard Nixon.

Congress ultimately counted the Kennedy electors even though he wasn’t declared the winner in the election until 11 days after Nixon’s electors were certified.

If you go to the National Archives web page 2020 Electoral College Results, you will see copies of the Certificates of Attainment, but many states have no Certificates of Vote. This will eventually get filled, but right now, there are a whole bunch of states with no Certificates of Vote. But note that some contested states like Arizona have Certificates of Vote posted.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

11 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Looks like we're going back into election mode.

Ken Starr agrees with me.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

8 hours ago, Marc said:

But Brant et al, he was nominated, and won, TWICE!!!!!!!!!!

MSK, our fearless leader, always correct.

Yet certain OLers,never learn

 

You have too much time on your hands.

--Brant

The Magnificent

 

[Peter]

Betting Odds Data

Betting Odds			Date	Joe Biden (D)	Donald Trump (R)
RCP Average			11/3 2:00 PM EST - FINAL	63.8	35.4
Bovada			November 3rd	64	34
Bwin			November 3rd	61	40
Smarkets			November 3rd	65	29
SpreadEx			November 3rd	70	34
Unibet			November 3rd	59	40
	3.8 Biden (D)	35.4 Trump (R)

 

Want to bet in Vegas? The above is cut and pasted from Real Clear Politics. It didn't paste as it should have. The odds for a win are as of early Nov. at 35.4 for Trump to win.

Earlier today, I received a letter from President Trump addressed to “one of his earliest contributors.” I can put myself in the running to win a felt tip pen signed  MAGA hat, for a mere contribution of 45 dollars. Nobody in my neighborhood has taken down their Trump 2020 signs.  Peter

[anthony]

I get the sense that many Americans are waking up to buyer's remorse. That swayed bloc of voters who came out for the Democrats, normal moderates who had mixed feelings, didn't particularly disapprove of the president's performance nor particularly like Biden et al and who hold little conviction ... did NOT expect Trump, in their wildest dreams, to lose his reelection. Their vote was a conscience-salver, a sort of self-righteous virtue-display if only for their own sake. Unthinking(!) that some millions of other voters were doing exactly the same. But I didn't mean it! (Where the hell are we going now?) 

Which gives me confidence for the near future, a short-lived term of Dem - leftists. The majority independent American character will reassert itself after a brief taste of the new deal.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

Which gives me confidence for the near future, a short-lived term of Dem - leftists. The majority independent American character will reassert itself after a brief taste of the new deal.

Tony,

I doubt it.

Does this look like the act of a man who only has a month or so left to govern?

Trump Appoints 1776 Commission to Promote 'Patriotic Education'

Quote

President Donald Trump on Friday officially unveiled his choices for the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission, which will focus on pushing against the 1619 Project from The New York Times Magazine.

The 18-member panel will be chaired by Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, with retired Vanderbilt University professor Carol M. Swain as vice chair. It also includes conservative activist Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant. The commission’s executive director will be Matthew Spalding, Hillsdale Associate Vice President and Dean of Educational Programs.

''The 1776 Committee was formed to advise the President about the core principles of the American founding and how to protect those principles by promoting patriotic education,'' Spalding said in a statement, according to Politico. ''The path to a renewed and confident national unity is through a rediscovery of our shared identity rooted in those principles.''

Trump created the commission in an executive order issued last month to ''better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.''

This is a long-term project like all major education projects are. (The covert Marxist indoctrination in American schools took decades.)

This project would be such an easy thing to remove and reverse if Biden were sworn in. It's based on an Executive Order and Biden certainly is surrounded by people who would demand this.

Yet President Trump is just now starting it.

Think photo finish.

To me, the present looks like Muhammed Ali's rope-a-dope, which is one of President Trump's favorite strategies.

The strategy is to fake weakness by resting and letting the other boxer tire, that is, punch himself out against the gloves all the way up to the last round or so where he will be too weak to defend himself properly, then come out swinging.

This is exactly what President Trump did to Hillary Clinton with the mainstream media. Trump's barrage of rallies at the end was him coming out swinging as she sat on her ass.

As the clock ticks on right now, it sure looks like when President Trump strikes, it will be too late for the anti-Trump people to do anything about it.

In the immortal words of Mike Tyson, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 12/17/2020 at 9:24 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I like these opinions better than "muh Russians," which I am beginning to have second thoughts about. Although I do not discount the Russians being involved.

Now, for the time being, I am flipping this.

and

Note, I said I am flipping it, not blaming it all on the Russians.

When Pompeo and Levin come out this clear, the Russians definitely were in control of this attack. But I'm not letting China and the Deep State, including Soros & Co., off the hook. I have no doubt they were involved at some level.

Michael

EDIT:

This:

and this:

Cybersecurity chief, fired by Trump over election, no longer media darling after government hack

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Does this look like the act of a man who only has a month or so left to govern?

Or how about this?

"got caught..."

I don't think he's merely referring to the press yacking about it...

"weak fools!"

In other words, make the system work as it is supposed to before the last resort has to be used...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

When Pompeo and Levin come out this clear, the Russians definitely were in control of this attack.

Dayaamm!

No sooner than I write that then President Trump comes out with this:

Well there is it.

I'm putting this issue on hold until I learn more. After all, I'm on the outside looking in. Anything I say (and others say, for that matter) is speculation, not fact.

The people who know the facts are giving mixed signals to the public. And the mainstream press is going apeshit all over the place.

Time to stop evaluating for a bit and start looking just to identify correctly what we are looking at.

 

NOTE: There is one signal I will give as fact, and that's because I've studied storytelling so deeply. There is a concept called "throughline." This is where a plotline, character development, an element like a McGuffin, etc., changes throughout the story.

Generally, based on how human attention and mental engagement work, as a throughline unfolds, each new point becomes more intense. Usually the stages get raised, or a new clue is revealed, or the deadline shifts closer, or something like that.

In this particular set of tweets by President Trump, a major hack to the America's cybersystem from foreign agents is wedded to activity in the Dominion voting machines.

If we make a throughline out of the Executive Order on Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election of 2018, we can see a gradual progression of fulfilling and/or strengthening of each condition written therein to make it iron-clad if invoked.

I can see that in these mixed signals. But I can't see anything else so far except mixed signals. 

So it's looking time.

Michael

[tmj]

Just as an aside, not that any genie could be put back, imagine if we still had to wait for the morning edition! The ability to edit storylines virtually instantaneously must also carry some new dynamics, no ?

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

There is one signal I will give as fact, and that's because I've studied storytelling so deeply. There is a concept called "throughline." This is where a plotline, character development, an element like a McGuffin, etc., changes throughout the story.

Generally, based on how human attention and mental engagement work, as a throughline unfolds, each new point becomes more intense. Usually the stages get raised, or a new clue is revealed, or the deadline shifts closer, or something like that.

These musings would definitely apply to works of fiction, I expect. But what about in the Gray Zone? Here I include a Maggie Haberman tweet that suggests Maggie knows where Sidney Powell was last night:

(10) Maggie Haberman on Twitter: "SCOOP - Sidney Powell was in Oval Office last night as POTUS discussed making her special counsel for election fraud. @KannoYoungs and me https://t.co/wUB8ZMrPxp" / Twitter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

But what about in the Gray Zone?

William,

Even being NYT, I bet one thing is 100% true.

Maggie Haberman was not in the Oval office last night.

 

Michael

 

EDIT: I went ahead and looked at the Haberman's NYT article. As I already knew, anonymous sources. Second hand ones at that. "People briefed on what took place." Those are her sources. Instead of Grey Zone, this is the gossip grapevine. They have this in high schools and small towns, too.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But here's a definite fact that anyone can see for themselves.

Minutes ago President Trump posted the following on Twitter and Sidney Powell retweeted it.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Speaking of Sidney, she tweeted the following less than an hour ago and I posted it here in the Deep State Unraveling thread where it really belongs (both tweet and YouTube video).

But since embedding a tweet is so easy and we are talking about Sidney, here is the tweet.

Michael

[william.scherk]

Jenna Ellis was where last night?  I mean, the White House is a big place.

On 12/18/2020 at 11:13 AM, william.scherk said:

In any case, there is something hinky about this much-repeated set of claims [attributed to Jenna Ellis]. It might be a good time to 'crowd-source' some fact-checking. 

This is not fair, but great minor propaganda.  If you do not exactly pin all your hopes on L Lin Wood legal actions.

Who doesn't make mistakes?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

29 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Jenna Ellis was where last night?

William,

Definitely not with Maggie Haberman .

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Man, ain't this the truth.

 

Michael

[william.scherk]

Hinky or not, the question is still alive. Does the attributed-to-Jenna-Ellis item bear an error/misreading? As our leader might say, "It's all over the place." 

On 12/18/2020 at 11:13 AM, william.scherk said:

In any case, there is something hinky about this much-repeated set of claims. It might be a good time to 'crowd-source' some fact-checking. 

Which part of the process described below strikes readers as quite wrong?

I think it is the three-exclamation-point line that is wrong: "the vote in the House will only be ONE vote per delegation, per state, not per House member!!!"

The items Michael highlighted and I include here are from a presumably 'in the know' place at the US House: Electoral College Fast Facts | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

Michael has tackled this already -- I quote liberally below.

I am coming around to the idea that getting ready for January 6 will involve making sure our expectations are on track. I'll go off to the virtual stacks and do some research on what Michael introduces in these key paragraphs. 

Key terms:  Certificate of Attainment; non-certified/alternate "slate of electors"; Electoral College objection process; Contingent Election ...

On 12/18/2020 at 2:49 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

While it is true that, formally, the Certificate of Attainment is what counts at the Joint Session, the Governor of a state does not have the constitutional authority to issue one if it collides against the wishes of the Congress of that state. A state's legislature is the only body constitutionally empowered to determine a state's electors. 

What the seven states did was present their own slate of electors, slates that are different than will be on the respective Certificates of Attainment.

In essence, they will bring before the Joint Session of Congress a claim that the Certificates of Attainment for their respective states are invalid because the Governor usurped their constitutional authority. But they can only do that if one Senator and one Representative signs onto the objection. There are now several willing to do that and it looks like that is growing. So this will happen.

But from everything I have read so far, this has never happened before.

The most likely outcome I can see is that Mike Pence, who will preside over the Joint Session, will refuse to accept the electors of such states because that will force him to engage in an unconstitutional process, to sign his name to it. If that happens, Biden falls below 270 electoral votes and a Contingent Election is automatically triggered.

Then Trump will win since the president is voted on in the House on the basis of one vote per state. The Republicans have more states, even though they have fewer House members.

This is one of the checks and balances built in by the Founding Fathers to keep large cities from governing by default a thinner population on vast amounts of land. And, as we are seeing, it could help in the case of massive fraud, too.

I am ready to be argued out of January 6 2021 presuppositions on my part -- that Mike Pence will gravely go through all stipulated procedures, that a least one objection by a representative+senator will be raised, that each properly-constructed objection necessitates each house separately debate and vote to sustain or deny that objection. That during the process a deny/affirm vote in the House would be counted member by member, rather than by state. 

That Mike Pence will resume "opening the electoral votes" once any objection has been affirmed or denie -- and that a worldwide live broadcast of proceedings will have a huge, historic audience for what was but a C-SPAN formality in 2017.

I might argue myself out of these priors while in the stacks! 

Happy lead up to the holidays till I return. Hope you are all of good cheer. 

Edited December 19, 2020 by william.scherk
Flushed out the cache; found diamonds

[Ellen Stuttle]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

That during the process a deny/affirm vote in the House would be counted member by member, rather than by state. 

That's votes on objections, which are made before votes on candidates.

In the vote on candidates in a Contingent Election each state delegation gets one vote.

The following is from Congressional Research Service, updated October 6, 2020 - link.

Quote

[bold emphasis added]
In a contingent election, the House would choose among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each state, regardless of population, casts a single vote for President in a contingent election. Representatives of states with two or more Representatives would therefore need to conduct an internal poll within their state delegation to decide which candidate would receive the state’s single vote. A majority of state votes, 26 or more, is required to elect, and the House must vote “immediately” and “by ballot.” Additional precedents exist from 1825, but they would not be binding on the House in a contemporary election. In a contingent election, the Senate elects the Vice President, choosing one of the two candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each Senator casts a single vote, and the votes of a majority of the whole Senate, 51 or more, are necessary to elect. The District of Columbia, which is not a state, would not participate in a contingent election, despite the fact that it casts three electoral votes.

Ellen

[william.scherk]

52 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Does the attributed-to-Jenna-Ellis item bear an error/misreading?

I just found a Jenna Ellis Facebook denial; Rense did no checking, quelle surprise:

[Ellen Stuttle]

This is also from Congressional Research Service, updated October 6, 2020 - link.

Quote

A contingent election would be conducted by a newly elected Congress, immediately following the joint congressional session that counts and certifies electoral votes. This session is set by law for January 6 of the year following the presidential election, but is occasionally rescheduled. If the House is unable to elect a President by the January 20 inauguration day, the 20th Amendment provides that the Vice President-elect would act as President until the impasse is resolved. If neither a President nor Vice President has been chosen by inauguration day, the Presidential Succession Act applies, under which the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President pro tempore of the Senate, or a Cabinet officer, in that order, would act as President until a President or Vice President qualifies

Ellen

[william.scherk]

18 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

That during the process a deny/affirm vote in the House would be counted member by member, rather than by state. 

That's votes on objections, which are made before votes on candidates.

I may be misunderstanding -- a "Contingent Election" seems to me to be another term for a tie in Electoral College votes counted "out of the box" the first time. 

Thanks to Michael for previous thoughts in a reply to Peter on November 6.

I am going to spend some time on this page, following its links. A presumably meaningful "Certificate of Ascertainment" is noted.  Is that the "Certificate of Attainment"?  Researchers, on your marks ...