Rigging the 2016 Presidential Election


william.scherk

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Re: Docs detailing the internal workings of Trump's voter fraud commission were released.

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memeorandum

 TOP ITEMS: 
i2.jpgshare.png Eli Rosenberg / Washington Post:
'The most bizarre thing I've ever been a part of': Trump panel found no voter fraud, ex-member says  —  Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, one of the 11 members of the commission formed by President Trump to investigate supposed voter fraud, issued a scathing rebuke of the disbanded panel on Friday …
RELATED:
i1.jpgshare.png Christina Tudor / American Oversight:
COMMISSION RECORDS SHOW NO EVIDENCE OF WIDESPREAD VOTER FRAUD  —  Documents obtained by Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap shed light on the inner workings of the now-defunct Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (PACEI).  —  American Oversight has been representing Dunlap …

 

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First, a bit of yadda yadda yadda, as they say, on terminology and meaning:

On 8/5/2018 at 11:21 AM, william.scherk said:

Although I have been persuaded to use the term both ironically and un-ironically, I have my own criteria in mind when asked to 'analyze' an item, a site, an editorial line or an entire 24 hour information channel. I explain that here, Peter.  You may have other criteria, given concept creep and the amount of loaded language involved.  

This item is or is not Fake News, or false-news, or false-reporting, or defective, biased, selective, suggestive or otherwise untrustworthy. Perhaps: Senator: Russia has 'penetrated' Florida counties ahead of midterms. Hat-tip to Styx ...

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[...] Efforts by Russian “bad actors” to penetrate Florida’s election system have been widely reported. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers includes charges that Florida had been the victim of multiple attempts to hack county election systems in the 2016 presidential election.

Nelson told reporters Wednesday that Russian attempts to meddle in the 2018 midterms likely include an effort to falsify voter registration rolls. 

“That’s exactly what the Russians want to do. They want to sow chaos in our democratic institutions,” Nelson said. 

Sen. Nelson’s office did not respond to a Yahoo News request for additional comment. Requests for confirmation of Nelson’s claims from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have also not been answered.

Kinda makes you want to know more, right?

This suspected attempt at intrusion fits into the typology I addressed at the top of this long thread:

On 8/2/2016 at 10:41 AM, william.scherk said:

Here is the typology as outlined at Wikipedia. I am going to do some digging, to find the most recent and the most serious instances of electoral/voter fraud in the USA. 

I think that raising the spectre is politically-wise.  It can serve to deepen a sense of malaise and distrust in institutions-- which should redound to Mr Trump.

For those who like a good conspiracy theory, especially one that salts suggestion with facts, or seeds a 'fear story' with presumptions and insinuations ... follow Jennifer Cohn. Her beat is election integrity and her obsessions are weaknesses of non- VVPAT election systems, especially the ES&S systems -- and the utility of a hand-counted paper ballot.  Here's her pinned Tweet:

I re-add a link to Verified Voting's Verifier page -- OLers in the USA can discover the actual systems used in their precinct/county and check for themselves the issues of concern. 

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I don't know how many here might see an irony that Kobach would be the official in charge of a recount of his own primary race; I also love "New Votes Found."

I didn't figure out just yet how much a recount costs and who pays.

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share.png John Hanna / Associated Press:
APNewsBreak: Kobach's lead in Kansas race falls to 91 votes  —  TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's lead over Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Republican primary has shrunk to only 91 votes after election officials discovered a mistake in the listing for one county's results in the state's tally of votes.
RELATED:
i111.jpgshare.png Kansas City Star:
Votes found in western Kansas narrow Kobach's lead over Colyer to under 100  —  The Republican race for governor just got tighter.  —  Gov. Jeff Colyer's campaign spokesman said Thursday that 100 votes for Colyer have been found in a western Kansas county, meaning Kansas Secretary …
i141.jpgshare.png Kansas City Star:
On day hundreds of new votes found in Kansas, Colyer calls on Kobach to recuse self  —  The gap between Gov. Jeff Colyer and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach narrowed to roughly 100 votes on Thursday as the rival Republicans began to show signs that the election may ultimately be decided in a courthouse.

He could make history and blow out the Republican governor come November.

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The GOP primary for Kansas governor is not yet won. The Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, recused himself from the count.  The 'wild-card' aspect is in the counting of so-called provisional ballots.  This Kansas City Star report lays it out, briefly:

County officials wield the power as Colyer vs. Kobach race remains undecided
 

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Local officials spread across Kansas’ 105 counties will exercise an incredible amount of power this week when they determine whether thousands of ballots should count in the closest primary race for governor in Kansas history.

The roughly 9,000 provisional ballots, awaiting rulings from county officials across the state, will likely decide whether Gov. Jeff Colyer or Secretary of State Kris Kobach emerges as the GOP’s standard-bearer in the fall.

More than 40 percent of the provisional ballots were cast in the state’s two most populous counties, Johnson and Sedgwick. The ballots have the power to swing the Kansas race in Colyer’s favor or solidify a victory for Kobach.

 

In other, not-quite related news, this is a bit of a scare-story:

 

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3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

The GOP primary for Kansas governor...

William,

This is such a non-election.

Even if the Dems jigger some... ahem... stray votes, say in the trunk of a car, and win, these two will have another election in November. By the time they finish counting, recounting, finding and refinding, falsifying... er... I mean clarifying doubts :) , about the votes this go-around, I'm not sure there will even be time to do propaganda for the real election.

The entire propaganda effect happened when Colyer was way down, President Trump did ONE rally for Kobach right before the voting and suddenly Kobach won. After that, it would take an enormous amount of spin to make a Colyer win on recount mean anything practical. Especially since President Trump will be back during the November election.

Amd we all know the Russians will trounce Colyer then, right? :evil: 

btw - Does anyone know of a recount where stray votes were actually found and the Republican won? I don't know of any.

There's the Bush versus Gore recount in Florida, but I don't recall stray votes being found laying around in boxes.

:) 

Michael

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3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
7 hours ago, william.scherk said:

The GOP primary for Kansas governor...

This is such a non-election.

I don't understand what this means. The primary contest on the GOP side is between the sitting Governor and the present Secretary of State. If the primary goes to Kobach, then he has deposed a governor. That might not mean much to someone with our view from afar, but it could mean something to the GOP there, don't you think?

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Even if the Dems jigger some... ahem... stray votes, say in the trunk of a car, and win,

I don't know what this means -- can you please clarify if that is a stab at humour?  In Kansas, as in all your states, elections are conducted primarily by the counties, and many if not a majority of those counties' electoral officers in Kansas are Republican-dominated.  The Democratic primary for governor is won, as the leading candidate Laura Kelly crushed her opponent (by twenty points).  

A voter cannot vote for both party lists in a primary ...

Kansas is one of those states that has a variety of election systems -- not a single state-wide system. Many rural counties are still with a paper ballot, eg, Marshal County.  However, the ballots are not marked by hand but by electronic marking machinery, and they never leave the precincts not under seal.  Those marked ballots are machine-read/scanned/tabulated.  The link above takes you to some interesting data, for those with a yearning for more information ...

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these two will have another election in November.

I don't know who you mean by "these two." If you meant Colyer and Kobach, it is either one or the other on the November ballot.  Colyer is the incumbent.  So, if Kobach wins a squeaker, he will be the GOP candidate, having effectively kicked the guv off the ballot.  He will face an independent and Kelly.

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By the time they finish counting, recounting, finding and refinding, falsifying... er... I mean clarifying doubts :) , about the votes this go-around, I'm not sure there will even be time to do propaganda for the real election.

I don't really know what this means.   The inital count will be certified by the state and that will be that -- unless an automatic recount is generated by a too-close final initial tally between the two men. Then the politicking for November can resume in the Colyer/Kobach camps. 

Would you or anyone like a primer in the Kansas count and processes of recount?

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The entire propaganda effect happened when Colyer was way down, President Trump did ONE rally for Kobach right before the voting and suddenly Kobach won. After that, it would take an enormous amount of spin to make a Colyer win on recount mean anything practical. Especially since President Trump will be back during the November election.

Michael, Kobach is not declared winner yet.  There is no full "recount" yet. The provisional ballots need to be scrutinized and mail-in ballots need to enter the certifiable results.

Kobach has not won. Repeat, Kobach may lose.  We don't know the GOP November candidate yet ...

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Amd we all know the Russians will trounce Colyer then, right? :evil: 

Who's "we" ... ?  The Democratic candidate will probably lose, given the state of the electorate (mark my words for future error, though!**)

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btw - Does anyone know of a recount where stray votes were actually found and the Republican won? I don't know of any.

I don't think everyone understands how this would work in Kansas. Can you explain the Kansas count/recount process in detail for those at sea?

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There's the Bush versus Gore recount in Florida, but I don't recall stray votes being found laying around in boxes.

What do you mean by 'stray votes'?  I ask because on election night there was a discrepancy between Thomas County GOP governor results posted by the officials there -- and the count as displayed on the Secretary of State's page.  It was a 100-vote drop -- to Kobach's favour.  See the boring details in the hidden section below.

 

The county clerk had some quotes in a Fake CBS News story:

Spoiler

Thomas County Clerk Shelly Harms said it's possible that her handwriting on the tally sheet faxed to the secretary of state's office was bad enough in the rush of primary-night business that the number for Colyer wasn't clear.

"They just misread it," she told The Associated Press.

Kobach is perhaps President Trump's closest political ally in the state, and he's a vocal advocate for and strict immigration and voter identification laws. He also served as vice chairman of Mr. Trump's now disbanded commission on election fraud. A report from the committee found no evidence of the rampant voter fraud claims Mr. Trump made.

The president tweeted his endorsement of Kobach on Monday, less than 24 hours before the polls opened. Kobach has become a lightning rod in Republican politics, and some Republicans fear he could jeopardize a safely Republican seat in the general election.

Kobach, who has echoed Mr. Trump's claims that the country has rampant voter fraud, has yet to bring up that topic after Tuesday night's close results

Colyer's office said the discovery shows how important it is to get the race right. 

"The discovery of these 100 votes for Governor Colyer that were not included in Tuesday night's results show the importance of getting this right," his office told CBS News. "This is exactly why you have canvas, this is why you check your math, and this is why Gov. Colyer will ensure that every vote is counted fairly and accurately."


** I take my view from the Fake Polls that show a relative advantage to the GOP candidate, whether Colyer or Kobach is on the ballot in November.

Edited by william.scherk
Minor grammar sins, tone.
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On 8/12/2018 at 7:48 PM, william.scherk said:

I don't understand what this means.

William,

This is too much analysis of a folly.

(I'll give you a hint, though. It is about stakes that are not seen, but later used for political control backstage, and even manipulation of the public.)

Ayn Rand said don't bother trying to analyze a folly. Just look at the result it produces.

So what's the real result? Since it looks like Kobach's lead is growing, this election has pissed off the right people. 

Look here from leftie rag Slate for an example of what I mean. Since when has Slate ever cared about Republicans?

Kansas Is Living in the Mess Kris Kobach Made
The secretary of state ruined the Republican primary just like he ruins everything else.

They seem upset.

:evil:  :)

Michael

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From Sunday: Kansas Democrats watch with glee as Republicans Colyer, Kobach fight over election

From Michael's posted link to the Mark Joseph Stern article at Slate:

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[...] Although Kobach claimed to have identified 100 cases of possible double voting, he has only secured a handful of convictions—mostly confused seniors, not nefarious immigrants. His work did catch the eye of Donald Trump, who put him in charge of the presidential voter-fraud commission. But the panel collapsed after Kobach illegally iced out one Democratic commissioner, spurring a lawsuit. And in June, a federal judge permanently blocked Kobach’s signature proof-of-citizenship law when he could not provide any evidence of voter fraud in court. (Kobach defended the measure himself and performed so badly at trial that the judge ordered him to attend continuing legal-education classes.)

Meanwhile, as ProPublica and the Kansas City Star recently reported, Kobach moonlighted in courts across the country defending anti-immigrant ordinances he drafted and championed. He identified small, majority-white towns experiencing influxes of nonwhite immigrants and encouraged them to drive out these newcomers by excluding them from housing and employment. When his ordinances were challenged in court, Kobach defended them at a steep price, earning $800,000 in total and at least $150,000 while in office. One town required a state bailout to pay for his services; another had to raise property taxes. Not a single Kobach-authored ordinance is in effect today.

As Kobach pursued these pet causes, it quickly became obvious that he wasn’t performing the job he’d been elected to do. The secretary of state devoted remarkably little time and energy to registering voters, supervising election officials, or upgrading election technology. Instead, he delegated key tasks to subordinates and allowed county-level election commissions to run as semi-autonomous fiefdoms. When Kobach failed to follow a court order blocking his proof-of-citizenship law, he threw these commissions under the bus, insisting he could not make them follow his instructions. (The judge rejected this absurd claim.)

Kobach’s neglect had dire consequences for Kansas elections. When the legislature changed the date of school-board elections in 2015, it directed Kobach to educate voters about the shift. He did not, and turnout plummeted. In 2016, a botched vote tabulation in Johnson County, the state’s largest county, created a substantial delay in election results. Johnson County Election Commissioner Ronnie Metsker, the official in charge of the process, was appointed by Kobach, who did nothing to prepare the state for a pre-election surge in voter registrations. (At that point, he was already busy defending his proof-of-citizenship measure.)

But the bungled 2016 Kansas election was a model of proficiency by comparison to last week’s calamity. Once again, Kobach and Metsker failed to predict a substantial turnout, leading to lengthy lines and an all-night delay in results. The county’s new voting machines—purchased this summer at a cost of $10.5 million—also suffered glitches.

“I’m embarrassed for our county,” Metsker told the Kansas City Star. “It’s embarrassing for our office, it’s embarrassing for me, for our team and for the vendor.”

Kobach should be embarrassed too. It’s no surprise that Kansans were enthusiastic about the 2018 primary, yet his office did startlingly little to help county commissions prepare for an influx of voters. And while his appointee Metsker has now overseen two consecutive electionsthat were universally regarded as humiliating administrative disasters, Kobach has totally dissociated himself from the mayhem in Johnson County. [...]

Prediction:  Kobach will win the Kansas GOP primary by a nose.  And he will be elected Governor of Kansas this November ...

Edited by william.scherk
Added URL; added text from Slate story on Kobach's blunders and stupidities
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16 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ayn Rand said don't bother trying to analyze a folly. Just look at the result it produces.

I wonder if, that being an Ellsworth Toohey quote, it's really kosher to ascribe it to Rand. 

Though I can think of some follies that aren't worth spending any time on. 

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40 minutes ago, 9thdoctor said:
17 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ayn Rand said don't bother trying to analyze a folly. Just look at the result it produces.

I wonder if, that being an Ellsworth Toohey quote, it's really kosher to ascribe it to Rand. 

I should think that one needs to identify the thing/concept/claim/action/incident or whatever as folly, first, otherwise this heuristic standing alone may be an example of petitio principii ... IMO.

Michael's paraphrase is reasonably close to the actual quote in The Fountainhead; I include a large bit of surrounding context. Please forgive the paragraphing and lack of page numbers -- I don't have the hard-copy to check against at the moment.

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There were steps in the apartment above, someone skipping gaily, a few sounds on the ceiling as of four or five tap beats. The light fixture jingled and Keating's head moved up in obedience. Then it came back to Toohey. Toohey was smiling, almost indifferently. 

"You. ..always said..." Keating began thickly, and stopped. 

"I've always said just that. Clearly, precisely and openly. It's not my fault if you couldn't hear. You could, of course. You didn't want to. Which was safer than deafness-for me. I said I intended to rule. Like all my spiritual predecessors. But I'm luckier than they were. I inherited the fruit of their efforts and I shall be the one who'll see the great dream made real. I see it all around me today. I recognize it. I don't like it. I didn't expect to like it. Enjoyment is not my destiny. I shall find such satisfaction as my capacity permits. I shall rule." 

"Whom...?" 

"You. The world. It's only a matter of discovering the lever. If you learn how to rule one single man's soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It's the soul, Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That's why the Caesars, the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, Peter, is that which can't be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it--and the man is yours. You won't need a whip-hell bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse-and his own mechanism will do your work for you. Use him against himself. Want to know how it's done? See if I ever lied to you. See if you haven't heard all this for years, but didn't want to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine. There are many ways. Here's one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. That's difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own twisted way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against itself. Direct it toward a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that he must live for others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. His every living instinct screams against it. But don't you see what you accomplish? Man realizes that he's incapable of what he's accepted as the noblest virtue-and it gives him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he can't practice. But one can't be good halfway or honest approximately. To preserve one’s integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self-respect. You've got him. He'll obey. 

He'll be glad to obey-because he can't trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean. That's one way. Here's another. Kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can't be ruled. We don't want any great men. Don't deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept-and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. Laugh at Roark and hold Peter Keating as a great architect. You've destroyed architecture. Build up Lois Cook and you've destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you've destroyed the theater. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you've destroyed the press. Don't set out to raze all shrines-you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity-and the shrines are razed. Then there's another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It's simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don't let anything remain sacred in a man's soul-and his soul won't be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in man. One doesn't reverence with a giggle. He'll obey and he'll set no limits to his obedience-anything goes-nothing is too serious. Here's another way. This is most important. Don't allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them whatever is dear or important to them. Never let them have what they want. Make them feel that the mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying I want' is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you. They'll need you. They'll come for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man's soul-and the space is yours to fill. I don't see why you should look so shocked, Peter. This is the oldest one of all. Look back at history. 

Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn't they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven't they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven't you been able to catch their theme song-’Give up, give up, give up, give up'? Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy-and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt. And we've got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace-lie on a bed of nails-go into the desert to mortify the flesh-don't dance-don't go to the movies on Sunday-don't try to get rich-don't smoke-don't drink. It's all the same line. The great line. Fools think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned. But there's always a purpose in nonsense. Don't bother to examine a folly-ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they'll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don't have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. 'Universal Harmony'-'Eternal Spirit'-'Divine Purpose'-'Nirvana'-'Paradise'-'Racial Supremacy'-'The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.' Internal corruption, Peter. That's the oldest one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it. Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice-run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it's your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself-that will be the man who's not after your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you'll scream your empty heads off, howling that he's a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries. But here you might have noticed something. I said, 'It stands to reason.' Do you see? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Don't deny outright. Never deny anything outright, you give your hand away. Don't say reason is evil-though some have gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. That there's something above it. What? You don't have to be too clear about it either. The field's inexhaustible. 'Instinct'-'Feeling'-'Revelation'-'Divine Intuition'-'Dialectic Materialism.' If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense-you're ready for him. You tell him that there's something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it. You've got him. Can you rule a thinking man? We don't want any thinking men." 

Keating had sat down on the floor, by the side of the dresser; he had felt tired and he had simply folded his legs. He did not want to abandon the dresser; he felt safer, leaning against it; as if it still guarded the letter he had surrendered. 

"Peter, you've heard all this. You've seen me practicing it for ten years. You see it being practiced all over the world. Why are you disgusted? You have no right to sit there and stare at me with the virtuous superiority of being shocked. You're in on it. You've taken your share and you've got to go along. You're afraid to see where it's leading. I'm not I'll tell you. The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the brain of his neighbor who'll have no thought of his own but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbor who'll have no thought-and so on, Peter, around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbor who'll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor who'll have no desires-around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for that headless monster-prestige. The approval of his fellows-their good opinion-the opinion of men who'll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, all tentacles and no brain. Judgment, Peter! Not judgment, but public polls. An average drawn upon zeroes-since no individuality will be permitted. A world with its motor cut off and a single heart, pumped by hand. My hand-and the hands of a few, a very few other men like me. Those who know what makes you tick-you great, wonderful average, you who have not risen in fury when we called you the average, the little, the common, you who've liked and accepted those names. You'll sit enthroned and enshrined, you, the little people, the absolute ruler to make all past rulers squirm with envy, the absolute, the unlimited, God and Prophet and King combined. Vox populi. The average, the common, the general. Do you know the proper antonym for Ego? Bromide, Peter. The rule of the bromide. But even the trite has to be originated by someone at some time. We'll do the originating. Vox dei. We'll enjoy unlimited submission-from men who've learned nothing except to submit. We'll call it 'to serve.' We'll give out medals for service. You'll fall over one another in a scramble to see who can submit better and more. There will be no other distinction to seek. No other form of personal achievement. Can you see Howard Roark in the picture? No? Then don't waste time on foolish questions. Everything that can't be ruled, must go. And if freaks persist in being born occasionally, they will not survive beyond their twelfth year. When their brain begins to function, it will feel the pressure and it will explode. The pressure gauged to a vacuum. Do you know the fate of deep-sea creatures brought out to sunlight? So much for future Roarks. The rest of you will smile and obey. Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. 

The touch of thought. But we'll have neither God nor thought. Only voting by smiles. Automatic levers-all saying yes. ..Now if you were a little more intelligent-like your ex-wife, for instance-you'd ask: What of us, the rulers? What of me, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey? And I'd say, Yes, you're right. I'll achieve no more than you will. I'll have no purpose save to keep you contented. To lie, to flatter you, to praise you, to inflate your vanity. To make speeches about the people and the common good. Peter, my poor old friend, I'm the most selfless man you've every known. I have less independence than you, whom I just forced to sell your soul. You've used people at least for the sake of what you could get from them for yourself. I want nothing for myself. I use people for the sake of what I can do to them. It's my only function and satisfaction. I have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There's equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery-without even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle-and a total equality. 

The world of the future." 

"Ellsworth. ..you're..." 

"Insane? Afraid to say it? There you sit and the world's written all over you, your last hope. Insane? Look around you. Pick up any newspaper and read the headlines. Isn't it coming? 

Isn't it here? Every single thing I told you? Isn't Europe swallowed already and we're stumbling on to follow? Everything I said is contained in a single word-collectivism. And isn't that the god of our century? To act together. To think-together. To feel-together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer-first. But then-unite and rule. We've discovered that one at last. Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we'll have the last laugh. We've accomplished what he couldn't accomplish. We’ve taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism. Look at Europe, you fool. Can’t you see past the guff and recognize the essence? One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass-as God, No motive and no virtue permitted-except that of service to the proletariat. That's one version. Here's another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race-as God. No motive and no virtue permitted-except that of service to the race. Am I raving or is this the cold reality of two continents already? Watch the pincer movement. If you're sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We've closed the doors. We’ve fixed the coin. Heads-collectivism, and tails-collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your soul to a council-or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique, Peter. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the fools a choice, let them have their fun-but don't forget the only purpose you have to accomplish. Kill the individual. Kill man’s soul. The rest will follow automatically. Observe the state of the world as of the present moment. Do you still think I’m crazy, Peter?" 

Keating sat on the floor, his legs spread out. He lifted one hand and studied his fingertips, then put it to his mouth and bit off a hangnail. But the movement was deceptive; the man was reduced to a single sense, the sense of hearing, and Toohey knew that no answer could be expected. 

Keating waited obediently; it seemed to make no difference; the sounds had stopped and it was now his function to wait until they started again. 


Toohey put his hands on the arms of his chair, then lifted his palms, from the wrists, and clasped the wood again, a little slap of resigned finality. He pushed himself up to his feet. 


"Thank you, Peter," he said gravely. "Honesty is a hard thing to eradicate. I have made speeches to large audiences all my life. This was the speech I'll never have a chance to make." 

Keating lifted his head. His voice had the quality of a down payment on terror; it was not frightened, but it held the advance echoes of the next hour to come: 

"Don't go, Ellsworth." 

Toohey stood over him, and laughed softly. 

"That's the answer, Peter. That's my proof. You know me for what I am, you know what I've done to you, you have no illusions of virtue left. But you can't leave me and you'll never be able to leave me. You've obeyed me in the name of ideals. You'll go on obeying me without ideals. Because that's all you're good for now. ...Good night, Peter." 
 

I also include a page-scrape from the Google Books' search function of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal:

folly.png

The chapter in which the quote is published is, I believe, “Extremism,” Or The Art Of Smearing.

 

Edited by william.scherk
Forgot which thread I was posting to ...
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2 hours ago, william.scherk said:

The chapter in which the quote is published is, I believe, “Extremism,” Or The Art Of Smearing.

 

Ok, that shows her using it as a heuristic herself.  So it's kosher.  Not too long ago I heard Yaron Brook criticize TAS for ascribing a different "villain" quote to Rand.  Someone posted it on OL. 

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3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Michael's paraphrase is reasonably close to the actual quote in The Fountainhead...

William,

This is called conceptual thinking instead of just parroting words.

In fact, Feynman said you don't really understand an idea until you can put it into your own words.

Thank you for the quote within the essay. I already knew this was Toohey, but I also remember reading it in a Rand essay as a rule of thumb, not as the posturing of a villain. (Incidentally, to my mind, the words in the mouth of Toohey have the same meaning as they do in Rand's essay. It's about propaganda and mind control of sorts--the stuff I study on my own.)

Also, I would have to look to find out where, but I have been engaged in more than one online discussion here in O-Land (several, actually, if my memory does not fail me) where this phrase came up.

So there, Dennis...

Nyah!

:) 

Michael

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News flash. Kansas Governor loses GOP primary -- concedes.

 

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3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

So there, Dennis...

Nyah!

:) 

Michael

Hey we cool; it's not like I launched into a full scale Phil-ipic.  William did the research, then I withdrew any suggestion that your quote was treif.  Hell, I even hedged on it in the original post.

Happy now?

On the theme of bad quoting practices, here's a great bit from Rand herself.  I love the way she says the word "contemptible". 

 

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For fans of Jimmy Dore, on the subject of vote suppression, voter system vulnerabilities, and electronic 'hacking' ...

 

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At 8:29 of the Jimmy Dore survey of mainstream (FAKE) and tech-oriented platform 'news' out of DEFCON26 is a brief video of 'how to' hack a voting machine. The short video was featured at inverse.com, and is also available at Youtube (the person featured is Rachel Tobac, who is probably Lefite):

For points, who can fully identify the machine and find the "Who Uses This" page at Verified Voting which covers the 18 states ...?

Edited by william.scherk
Axed twenty-eight in favour of eighteen. Hint: Verifiedvoting.org I think
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This is a complete digression, upon the "folly" phrase and Rand's brisk style ...

Spoiler

Anybody ever miss the mildly-manic orthographic stylings of {I forget his name, showing my age} LLAP and his breezy-yet-cluttered kludges? Here I give minor tribute to him. I know in my heart that he was trying for gradations of emphasis and emotion and strangulation clauses, but I never got it.  He rarely used bold and saved italic for special moments, I may misremember.  What he could have done with a yellow highlighter at OL!

A shorter context for the highlighted quote.

On 8/14/2018 at 12:10 PM, william.scherk said:

Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy-and you've damned it. That's how far we've come. We've tied happiness to guilt. And we've got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace-lie on a bed of nails-go into the desert to mortify the flesh-don't dance-don't go to the movies on Sunday-don't try to get rich-don't smoke-don't drink. It's all the same line. The great line. Fools think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned.

But there's always a purpose in nonsense. Don't bother to examine a folly-ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they'll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don't have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. 'Universal Harmony'-'Eternal Spirit'-'Divine Purpose'-'Nirvana'-'Paradise'-'Racial Supremacy'-'The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.'

Internal corruption, Peter. That's the oldest one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it. Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice-run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it's your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself-that will be the man who's not after your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you'll scream your empty heads off, howling that he's a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries.

But here you might have noticed something. I said, 'It stands to reason.' Do you see? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Don't deny outright. Never deny anything outright, you give your hand away. Don't say reason is evil-though some have gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. That there's something above it. What? You don't have to be too clear about it either. The field's inexhaustible. 'Instinct'-'Feeling'-'Revelation'-'Divine Intuition'-'Dialectic Materialism.' If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense-you're ready for him. You tell him that there's something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it. You've got him. Can you rule a thinking man? We don't want any thinking men." 

-- I actually did thethese paragraphs into text-to-speech, and found the whole thing a fairly good and rousing lecture/conversation with which to introduce Rand, not quite in a nutshell, but. Depending on just who you might think would benefit from the introduction.

{// It's possible to read it like a stump speech, but even the best voices are still mostly uninflected by conversational melody, intonation-syntax and so on. They sound like a normal human reading something in a neutral tone. Zzzzzzz.  Eg. "Peter" from NaturalVoices, here reading a 2008 MSK post ("Peter" is the best of the voices I paid for. I like him because although his tone never varies much [It's UK English] it still comes across as vaguely hostile when it declaims an ordinary declarative phrase).//}

It reads out quite ravishingly, once you poke in pauses so the robot can breathe. At the least sign of interest I will post the speechified 'fair use' excerpt for educational and critical thought. Not here, but at the little-traveled blog.

It's John Dailey, of course. Gone but not forgotten. Hale fellow well met. LLAP, J:D, v/WSS

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Are you actually registered to vote, OLers? It might be a good idea to double-check. You may have been mysteriously disenfranchised by the local state/county apparatus ...

On 8/2/2016 at 10:41 AM, william.scherk said:

 

 

Edited by william.scherk
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  • 1 month later...

"What is that song about 'The Morning After'?" [Emphases added by WSS]

On 8/12/2018 at 5:48 PM, william.scherk said:
On 8/12/2018 at 2:42 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
On 8/12/2018 at 10:51 AM, william.scherk said:

The GOP primary for Kansas governor...

This is such a non-election.

I don't understand what this means. The primary contest on the GOP side is between the sitting Governor and the present Secretary of State. If the primary goes to Kobach, then he has deposed a governor. That might not mean much to someone with our view from afar, but it could mean something to the GOP there, don't you think?

Quote

Even if the Dems jigger some... ahem... stray votes, say in the trunk of a car, and win,

I don't know what this means -- can you please clarify if that is a stab at humour?

"Not every question will be answered, y'all."

On 8/13/2018 at 6:48 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

So what's the real result? Since it looks like Kobach's lead is growing, this election has pissed off the right people. 

Folly. Folly, I tell ya.

On 8/14/2018 at 10:46 AM, william.scherk said:

Prediction:  Kobach will win the Kansas GOP primary by a nose.  And he will be elected Governor of Kansas this November ...

Edited by william.scherk
Added URL; added text from Slate story on Kobach's blunders and stupidities

WRONG!  Kobach will not be Kansas Governor.  But he might be on the short-list for Attorney-General.  Stranger things have happened, sources say.

 

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Rudy had been quiet lately. 

 

 

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Florida Man!

On 8/2/2016 at 10:41 AM, william.scherk said:

Here is the typology as outlined at Wikipedia. I am going to do some digging, to find the most recent and the most serious instances of electoral/voter fraud in the USA. 

I think that raising the spectre is politically-wise.  It can serve to deepen a sense of malaise and distrust in institutions-- which should redound to Mr Trump.

The Grand Hoopla over vote counting in Broward County has almost reached fever pitch.  Various media are whooping it up (from this Memeorandum snapshot😞

fiol-recount-2.png

Quote
 
RELATED:
i151.jpg WPLG-TV:
Broward County elections supervisor explains why it's taking so long to count ballots  —  'Don't try to turn it around to make it seem like I'm making comedy out of this'  —  FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - As Broward County appears to be at the epicenter of another recount, Supervisor of Elections …
Link Search: IceRocket, Google, and Ask
Discussion:
i49.jpg miamiherald:
Rick Scott sues Broward, Palm Beach elections supervisors over ballot delays  —  TALLAHASSEE  —  A visibly frustrated Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday accused “unethical liberals” of trying to steal a U.S. Senate seat from him, as his campaign filed two lawsuits against Broward County Supervisor …
Link Search: IceRocket, Google, and Ask
Marc Caputo / Politico:
Florida readies for massive recount
Link Search: IceRocket, Google, and Ask
Discussion:

The scene earlier today ... is this a mob?

 

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Florida Midterm Counts! Stole this animation from a tweet.  [The tweet comes from -- who else? -- Florida Man @_FloridaMan]

Incidentally, for those who love making memes with moving parts, I can recommend a small gif-maker I just discovered today, Screen to Gif. It is powerful and yet lightweight. The animated gif is a hoary old thing, but.

Edited by william.scherk
Forgot to add link to tweet with gif; added blurbette for Screen to Gif
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On 11/9/2018 at 6:10 PM, william.scherk said:

Florida Midterm Counts! Stole this animation from a tweet.  [The tweet comes from -- who else? -- Florida Man @_FloridaMan]

Incidentally, for those who love making memes with moving parts, I can recommend a small gif-maker I just discovered today, Screen to Gif. It is powerful and yet lightweight. The animated gif is a hoary old thing, but.

Notice that the camera is moving as it continues to film the "burning man." 

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From the Donald Trump mega-thread today:

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
7 hours ago, 9thdoctor said:

If there were a conspiracy afoot, with Snipes using incompetence as cover, wouldn't there have been lots of new votes found for Nelson?

[...]

Notice that while the entire world was looking at these big elections in Florida and Georgia, the Dems flipped one House election after another in other states--elections the Republicans had won.

This is true, if Michael meant Democratic wins in 2018 'flipped' seats that were previously held by a Republican member of the House.  There is a good graphic depiction of each of the 'flipped' races at 270towin.com: https://www.270towin.com/2018-election-results-live/house/

I'll add here a few of the graphics:

lambPA14.png

nolanMN08.png

walzMN01.png

Quote

And they did it each time doing the same shit as always. Not one election flipped to Republican like that. Only Dems.

"Not one election flipped to Republicans" ... if this means in the House of Representatives, this is not quite right. The three above races resulted in a flip from a GOP incumbency to a Democratic candidate.

Of course, many seats 'flipped' the other way (at the moment, the gains by Democrats over GOP-held seats in the House are +38). And if we turn our attention to within-state races (governors and legislative races and other 'down ballot' items, there are a few interesting 'flips.'

I'll use Orange County, California as a 'flip' illustration.  Here is the difference in results between 2016 and 2018:

OC-districts.png

Here the graphics from 270towin.com of 'flips' in Orange County:

royceCA39.png

waltersCA45.png

rohrabcacherCA48.png

issaCA49.png

Here's a comparison of shifting vote margins in the last four House elections in the county:

OCvotePercentsTime.jpeg

Quote

How's that for statistical probability?

It isn't clear if you are making a specific claim about 'flips' ... in any particular place or race.

California outside of the formerly GOP-held OC districts also had a couple of 'flips.'

denhanCA10.png

knightCA25.png

-- ultimately, readers can come to their own conclusions about the 38 seats gained by the Democrats at the expense of the GOP.  It might make ideological sense to assume each 'flip' is the result of something else besides a "fickle" electorate.

Edited by william.scherk
Reduced sprawling size of graphics
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