I’m appalled. Appalled at my country. I thought I had grown out of it, but I guess that lurking in the back of my mind was the assumption that, if confronted with the truth of what’s going on, the Common Man will ultimately decide for common sense. Last night was a particularly nasty wake-up call, flying in the face of even liberal polling.
Late to the game with this but... the PA election of the dead guy is proof of fraud to me. People filling in ballots or having a machine fill them in without knowing the guy is dead. Proof enough for me.
I live in DuPage county, IL. This has been a GOP stronghold in IL for decades. It is now all blue. This is not about actual policies. This is my team against yours, consequences be damned. That's where we are.
I'm cross-posting this comment. I was completely off-line yesterday from 11/08 5:30 am to 11/09 12:15 am and didn't read this entry of Mark's until just now. I completely ratify his assessment--but admit that I fall strongly into the glass mostly-empty category after having my face rubbed in the corruption, frustration, and hopelessness for 20 hours as a poll worker:
I worked as a poll worker in Maricopa yesterday. It was a f**king disgrace. I would guess that 95% of the voters were GOP (they were carrying their GOP-provided "Golden Ticket" voter recommendations). They stood in line for 4-5 hours--many with young children--to feed their completed ballots into the tabulator machines. Every once in a while a cheer would ring out around the machines as the lucky voter's ballot was actually accepted. Voters were convinced that if they allowed their ballot to be inserted into the infamous Slot #3 it would never be counted (who knows?).
The last voter left the polling place at 10 PM whereupon we began counting the "misread," spoiled, and provisional ballots. The polling place Inspector (the head honcho) was unable to get the tabulator machines to print out the results reports (these are like a retail store's cash register roll). Once all the ballots, reports (finally), and checklist items were boxes and bagged, I volunteered to drive the ballots to an intermediary collection point. A Dem and I drove to a dark parking lot where several Maricopa County Sheriffs were on guard. The folks there transferred the ballots to a large truck and gave us both chain of custody receipts. We returned to the polling place to finish the night at 12:15 AM.
Random Thoughts: 1) the printers and tabulators were tested during the Monday 11/7 polling place set up. They all worked on Monday but immediately began failing on Tuesday morning. Anyone else wonder how that happened? 2) How did this phenomenon occur simultaneously across 20% of the voting locations on the day that was expected to be a very heavy GOP Election Day vote? 3) Why shouldn't Katie Hobbs have recused herself from the management of an election in which she had a direct personal interest? 4) Why hasn't Katie Hobbs resigned in disgrace yet this morning?
The entire election process in Maricopa County and AZ in general is a f**ked up mess. I was checking in voters all day until 7 PM and the voter rolls were dirty ("I changed my information on line, why don't you have my address?" "I registered to vote but never got a new voter registration card" "I changed all my address info at the AZ MVD (DMV) and printed out the screen shots" (but their ADOT account still showed the old information so they had to vote provisionally).
I'm presuming that the felon former Maricopa County Elections weenie Adrian Fontes will be AZ's new Secretary of State. I will certainly never again volunteer to work the elections. My career in large real time information systems implementations tells me that this mess of shiite data cleansing, process chaos has to be the way it is for a reason--a bad reason. Anyone who rolled out such an expensive, flawed, and chaotic abomination in the private sector would be fired on the spot and walked off the premises. In fact, I may just resign as a GOP precinct committeeman and reclaim hundreds of hours of my personal time. America has spoken. My fellow Americans are fine with what the Dems and RINOs have served up for the past six years--and especially the last two. The saying, "You can't cheat an honest man" comes to my mind this morning. The fact that the brain dead and deeply corrupt are still running the country tells me all I need to know about my fellow Americans--and the future.
The reality this morning is the same as it was 48 hours ago: our election system is irredeemably corrupted; DC is beyond saving; the GOP is useless. It was always a race to replace the Government before it replaced the People. We lost that race. I feel today like I did during the Covid hoax: surrounded by people who look like me, sound like me and dress like me but who are, in fact, zombies.
This all may seem terribly hopeless. It isn't. It just means that things will now continue until they no longer can, and new forces will arise to carve out some kind of new nation. The good news of this fiasco is that poster child Red states like Florida, which ultimately may lead a move away from DC, emerged stronger than ever.
Leaving aside the possibility of fraud, you are left with possibility that people have simply given up on the GOP. People are angry about the Covid response, and they may have some inkling of the immense damage done by the vax, but the GOP went along with the lockdowns and the vax. People may be angry about inflation and high spending, but the GOP never opposed the gusher of money printing that went with the Covid response and they spent like drunken sailors. People may oppose the war in Ukraine, but the GOP as fully on board with that. And the GOP was complicit in the regime change operation against Trump.
This has been a long time coming. I seriously considered just leaving the Senate part of my ballot blank. I didn't, but Ted Budd's campaign was an offense against man and God. Warmed over Fox news talking points from fifteen years ago, and you knew he didn't mean a word of it. "TED BUDD WILL GET WASHINGTON OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!" Please. Nothing about DOJ reform, or getting the three letter agencies back under a modicum of control. Nothing about tech censorship, or the crisis on the border, or getting the pedos out of the schools.
Does anyone else think it's time for the GOP to address the reality that America's schools have been under de facto Democrat control for six decades? And spare me the bit about school choice. If all one's choices are still union-controlled indoctrination factories who's kidding whom? If Republicans can't or won't run on de-unionizing education, they've got no chance. You can't reason with people who've never been taught how to reason in the first place.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." (H. L. Mencken). Maybe we are better off in the long run, as this will not end well. The Dems can take the credit for the market collapse and the greatest Depression in history. We can't borrow our way out of this one.
I’m disgusted but not surprised here in PA. To me, this was fraud (again, that was never rectified - intentionally - after 2020) and pure unadulterated ignorance of some people in this commonwealth that will vote for anyone with a D after their name.
There were clues all along the way, especially with Fetterman: Biden’s slip that his wife is going to make a great senator, the many articles giving away the game plan about his wife being appointed when Fetterman resigns for health reasons and so on.
From the start, this whole campaign seemed off to me. Dr. Oz is a good doctor, but whose idea was it to include him on the GOP ballot and promote him when there were two other people who were more experienced? I personally voted for Kathy Barnette in the primary and she is who Trump should have backed. She might not have won in any case, because a Trump endorsement is starting to look like the kiss of death. But having Dr. Oz on the ticket just messed things up, and I suspect that was the intention.
And Fetterman? Well, some invisible hand pushed him up there as well. My impression early on was that he was touted as the “real” Pennsylvania candidate versus Oz, whose carpetbagger status was hammered to the public over and over again. Never mind that Fetterman’s trust fund baby origin was carefully hidden and his dismal term as mayor of Braddock was but a stepping stone to the lieutenant governor’s office. No doubt he is being controlled and will continue to be as a Senator, until he’s too incapacitated. TPTB want his radical Marxist wife in there, and she’s certainly not shy about making that desire clear herself.
I honestly don’t know where we in Pennsylvania go from here. Absent Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Erie and State College, the state is as red as red can be. But we are not the ones counting the votes.
I guess I'd add one more thing on this dreary day - Early, absentee, whatever voting without a valid excuse (military overseas, etc) has to go. It is another cancer cell on the body politic rife with abuse. Show up at the polls, make your mark on a piece of paper, drop it into a secure and that's it. Even then there can be problems.
My job requires me to be a "poll inspector" so, yesterday I went to six polling locations in NH. Small, upstate places no one has ever heard of. 3 out of 6 had old style, wooden boxes to put your ballot. 2 out of 3 had boxes that were unlocked. I know it's anecdotal and probably nothing but, if you put a ballot in there and walked out how in holy he** do you know what happened to it??
I'm sure someone will soon tell those of us in utter disbelief at the election outcome just how wrong pollsters could be. For me, it just doesn't add up or pass the common sense test with all the negatives - high fuel prices, 40 year high inflation brought on by out of control spending, a president that should be in a nursing home, etc. It just doesn't add up.
I’m noticing more articles this time about voter fraud.
After the 2020 it was a fringe idea about voter fraud.
The Overton Window has moved on the subject. Even Prof Jacobson of legal insurrection mentioned it, and being a lawyer he is Very careful in what he writes.
Interesting article that mention Illinois voting, and how strategic the voting machine locations not working was:
Why would you still think that that government is the answer lol? It’s just a distraction, a game. The general public does not want to change or self govern or participate in the REAL American government. It’s all 100% rigged but doesn’t matter who wins anyway. Stop participating in their corporate elections. Let’s support our state assemblies!
In a country that has eliminated civics education over the last 50 years, and where it is so easy to mislead people, fraud notwithstanding, the key is the "media". I would put all my efforts there.
Appalled, disgusted, side-struck and amazed yet - as one previous commenter noted, recognize it's not a choice to put one foot in front of the other, execute Plan B (if one exists that'll do any good) and take care of those close enough to reach with help, love and kindness. Politics seems to crush and politics has been empowered. Properly and appropriately? I think not.
Post mortems are important but let's hope not ignored like those that find the 'vaccine' produced blood-clots, heart issues and, sadly, further 'compliance' training of our uninformed/ignorant/morally deficient masses.
Sadly, such folk as are in WEF are likely nodding their collective heads with approval and sensing confirmation that 'their plan' seems to be working. I typically reject 'conspiracy theories', however I am reluctant to think the Marxist-style take-over of our institutions is simply socialism on the march.
What I will note is that our Hope, Trust and Faith needs be in our Lord and Creator; a Divine power thing that some call religion, I simply call the Truth. He says to lean not on our own understanding (rely on Him, of course) and I will say my understanding is failed this morning.
I think it's time to count our Blessings. As my mom said 60 years ago; doing so leaves no time to lament the problems.
Late to the game with this but... the PA election of the dead guy is proof of fraud to me. People filling in ballots or having a machine fill them in without knowing the guy is dead. Proof enough for me.
I live in DuPage county, IL. This has been a GOP stronghold in IL for decades. It is now all blue. This is not about actual policies. This is my team against yours, consequences be damned. That's where we are.
One story on Gateway Pundit quotes NBC news saying (with a straight face) that the D's won 34 out of 34 tossup races in the House.
What luck!
(Someone calculated that the odds against getting all 34 heads or tails in a series of coinflips is 17 billion to 1)
More like a Red Mirage!
I'm cross-posting this comment. I was completely off-line yesterday from 11/08 5:30 am to 11/09 12:15 am and didn't read this entry of Mark's until just now. I completely ratify his assessment--but admit that I fall strongly into the glass mostly-empty category after having my face rubbed in the corruption, frustration, and hopelessness for 20 hours as a poll worker:
I worked as a poll worker in Maricopa yesterday. It was a f**king disgrace. I would guess that 95% of the voters were GOP (they were carrying their GOP-provided "Golden Ticket" voter recommendations). They stood in line for 4-5 hours--many with young children--to feed their completed ballots into the tabulator machines. Every once in a while a cheer would ring out around the machines as the lucky voter's ballot was actually accepted. Voters were convinced that if they allowed their ballot to be inserted into the infamous Slot #3 it would never be counted (who knows?).
The last voter left the polling place at 10 PM whereupon we began counting the "misread," spoiled, and provisional ballots. The polling place Inspector (the head honcho) was unable to get the tabulator machines to print out the results reports (these are like a retail store's cash register roll). Once all the ballots, reports (finally), and checklist items were boxes and bagged, I volunteered to drive the ballots to an intermediary collection point. A Dem and I drove to a dark parking lot where several Maricopa County Sheriffs were on guard. The folks there transferred the ballots to a large truck and gave us both chain of custody receipts. We returned to the polling place to finish the night at 12:15 AM.
Random Thoughts: 1) the printers and tabulators were tested during the Monday 11/7 polling place set up. They all worked on Monday but immediately began failing on Tuesday morning. Anyone else wonder how that happened? 2) How did this phenomenon occur simultaneously across 20% of the voting locations on the day that was expected to be a very heavy GOP Election Day vote? 3) Why shouldn't Katie Hobbs have recused herself from the management of an election in which she had a direct personal interest? 4) Why hasn't Katie Hobbs resigned in disgrace yet this morning?
The entire election process in Maricopa County and AZ in general is a f**ked up mess. I was checking in voters all day until 7 PM and the voter rolls were dirty ("I changed my information on line, why don't you have my address?" "I registered to vote but never got a new voter registration card" "I changed all my address info at the AZ MVD (DMV) and printed out the screen shots" (but their ADOT account still showed the old information so they had to vote provisionally).
I'm presuming that the felon former Maricopa County Elections weenie Adrian Fontes will be AZ's new Secretary of State. I will certainly never again volunteer to work the elections. My career in large real time information systems implementations tells me that this mess of shiite data cleansing, process chaos has to be the way it is for a reason--a bad reason. Anyone who rolled out such an expensive, flawed, and chaotic abomination in the private sector would be fired on the spot and walked off the premises. In fact, I may just resign as a GOP precinct committeeman and reclaim hundreds of hours of my personal time. America has spoken. My fellow Americans are fine with what the Dems and RINOs have served up for the past six years--and especially the last two. The saying, "You can't cheat an honest man" comes to my mind this morning. The fact that the brain dead and deeply corrupt are still running the country tells me all I need to know about my fellow Americans--and the future.
The reality this morning is the same as it was 48 hours ago: our election system is irredeemably corrupted; DC is beyond saving; the GOP is useless. It was always a race to replace the Government before it replaced the People. We lost that race. I feel today like I did during the Covid hoax: surrounded by people who look like me, sound like me and dress like me but who are, in fact, zombies.
This all may seem terribly hopeless. It isn't. It just means that things will now continue until they no longer can, and new forces will arise to carve out some kind of new nation. The good news of this fiasco is that poster child Red states like Florida, which ultimately may lead a move away from DC, emerged stronger than ever.
Leaving aside the possibility of fraud, you are left with possibility that people have simply given up on the GOP. People are angry about the Covid response, and they may have some inkling of the immense damage done by the vax, but the GOP went along with the lockdowns and the vax. People may be angry about inflation and high spending, but the GOP never opposed the gusher of money printing that went with the Covid response and they spent like drunken sailors. People may oppose the war in Ukraine, but the GOP as fully on board with that. And the GOP was complicit in the regime change operation against Trump.
This has been a long time coming. I seriously considered just leaving the Senate part of my ballot blank. I didn't, but Ted Budd's campaign was an offense against man and God. Warmed over Fox news talking points from fifteen years ago, and you knew he didn't mean a word of it. "TED BUDD WILL GET WASHINGTON OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!" Please. Nothing about DOJ reform, or getting the three letter agencies back under a modicum of control. Nothing about tech censorship, or the crisis on the border, or getting the pedos out of the schools.
Does anyone else think it's time for the GOP to address the reality that America's schools have been under de facto Democrat control for six decades? And spare me the bit about school choice. If all one's choices are still union-controlled indoctrination factories who's kidding whom? If Republicans can't or won't run on de-unionizing education, they've got no chance. You can't reason with people who've never been taught how to reason in the first place.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." (H. L. Mencken). Maybe we are better off in the long run, as this will not end well. The Dems can take the credit for the market collapse and the greatest Depression in history. We can't borrow our way out of this one.
I’m disgusted but not surprised here in PA. To me, this was fraud (again, that was never rectified - intentionally - after 2020) and pure unadulterated ignorance of some people in this commonwealth that will vote for anyone with a D after their name.
There were clues all along the way, especially with Fetterman: Biden’s slip that his wife is going to make a great senator, the many articles giving away the game plan about his wife being appointed when Fetterman resigns for health reasons and so on.
From the start, this whole campaign seemed off to me. Dr. Oz is a good doctor, but whose idea was it to include him on the GOP ballot and promote him when there were two other people who were more experienced? I personally voted for Kathy Barnette in the primary and she is who Trump should have backed. She might not have won in any case, because a Trump endorsement is starting to look like the kiss of death. But having Dr. Oz on the ticket just messed things up, and I suspect that was the intention.
And Fetterman? Well, some invisible hand pushed him up there as well. My impression early on was that he was touted as the “real” Pennsylvania candidate versus Oz, whose carpetbagger status was hammered to the public over and over again. Never mind that Fetterman’s trust fund baby origin was carefully hidden and his dismal term as mayor of Braddock was but a stepping stone to the lieutenant governor’s office. No doubt he is being controlled and will continue to be as a Senator, until he’s too incapacitated. TPTB want his radical Marxist wife in there, and she’s certainly not shy about making that desire clear herself.
I honestly don’t know where we in Pennsylvania go from here. Absent Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Erie and State College, the state is as red as red can be. But we are not the ones counting the votes.
I guess I'd add one more thing on this dreary day - Early, absentee, whatever voting without a valid excuse (military overseas, etc) has to go. It is another cancer cell on the body politic rife with abuse. Show up at the polls, make your mark on a piece of paper, drop it into a secure and that's it. Even then there can be problems.
My job requires me to be a "poll inspector" so, yesterday I went to six polling locations in NH. Small, upstate places no one has ever heard of. 3 out of 6 had old style, wooden boxes to put your ballot. 2 out of 3 had boxes that were unlocked. I know it's anecdotal and probably nothing but, if you put a ballot in there and walked out how in holy he** do you know what happened to it??
I'm sure someone will soon tell those of us in utter disbelief at the election outcome just how wrong pollsters could be. For me, it just doesn't add up or pass the common sense test with all the negatives - high fuel prices, 40 year high inflation brought on by out of control spending, a president that should be in a nursing home, etc. It just doesn't add up.
I’m noticing more articles this time about voter fraud.
After the 2020 it was a fringe idea about voter fraud.
The Overton Window has moved on the subject. Even Prof Jacobson of legal insurrection mentioned it, and being a lawyer he is Very careful in what he writes.
Interesting article that mention Illinois voting, and how strategic the voting machine locations not working was:
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/its-obvious-now-americas-voting-system?
Why would you still think that that government is the answer lol? It’s just a distraction, a game. The general public does not want to change or self govern or participate in the REAL American government. It’s all 100% rigged but doesn’t matter who wins anyway. Stop participating in their corporate elections. Let’s support our state assemblies!
In a country that has eliminated civics education over the last 50 years, and where it is so easy to mislead people, fraud notwithstanding, the key is the "media". I would put all my efforts there.
Morning Mark and all who might tread here.
Appalled, disgusted, side-struck and amazed yet - as one previous commenter noted, recognize it's not a choice to put one foot in front of the other, execute Plan B (if one exists that'll do any good) and take care of those close enough to reach with help, love and kindness. Politics seems to crush and politics has been empowered. Properly and appropriately? I think not.
Post mortems are important but let's hope not ignored like those that find the 'vaccine' produced blood-clots, heart issues and, sadly, further 'compliance' training of our uninformed/ignorant/morally deficient masses.
Sadly, such folk as are in WEF are likely nodding their collective heads with approval and sensing confirmation that 'their plan' seems to be working. I typically reject 'conspiracy theories', however I am reluctant to think the Marxist-style take-over of our institutions is simply socialism on the march.
What I will note is that our Hope, Trust and Faith needs be in our Lord and Creator; a Divine power thing that some call religion, I simply call the Truth. He says to lean not on our own understanding (rely on Him, of course) and I will say my understanding is failed this morning.
I think it's time to count our Blessings. As my mom said 60 years ago; doing so leaves no time to lament the problems.
My best to you all. WRH