Romney Boycotting Senate Hearing on Election ‘Irregularities’

[Paulos23]

The Trump infection of our government has already been cured. By the voters.

Well, we got our injection at least. It will be a while before the virus is removed from the governmental body.

 

[jayem]

Well, we got our injection at least. It will be a while before the virus is removed from the governmental body.

That's very true.

And let's hope we develop lasting immunity.

 

[Albion]

It's unlikely that anyone will miss him.

But his routine, which consists of not participating in the parts of his job that are disinteresting to him but then making a big show of how he is going to vote on what occurred in his absence, is getting to be as tiresome as it is familiar.

 

[Albion]

I'd suggest the major issue is that the Senate has no power over these "election irregularities." As Sen. Johnson has stated, they aren't going to change the results. Additionally, the Senate has zero control over how states chose their Electors, to include that the Senate has no control over the popular vote elections to choose those Electors in each state. As such, this hearing appears to be solely to appease those Republicans who believe the election was "stolen" while it does, and can do, nothing to fix those alleged issues.

Actually, it's discouraging to have apparently thoughtful people act as though they don't care even to ascertain the facts in such important matters...so long as the winner of the election, fairly or not, was the one that the onlooker or commentator had hoped would be the winner.

Doesn't anyone realize how dangerous this is to our country?

 

[cow451]

Actually, it's discouraging to have apparently thoughtful people act as though they don't care even to ascertain the facts in such important matters...so long as the winner of the election, fairly or not, was the one that the onlooker or commentator had hoped would be the winner.

Doesn't anyone realize how dangerous this is to our country?

Yes, these are Epoch Times......

 

[Vylo]

One of the few moral Republicans left in the Senate.

If Romney hand't picked Ryan for his running mate, he would have had my vote back in 2012. He's a bit out of touch, but does actually care pretty deeply for people. It is a shame he didn't run in 2016. If it had been him vs Clinton, I could have had an interesting choice to make.

 

[jayem]

Actually, it's discouraging to have apparently thoughtful people act as though they don't care even to ascertain the facts in such important matters...so long as the winner of the election, fairly or not, was the one that the onlooker or commentator had hoped would be the winner.

Doesn't anyone realize how dangerous this is to our country?

It's infinitely more discouraging--and dangerous--when the loser expects a court to throw out thousands of state-certified votes based on nothing more than misinterpreted YouTube videos, unverified anecdotes, and conspiracy theories.

 

[SimplyMe]

Actually, it's discouraging to have apparently thoughtful people act as though they don't care even to ascertain the facts in such important matters...so long as the winner of the election, fairly or not, was the one that the onlooker or commentator had hoped would be the winner.

Doesn't anyone realize how dangerous this is to our country?

From what I've seen, in most cases the facts have been ascertained. Many (maybe even a majority) had to do with observers -- such as not being let in because there were too many in the room already, not being allowed close enough, etc. Most of these had more to do with how the system works, and the "observer" not understanding, than about any actual issue.

When you get to the ones that allege "fraud" they get even worse. One of the "famous" affidavits (received a lot of attention on right wing sites) of "boxes of ballots" being brought in a back door ended up being a cameraman for a local station unloading his equipment. There were some about caterers bring food in for the workers. The worker recounting the same stack of ballots over and over and over was misunderstanding what they were seeing, instead, the stack kept having ballots with "errors" that the machine rejected, which requires the ballot be "fixed" and the stack rescanned; even if she had fed the same ballots through after they had correctly been scanned, the barcodes prevent the same ballot from being scanned twice. Oh, and then there were all the Arizona affidavits over having to use a Sharpie instead of pen or pencil, along with the "bleed through" issue -- yet videos released by Arizona Election officials prior to the election clearly stated using Sharpies was preferred and that the ballots were designed so that bleed-thru isn't an issue.

There were all the claims against Dominion voting machines, so Georgia did a hand recount using the names on the paper ballots, that the voters saw, so they could verify their vote, when they turned their ballot in. The hand count ended up verifying the machine count. Not to mention the various conspiracy theories, which talked of servers being raided in Germany. Yet the military unit that supposedly saw this was the Army's 395th Batallion, and they supposedly performed the raid, as well. The issue is, the 395th batallion is a training command; they were reactivated shortly before this century and haven't been a fighting command since before they were disbanded after WWII.

As you can see, I've read a lot of what was claimed and investigated it. I've also heard AG Barr say that the DoJ would investigate, then say they did investigate the various claims, and conclude there was no widespread voter fraud. I heard Mr. Krebs, who was working for Homeland Security, state it was one of the safest elections in US History. He was appointed by Pres. Trump, and knew he'd be fired by Trump, and he was fired for saying that. I've seen the reports of the Independent observers from various groups, trained in spotting fraud, say they saw no evidence of fraud -- though they did have suggestions on ways to improve the election. I've seen Republican leaders in states, known to support Trump prior to the election, be called "RINOs" and traitors for saying they had found no evidence of fraud.

I'm not saying that there was "zero" fraud, there is always some minor fraud. I'm not saying we shouldn't examine this election to see what could be improved, we can, and most states are, doing that. I even quit posting for a week, roughly the second week of November, so I could wait and let the process run; see what I could find and "fact-check." What I found was similar to what Barr stated. I've had no issue with the process playing out -- though I have to admit that the Trump lawyers submitted some really bad lawsuits.

What was worse, though, and what I did object to, was what Trump's lawyers were asking for as relief in their lawsuits. What Trump was asking for was millions of the votes cast by legal voters thrown out. If Pennsylvania broke the law, and they may be forced to change some of their laws before their next election, it isn't the fault of the voter if their vote was cast according to law (or even the rules that had been published and approved at that time) but the law was bad -- we do not throw out votes cast by legal voters just because the law (or rules) in place at the time of voting should not have existed. In Pennsylvania's case, we don't know if the rules are bad -- the courts, which hold to the principle of not throwing out votes cast by legal voters -- will decide if the law needs to be changed after the election is over.

This is also a reason the Texas lawsuit failed. Yes, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case because of standing, which was the correct decision (as I said when AG Paxton first filed the suit). But Thomas and Alito, who believe that the Constitution requires the Supreme Court to hear "Original Jurisdiction" cases also took pains to note that they would not have given Texas the "relief they sought," even had they heard the case. Again, the courts do not disenfranchise voters (take the vote away from legal citizens who followed the rules) because the rules of the election were flawed.

So, I don't fit what you stated, and many here don't seem to. Yes, we laugh at Trump's lawsuits because they've often deserved to be laughed at -- they are legally that bad and the judges have "laughed" at them, though to many who aren't familiar with lawsuits won't see how scathing the comments actually were. The Trump campaign never alledged any fraud in any of their suits -- at least that I saw; instead it was always about observers, or the rules were not in line with state law, or about irregularities; and they failed at providing evidence in those cases. Instead, the ones I see that "don't care even to ascertain the facts" have tended to be those who flood the threat with the latest "claims of fraud," but never seeming even try to evaluate if the claim might be true, or if it has already been debunked on the forums, or the people who keep making the same claim over and over -- particulalry one or two cases in one state -- and pretend that proves Pres. Trump should have won, ignoring that others have shown that it would not change the winner.

 

[perplexed]

Actually, it's discouraging to have apparently thoughtful people act as though they don't care even to ascertain the facts in such important matters...so long as the winner of the election, fairly or not, was the one that the onlooker or commentator had hoped would be the winner.

??? Should People investigate the cheating in 2016, Trump would have won the popular vote if it was not for the Democrat cheating

 

[Subduction Zone]

??? Should People investigate the cheating in 2016, Trump would have won the popular vote if it was not for the Democrat cheating

There was an investigation if I remember correctly. And no cheating was found.

What makes you think that Democrats cheated? It seems to me far more likely that Trump would have cheated. That is in his blood.

 

[whatbogsends]

What "a large percentage of the public believes" is hardly a validation for anything.

What someone believes vs. what they can actually prove or provide credible evidence for are two totally different things.

I'm sure we could make a list of things that "a large percentage of the public believes", and there would probably be several you'd agree with, and several you'd disagree with, yes?

For instance, a large percentage of the public believed that Trump's win in 2016 was due to Russian interference, you and I agree that's silly, and the cause was the DNC throwing everything behind an undesirable candidate, correct?

The evidence for "Biden only won because of voter fraud and irregularities" holds about as much water as "Trump only won because of a $60k facebook ad campaign by the Russians".

Emphasis added.

I disagree that "a large percentage of the public believed that Trump's win in 2016 was due to Russian interference". I think it's a vanishingly small number of people who pushed that narrative. It certainly wasn't echoed on these forums, nor did i see anyone push it in real life.


The big difference, however, is that "Biden only won because of voter fraud and irregularities" is touted by a large swath of Trump supporters, while "Trump only won because of a $60k facebook ad campaign by the Russians" was something almost no one on the left claimed.

 

[perplexed]

What makes you think that Democrats cheated? .

Trump made the claim they cheated he said 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary, if you correctly ignore them he won the popular vote

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Emphasis added.

I disagree that "a large percentage of the public believed that Trump's win in 2016 was due to Russian interference". I think it's a vanishingly small number of people who pushed that narrative. It certainly wasn't echoed on these forums, nor did i see anyone push it in real life.


The big difference, however, is that "Biden only won because of voter fraud and irregularities" is touted by a large swath of Trump supporters, while "Trump only won because of a $60k facebook ad campaign by the Russians" was something almost no one on the left claimed.

...well, that was the gist of the argument by many on the left though. The russian interference angle was pushed for quite a while. "Trump is Putin's puppet" "Moscow Mitch" etc...

It couldn't have been merely a fringe belief, given that congress hauled social media CEO's up to capital hill to grill them about "what are you doing to stop misinformation on your platforms"

I know there's an incentive for folks to want to claim the "logical and moral high ground" on this one, but both sides have demonstrated that they're willing to buy into some outlandish theories if it provides an "easy" explanation for why things didn't turn out the way they wanted.

The key distinction is how the "adults" in the situation act when it occurs.

Hillary conceded and said "we must accept the results" on November 9th, 2016... Trump (and his cronies) dragged the process out for over a month.

But I have no doubt that a significant number of Democrats would've praised Hillary had she pursued the same avenues Trump did this time around, in contesting the loss.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Trump made the claim they cheated he said 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary, if you correctly ignore them he won the popular vote

I know, but they could never find any evidence for those 3 million illegal immigrants. Sneaky buggers. Not only illegal, but invisible as well


Report: Trump commission did not find widespread voter fraud

 

[whatbogsends]

...well, that was the gist of the argument by many on the left though. The russian interference angle was pushed for quite a while. "Trump is Putin's puppet" "Moscow Mitch" etc...

It couldn't have been merely a fringe belief, given that congress hauled social media CEO's up to capital hill to grill them about "what are you doing to stop misinformation on your platforms"

I know there's an incentive for folks to want to claim the "logical and moral high ground" on this one, but both sides have demonstrated that they're willing to buy into some outlandish theories if it provides an "easy" explanation for why things didn't turn out the way they wanted.

The key distinction is how the "adults" in the situation act when it occurs.

Hillary conceded and said "we must accept the results" on November 9th, 2016... Trump (and his cronies) dragged the process out for over a month.

But I have no doubt that a significant number of Democrats would've praised Hillary had she pursued the same avenues Trump did this time around, in contesting the loss.

I don't recall anyone seriously making the argument that Trump won due to Russian interference in 2016. In the media, on these message boards, or wherever. The false fraud claims are being pushed by almost every Trump supporter on these boards, even after they failed to present evidence and lost 50 court cases. Your comparison is a false equivalency.

Trump's possible involvement in Russian interference was looked at because it was viewed as deeply unethical and potentially put him in a compromising position to Russia, not because people were claiming he won because of Russian involvement.

Had so many in his administration not lied about their contacts with Russia, had Trump not lied about his business dealings with Russia, had Trump not repeatedly held closed door meetings with Putin, had Trump not sided with Putin over American intelligence agencies, had Trump not asked for Russia's help on live TV "Russia, if you're listening...", there would not have been such a fervor about it. There was plenty of smoke, and several fires in the vicinity of Trump.

It's not remotely comparable to the fraud claims being pushed by Trump and his supporters.

 

[TLK Valentine]

It's unlikely that anyone will miss him.

But his routine, which consists of not participating in the parts of his job that are disinteresting to him but then making a big show of how he is going to vote on what occurred in his absence, is getting to be as tiresome as it is familiar.

Is anyone but a Donald disciple not "disinterested" in his election fraud fantasies at this point?

 

[SimplyMe]

...well, that was the gist of the argument by many on the left though. The russian interference angle was pushed for quite a while. "Trump is Putin's puppet" "Moscow Mitch" etc...

It couldn't have been merely a fringe belief, given that congress hauled social media CEO's up to capital hill to grill them about "what are you doing to stop misinformation on your platforms"

I know there's an incentive for folks to want to claim the "logical and moral high ground" on this one, but both sides have demonstrated that they're willing to buy into some outlandish theories if it provides an "easy" explanation for why things didn't turn out the way they wanted.

The key distinction is how the "adults" in the situation act when it occurs.

Hillary conceded and said "we must accept the results" on November 9th, 2016... Trump (and his cronies) dragged the process out for over a month.

But I have no doubt that a significant number of Democrats would've praised Hillary had she pursued the same avenues Trump did this time around, in contesting the loss.

I feel a need to point out that the "Russian puppet" is not based solely on the claims about Russian interference with the election. There was the fact that Trump immediately tried to end sanctions against Russia, using Executive Privilege to remove them, to the point the Republican controlled House and Senate overwhelming passed a new law requiring the sanctions (I think there were maybe 5 total votes against the sanctions, compared to 530 for) which Trump then reluctantly signed (knowing his veto would clearly be overturned by Congress).

There were the instances where he gave Russia classified information, with worries it would harm our relationship with Isreal, who had given the US the information and didn't want it given to Russia.

It also came out after the election that Trump had lied when he said they were not trying to build a hotel in Russia during the election -- that Trump had been attempting to get approval from Putin for a hotel in Moscow. Then there were the meetings he held with the Russian ambassador or other senior level Russian officials where he did not allow others to be present, often not even a US interprator.

There are a great many reasons Trump was criticized for how he was treating Russia, and which seemed to play into the questions of what ties Trump had with Russia that he'd be acting this way.

 

[Albion]

It's infinitely more discouraging--and dangerous--when the loser expects a court to throw out thousands of state-certified votes based on nothing more than misinterpreted YouTube videos, unverified anecdotes, and conspiracy theories.

Well, you may be right about that.

On the other hand, because that is not the case here with the 2020 Presidential election, the point is basically irrelevant when it comes to to present circumstances and, also, to this thread.

 

[TLK Valentine]

It's infinitely more discouraging--and dangerous--when the loser expects a court to throw out thousands of state-certified votes based on nothing more than misinterpreted YouTube videos, unverified anecdotes, and conspiracy theories.

And for any people in positions of government power -- let alone a sizable percentage -- to decide that humoring the aforementioned loser rather than look to their own integrity.

 

[TLK Valentine]

Well, you may be right about that.

On the other hand, because that is not the case here with the 2020 Presidential election, the point is basically irrelevant when it comes to to present circumstances and, also, to this thread.

If anything was verified, it would have been presented and verified in a court of law...

...don't you think?