Overheard

We're flying battery-operated helicopters

on Mars - remotely controlled

from a hundred million miles away -

while people in Houston

can't even run a load of dishes

because the electrical grid is down again.

And that's because we have smart,

educated, highly qualified professionals

in charge of space exploration,

and they have a buncha

dumbass, all-hat-no-cattle

Republicans in charge of Texas.

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

(paraphrasing)

There was no fraud in any of the battleground states that would have changed the outcome in any one of those states, let alone in the nation as a whole.

In fact, there was no fraud that would have changed the outcome even in a single precinct.

Election Law Blog:

“LOST, NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election”

This extremely detailed report, just released, was put together by eight prominent conservatives, including three former federal judges. It carefully examines “every claim of fraud and miscount put forward by former President Trump and his advocates, and now put the results of those investigations before the American people, and especially before fellow conservatives who may be uncertain about what and whom to believe.”

Our conclusion is unequivocal: Joe Biden was the choice of a majority of the Electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of voters in their states. Biden’s victory is easily explained by a political landscape that was much different in 2020 than it was when President Trump narrowly won the presidency in 2016. President Trump waged his campaign for re-election during a devastating worldwide pandemic that caused a severe downturn in the global economy. This, coupled with an electorate that included a small but statistically significant number willing to vote for other Republican candidates on the ballot but not for President Trump, are the reasons his campaign fell short, not a fraudulent election.

Donald Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. We do not claim that election administration is perfect. Election fraud is a real thing; there are prosecutions in almost every election year, and no doubt some election fraud goes undetected. Nor do we disparage attempts to reduce fraud. States should continue to do what they can do to eliminate opportunities for election fraud and to punish it when it occurs. But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.

Today's Daddy Stater

Newsweek:

Republican Who Pushed 2020 Election Fraud Claims Accused of Election Fraud

Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee to be New York's governor, has been accused of ballot petition fraud and may not be able to have his name appear on the Independence Party line on the November ballot.

Following the 2020 election, Zeldin supported former President Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent although no evidence has emerged corroborating the allegations. The GOP congressman voted against the certification of President Joe Biden's electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania on January 6.

"This debate is necessary because rogue election officials, secretaries of state and courts circumvented state election laws," Zeldin argued at the time.

Now, the New York State Board of Elections has invalidated nearly 13,000 signatures on petitions for Zeldin to appear on the Independence Party line on the ballot, the Times Union reported. That decision came after it was alleged by Andrew Kolstee, secretary of the state's Libertarian Party, that some 11,000 of Zeldin's signatures were merely copies of other pages.

The Republican needed 45,000 signatures to appear on the third party ballot line. Although he submitted 52,000 signatures, with 13,000 ruled invalid by the Board of Elections, he will be unlikely to appear as an Independence Party candidate.

City & State reported that the Board of Elections would not comment on whether the signatures were deemed to be copied fraudulently, citing pending litigation. The magazine reported that its staff had reviewed the signatures and allegations by Kolstee, noting that "page after page" was "without a single valid signature."

While petition signature fraud is different than voter fraud, which Trump alleged had occurred in 2020, it is considered a form of election fraud according to the conservative Heritage Foundation. The right-wing organization describes "ballot petition fraud," which is defined as "forging the signatures of registered voters on the ballot petitions that must be filed with election officials in some states for a candidate or issue to be listed on the official ballot," as a "type" of election fraud.

"Republicans talk a lot about election integrity, but the Zeldin campaign attempted to fly under the radar and submit over 11,000 fraudulent signatures in an attempt to get a third line on the ballot," Kolstee said, the Times Union reported.

Newsweek reached out to Zeldin's campaign and congressional office for comment.

Katie Vincentz, a spokeswoman for the Zeldin's campaign, told the Times Union if an error had occurred, it was due to the heavy workload volunteers had.

"All five statewide candidates, scores of legislative and local candidates and a massive amount of each campaigns' volunteers collected tens of thousands of signatures from throughout New York," Vincentz said.

"Being nearly an entirely grassroots effort, we haven't reviewed all of the petitions nor the specific objections associated with them. In the final few days leading up to the filing deadline, tens of thousands of signatures from all over the state had to be immediately turned into the Board of Elections. While the Zeldin for New York campaign is not aware of photocopies, we certainly didn't make any photo copies," she added, according to the Times Union.

Jay Jacobs, the chair of the state Democratic Party, slammed Zeldin over the allegedly fraudulent signatures.

"Let's not forget: Lee Zeldin was one of the many far-right Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election under the guise of election fraud," Jacobs told City & State.

Zeldin is already widely expected to lose the 2022 election to incumbent Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul. New York has been a Democrat-majority state for many years, and a June poll by WNYT-TV/SurveyUSA showed the Republican candidate trailing Hochul by 24 points.

Trump's claims of widespread election fraud have been consistently debunked, including by top officials from his own administration. Former Attorney General William Barr, who was widely viewed as one of Trump's most loyal Cabinet members, has said repeatedly that the allegations were "bulls**t."

"I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with—he's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff," Barr testified before the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

They Knew

Mary Trump tells us about the crazies inside her uncle's closed loop of "friends", and a whole big buncha other stuff too.

Today's Tweet

Letitia James graciously agrees to delay the Trump depositions in light of Ivana's death. Since the Trumps asked for the delay, you think they'll cancel the 'Save America' rally scheduled for tomorrow in Arizona?

— Don Lewis (@DonLew87) July 15, 2022

Abortion Stuff

Why does the shit Republicans are trying to pull remind me so much of the Fugitive Slave shit that the southern states pushed thru in the 1800s?

Every Republican voted against a woman's right to travel freely from state to state.

You are some kinda fucked up, America.

Reuters:

U.S. House passes bill to protect right to travel for abortion

The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed legislation to safeguard the right to travel across state lines to seek an abortion after several states banned the procedure in the wake of last month's Supreme Court ruling.

The Democratic-controlled House voted 223 to 205, largely along party lines, to prevent states that have limited abortion from obstructing women's ability to seek care elsewhere.

The bill faces long odds in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans blocked similar legislation on Thursday.

Roughly a dozen Republican-led states have moved to ban nearly all abortions since late June, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion rights nationwide since 1973, and more states are expected to do so.

Some Republicans in those states have tried to go further. Missouri legislators considered a bill that would allow civil lawsuits against anyone who aids a woman in seeking an out-of-state abortion.

The issue received national attention after media reports on a 10-year-old girl who was raped in Ohio and had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion.

"Congress has the authority and the responsibility to protect people from these unconstitutional efforts," said Democratic Representative Lizzie Fletcher, the bill's author.

Other efforts to protect abortion rights have repeatedly foundered in the Senate this year, where Democrats need at least 10 Republican votes to advance most legislation.

Still, voting on the bills is one of the few actions congressional Democrats can take to demonstrate they are trying to protect abortion rights ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake.

Republican Representative Jodey Arrington said the bill was "wholly inconsistent with our values and founding principles of our nation."

The House will vote next week on a bill to codify the right to access contraception, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in a statement on Friday.

And don't give me any crap about how the Democrats have failed to do this or failed to stop that.

Republicans are responsible for the shit Republicans are doing.

People get their houses robbed. It's not the homeowners' fault, and it's not the cops' fault - it's the fucking burglars' fault.

Jan6 Stuff

File this one under "Well It's About Fuckin' Time, Press Poodles"

WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion
I’m no longer doubtful: If Garland has a case, Trump must be prosecuted

Anyone who professes absolute certainty that Donald Trump should be indicted on a charge of his efforts to prevent the peaceful transition of power hasn’t thought seriously enough about the potential consequences of such an unprecedented prosecution.

Anyone who thinks it should be an easy call for the Justice Department to turn a blind eye to Trump’s conduct hasn’t been paying attention.

Not so long ago, I was squeamish — nervous about the consequences, immediate and long-term, of having any administration prosecute its predecessor and chief political rival.

Prosecuting Trump threatened to further divide an already polarized nation; a conviction, even if secured, would be deemed illegitimate by a substantial portion of the population. If acquitted, Trump could be emboldened and empowered, a martyr to a seeming Democratic vendetta.

And whatever the outcome, the fateful step of bringing charges against a former president based on his conduct in office could unleash a dangerous cycle of tit-for-tat political prosecutions and revenge prosecutions. This is the stuff of banana republics, not the American system of justice.

I was also doubtful that Attorney General Merrick Garland would ultimately determine that the building blocks of a successful criminal case had been assembled — or, if they were, that bringing the case was in the interest of justice.

Prosecutors, after all, must be confident of their ability to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Applying the precise elements of the criminal law to the conduct of a president who would argue that he was acting in the exercise of his official duties would introduce complicated questions of constitutional law. Garland, by nature cautious and methodical, would proceed only if the evidence were too overwhelming to ignore.

We don’t know yet what he will do; there are too many critical witnesses left to be heard from, and the evidence we have heard has not been tested by experienced prosecutors — no less subjected to cross-examination.

But my squeamishness and doubts have yielded — if not to the absolute conviction that Trump should be prosecuted, then to the increasing belief that charges are warranted, and that failing to bring them would be more damaging to the nation than turning a blind eye to his effort to subvert democracy and prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

What changed my mind? The evidence. The facts amassed by the House select committee are damning, morally and legally. To understand their weight and import, think back to the second impeachment trial and wonder: What if we knew then what we know now?

We know now that Trump could have harbored no doubt that he lost the election, and resoundingly. This unwelcome fact was driven home to him by his attorney general, senior Justice Department officials, White House lawyers and his own campaign team.

We know now how extensively Trump pressured state officials to support his scheme to overturn the election. It wasn’t just the infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the necessary number of phantom votes but also his pressure on Arizona House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers to support a slate of phony electors.

We know now that Trump’s exhortation to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 — “Be there, will be wild” — was merely the desperate culmination of his frustrated attempts to forestall the vote-counting by other means.

We know now that Trump was secretly plotting all along to urge his supporters to march on the Capitol that day — that this was no off-the-cuff, ad-libbed exhortation but a premeditated, closely held plan.

We know now that officials across the administration, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, feared violence erupting on Jan. 6. “Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6,” White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Meadows warned.

We know now that Trump wanted to join the mob in marching on the Capitol — that this was his plan all along; that his lawyers believed this would be “legally a terrible idea for us,” according to Hutchinson; and that he was enraged when he was prevented from following through.

We know now that Trump was fully aware that some of the supporters he urged to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” were heavily armed.

We know now that when the rioters breached the Capitol, Trump was unperturbed. “He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat,” Meadows told White House counsel Pat Cipollone, according to Hutchinson. We know now that the claims of Trump’s impeachment lawyers that he, “like the rest of the country, was horrified at the violence,” were false.

We know now that Trump was similarly unfazed by the chants to “hang Mike Pence” — in fact, that he thought Pence deserved that fate for resisting his pressure not to certify the electoral college vote. We know now that the assertion by Trump impeachment lawyer Michael van der Veen that “at no point was the president informed the vice president was in any danger” was also untrue.

What criminal statutes does all this conduct violate? Try 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(c), which applies to anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” Try 18 U.S.C. Section 371 which prohibits conspiracy “to defraud the United States”; such defrauding includes efforts to obstruct “the lawful functions of any department of Government.”

Is it in the interests of justice — and is it in the broader interests of the nation — to charge Trump with a crime? The Justice Department’s “Principles of Federal Prosecution” offer some guidance here. Two sentences in particular stand out:

“If a person … is reasonably believed to have engaged in criminal activity at an earlier time, this should be considered in determining whether to commence or recommend federal prosecution.” Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III identified 10 instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice in connection with the Russia probe; Mueller didn’t proceed because Trump, as a sitting president, was shielded from indictment under Justice Department practice.

“The fact that the accused occupied a position of trust or responsibility which he/she violated in committing the offense, might weigh in favor of prosecution.” There is no greater position of trust or responsibility than the presidency, and no one who so flagrantly and repeatedly abused that trust more than Trump.

If and when Garland confronts the agonizing choice of whether to prosecute a former president, that position — and that history — should be top of mind.

Spy Story Stuff

People who hang with certain big time movers & shakers have an unfortunate tendency to meet with tragic ends.

I'm not saying somebody showed up at Ivana Trump's place on the upper east in NYC and helped her have a terrible accident. I'm just saying happenstance can seem pretty nasty and dark, especially considering that some of the people in relatively close orbit with guys like Trump and Putin have done the Peter Pan thing off of roofs and out windows, and down staircases - and dead ex-wives tell no tales.

Paranoid Mike says, "Fuck that - somebody definitely got to her. They got to Epstein, didn't they!?! She knew shit and there was probably a highly probable probability that she'd spill the beans, cuz maybe the NY AG's investigators were getting a little too close to something, and anyway, even if she didn't know anything there's no better way to send a signal to every other would-be witness rat to keep their tater traps shut, cuz hey - if we're willing to snuff the mother of the guy's kids...y'know?"

Whew - sorry - just had to get that out. But really, isn't that kinda how we do things now?

WaPo: (pay wall)

Ivana Trump died of ‘blunt impact injuries,’ medical examiner says

Ivana Trump, the first wife of former president Donald Trump, died of “blunt impact injuries” to her torso, according to a report from the New York City chief medical examiner Friday. The manner of death was classified as an accident, the report added.

The Trump family announced that Ivana, 73, mother of Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., had died at home in Manhattan on Thursday.

“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” the former president said in a post on his social medial platform Truth Social.

Ivana Trump was found unconscious on a staircase in her East 64th Street home near Central Park after police received an emergency call at 12:40 p.m., and she was pronounced dead at the scene, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the event. New York police detectives began an investigation and found no sign of forced entry or obvious sign of trauma suggesting criminality.

More than one in four Americans older than 65 fall each year, and falls are the leading cause of injury-related death among that age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths from falling occur at a rate of about 64 deaths per 100,000 older adults, it said.

The former president and his children lamented her death in statements online.

Ivanka tweeted: “Heartbroken by the passing of my mother. Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She lived life to the fullest. … I will miss her forever.” Her siblings also shared family photos online.

Ivana, who was born in the Czech Republic, married Donald in 1977. They divorced in 1992.

In the 1980s, Donald and Ivana were one of the most famous power couples in New York, frequently featured in the tabloids with a social profile that seemed to grow at the same rate as the Trump business empire. Throughout their marriage, Ivana, a former skier and model, played an active role in her husband’s businesses.

Following her death, depositions of the former president and two of his adult children — Donald Jr. and Ivanka — in the wide-ranging civil fraud probe of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) were postponed.

The depositions had originally been scheduled to take place during a six-day window that began Friday.

“In light of the passing of Ivana Trump yesterday, we received a request from counsel for Donald Trump and his children to adjourn all three depositions, which we have agreed to,” Delaney Kempner, a spokeswoman for the New York attorney general’s office, said.

“This is a temporary delay and the depositions will be rescheduled as soon as possible. There is no other information about dates or otherwise to provide at this time.”

Today's Pix

click

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Overheard / Deep Thought

The rule says matter can't be created,

and it can't be destroyed.

If that's true, then the universe has never not existed,

and it won't ever end.