Mississippi boy, 11, shot by officer after calling police for help

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[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Couldn't even stop the 2020 election from being stolen.

Stolen?

Fox paid $787.5m to dominion voting systems, three and a half times the value of the whole company in the lead up to the 2020 election.

Why did they do that instead of showing in court that they believed the election was stolen, or at least were reporting lies but without actual malice?

They had three external law firms working for them, and some of the top lawyers in the country.

If you know something they didn't, you should have spoken up.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Stolen?

If I were to be scrupulously fair, I would say that the evidence is not sufficient to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the 2020 presidential election was outright stolen. But there is more than enough evidence of election illegalities to call it fraudulent on the balance of probabilities.

And the US Supreme Court agrees.

  • The SCOTUS ruled that swing states had illegally counted invalid ballots and that this likely swung the result from Trump to Biden, but ruled 4 to 3 that this illegal act didn't matter and should not be investigated. (By the way, both of Trump's appointees agreed with the majority view -- I guess the Democrats were correct when they said that neither Kavanaugh nor Barrett were qualified to be Supreme Court justices.)

  • The three dissenting judges wrote dissents.

So there you have it: straight from the SCOTUS, the 2020 election was probably decided by illegal votes, but that's absolutely fine. American democracy in action. When the Supreme Court stole the election for Dubyah Bush in 2000, the mainstream press screamed about it for weeks. Now, not a peep.

There's an imperial ton (that's bigger than a metric ton) of evidence suggesting fraud, but with the refusal of the justice department or any neutral electoral commission to investigate, the case for fraud remains unproven to the standard required by the law.

The thing to remember about the American electoral system is that there are no reliable systems to ensure or verify vote-counting, and bipartisan laws make it almost impossible to prove electoral fraud, even in the most blatant cases. Sure, they prosecute a few petty cheats for voting three times, but that's about all. Counties are supposed to hold ballots for recount, but they routinely, and illegally, destroy ballots immediately after the election, making verification impossible.

Fox paid $787.5m to dominion voting systems

Dominion has been awarded $787 million. Whether Fox actually pays it or not remains to be seen. But Fox's revenue for the 12 months ending March of this year was just under $15 billion, they can afford it. To Rupert Murdoch, this is just a cost of doing business.

Why did they do that instead of showing in court that they believed the election was stolen, or at least were reporting lies but without actual malice?

Why indeed?

Fox is controlled opposition. They don't want to see Trump win any more than the Never Trump Republicans or Democrats do. But they do want to establish a terrible precedent that the establishment can weaponise against indy media.

There's a shit-ton of evidence that Dominion machines could have been hacked or manipulated, including actual forensic evidence of vote manipulation in Michigan. The one time a court allowed an independent auditor to look at a Dominion voting machine, which the county fought tooth and nail to prevent, the audit found a ton of evidence that the machine's error rate of 68% was far above legally permitted levels.

The audit also found that the machine had been improperly manipulated and data deleted, with missing security logs and evidence of tampering.

We know, without even a shadow of a doubt, that electronic voting machines can be hacked. It is widely known in the IT Security sector just how insecure electronic voting is, and until Dominion started throwing lawsuits around, the media used to report on the use of secret, unaudited software that can easily and undetectably modify votes and suffer from proven security vulnerabilities.

The security flaws in voting machines were reported right up to the 2020 election, and then Dominion started suing media outlets and "setting the record straight" about how amazingly awesomely secure their voting machines are. The two biggest voting machine companies don't even pretend to be neutral: Premier (formally known as Diebold) is closely tied to the Republicans; the CEO of Diebold once infamously promised in public to "deliver" Ohio to the Republicans. Dominion was started by Democrats, who remain share holders in the company.

US elections have been vulnerable for a long time. The chain of custody of voting machines is often broken, with election officials unable to account for machines. Voting systems are frequently broken into. A year ago, CISA reported on a bunch of software vulnerabilities in Dominion systems.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

But there is more than enough evidence of election illegalities to call it fraudulent on the balance of probabilities.

Not even close. Every single court case that has been brought, and there have been many has not just failed, it's been laughed out of court. In many cases sanctions have been applied to the attorneys for bringing frivolous lawsuits.

The SCOTUS ruled that swing states had illegally counted invalid ballots and that this likely swung the result from Trump to Biden

You might have to link me to that ruling.

All I can find is that they refused to hear the case. U.S. Supreme Court formally pulls the plug on election-related cases

The three dissenting judges wrote dissents.

Which case is the one you reckon is about the 2020 election?

Bridge Aina Le’a, LLC v. Hawaii Land Use Commission is a case about a company wanting to build homes in Hawaii.

Dominion has been awarded $787 million. Whether Fox actually pays it or not remains to be seen.

Nope. That was an out of court settlement. That what Fox agreed to pay to get out of going to court.

Fox is controlled opposition. They don't want to see Trump win any more than the Never Trump Republicans or Democrats do.

They pushed a lie about the election being stolen, even though they knew it to be false. They misrepresent facts a lot, but in this case, there were victims who suffered financial loss.

There's a shit-ton of evidence that Dominion machines could have been hacked or manipulated, including actual forensic evidence of vote manipulation in Michigan.

You should have let fox know. They spent $787.5 million dollars because that was not only false, but they knew it to be false.

You could have offered it to them for $400 million, and bought yourself a new car.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

You might have to link me to that ruling.

I linked to the written dissent that gives the relevant details. If you want the original ruling, you can find it yourself.

The Reuters article you mentioned is inaccurate as it describes the case being about counting "mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Election Day" but that is incorrect. Both NPR and PBS reported that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed ballots without postmarks to be counted even if they arrived after election day. The SCOTUS allowed that ruling to stand.

So in 2020 Pennsylvania was counting mail-in ballots that arrived after election day without postmarks. Two years later the Pennsylvania Supreme Court changed their mind and ruled that undated ballots don't count in the 2022 midterms.

All I can find is that they refused to hear the case.

Right. That's the point: almost none of the cases have been heard by the courts. The courts typically refuse to hear them. Almost none of the fraud claims have been genuinely judged on their merits.

Which case is the one you reckon is about the 2020 election?

Page 25 onwards.

That was an out of court settlement.

Yes, you are correct, I confused myself. Sorry.

there were victims who suffered financial loss.

Since the case never actually got decided on its merits, it is impossible to say that there were victims who suffered financial loss. Dominion may claim that they suffered financial loss, but they haven't had to prove it, and its frankly a ludicrous claim. The people who most believed Fox's claims are not customers of Dominion, or potential customers. They're just voters, whose opinions don't count and don't matter.

Dominion's claims for damages are based on a report they paid for, half of which remains under seal. The half that has been made public seems to have over-valued Dominion to a ludicrous degree, e.g. claiming that the company's value increased by a factor of 10 in less than two years (that's 450% growth per year!), and claiming without evidence that they had to abandon "growth opportunities" worth $643 million. Dominion CEO John Poulos claimed that the company expects to lose customers and is unlikely to stay in business, but since 2020 Dominion has increased its market share of the voting machine market, so I'm rating Poulos' claim Five Pinocchios. NPR found that Dominion machines will be used in 1861 U.S. jurisdictions in 2024, 700 more than in 2020. That's sixty percent growth in two years, during a time that Dominion is crying that nasty old Fox is going to put them out of business.

It seems that claims of election fraud has been very good for Dominion and its shareholders. They should pay Fox to defame them some more.

You should have let fox know.

Fox knows. They could have fought the case if they wanted to. Hell, they could have bought Dominion out.

For Fox, $787.5 million is not a lot of money:

  • Their revenue is about $12-15 billion a year.
  • The company is valued at $15.27 billion, and enterprise value of $18.33 billion.
  • They keep cash reserves of $4 billion.

If they wanted to bolster the Democrats or Never Trumpers in the Republican Party, and hurt Trump's re-election chances, giving Dominion $787.5 million and filling the media with a thousand stories about "Fox admits election fraud claims are a lie" is money well-spent.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

If you want the original ruling, you can find it yourself.

Okay, The reason I can't find it I suspect is because it doesn't exist.

Do you accept that you're mistaken about that?

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Are you seriously saying that SCOTUS judges wrote dissents about a ruling that doesn't exist?

Whatever crack you are smoking, you need to cut back.

The dissents both reference the cases involved. Look them up yourself.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Are you seriously saying that SCOTUS judges wrote dissents about a ruling that doesn't exist?

Nope. I'm saying that the case in which "[t]he SCOTUS ruled that swing states had illegally counted invalid ballots and that this likely swung the result from Trump to Biden" doesn't exist.

Because the SCOTUS obviously never ruled that.

Whatever crack you are smoking, you need to cut back.

Oh the irony:

"Counties reported that only 9,428 ballots were received within the three-day extension at issue, and only 669 of those lacked a legible postmark. This tiny number of ballots is insufficient to affect any federal race." - https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-542/162063/20201130140620945_RPP%20Opp%20Cert%20v.FINAL.pdf

How much crack you have have to smoke to get from that to "this likely swung the result from Trump to Biden"?

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thank you for the link but you do realise that's a partisan opinion by the respondents, giving their reasons why they think the case should be thrown out? It is not the judge's ruling, nor is it the SCOTUS' majority position. Everything in it has to be read as the opinion of the people with a vested interest in rejecting the lawsuit and keeping the results.

So the respondents say that there were not enough ballots to make a difference. Okay, maybe that's true, but if they were cheating that's what they would say too, and their claim regarding the number of ballots was not cross-examined or proven. They just gave a number and we're supposed to accept it unquestioningly.

Their other arguments are important. They ask the judge to reject the petition because:

  1. The case was moot. Pennsylvania had already certified the election, so too bad. They wrote: "The General Election is over. Its results have been certified. Even if Petitioner were to succeed on its claims ... there would be no effect whatsoever on the outcome of any election."

  2. The petitioner didn't have standing to sue. "Petitioner lacks Article III standing to advance these claims". Even if the petitioner had absolutely 100% undeniable proof of fraud it would not matter because the law doesn't allow them to sue to overturn the results. “private plaintiffs lack standing to sue for alleged injuries attributable to a state government’s violations of the Elections Clause.” And then later: "Petitioner has no concrete and particular interest in vindicating the “alleged usurpation of the General Assembly’s rights under the Elections and Electors Clauses.”

  3. Even if the petitioner had standing they explicitly states that the court should not rule on matters of fact (that is, on the evidence): "Petitioner repeatedly seeks to litigate questions of fact ... This Court has long recognized that it “do[es] not grant a certiorari to review evidence and discuss specific facts.” U.S. v. Johnston, 268 U.S. 220, 227 (1925). This is precisely what Petitioner seeks here."

Let's suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the Pennsylvania election was absolutely scrupulously fair in every single way. Let's just ignore the bait and switch from challenging the (allegedly illegal) extension of mail-in votes past the election period for mail in votes to only the alleged 669 without a legible postmark. (What about those with legible postmarks after the election was over?) Then, in this best possible case for you:

  • suppose Pennsylvania election officials truly did nothing illegal;
  • suppose the election was absolutely legal and fair in every single way;
  • suppose that only those 669 mail-in votes are relevant and not the other mail-in votes;
  • suppose they would not have made a difference to the final result;
  • and suppose that the court was 100% correct in rejecting this petition for the reasons given.

Then even in the best case scenario for you, it would still support my position that the American election system is designed to make it almost impossible to challenge election results and that the election challenges were thrown out, not because of the quality of the evidence but on legal technicalities like lack of standing.

And this is my point. Of the hundreds or maybe thousands of challenges to the 2020 election, almost all of them were thrown out on the basis of legal technicalities like this one. I'm not aware of one single case where the evidence was presented to a judge and jury by witnesses, with their claims cross-examined.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay, maybe that's true, but if they were cheating that's what they would say too, and their claim regarding the number of ballots was not cross-examined or proven.

And by "cheating" you mean counting votes from legitimate voters, who may have posted their vote too late, and may have voted for any candidate?

They just gave a number and we're supposed to accept it unquestioningly.

"Counties reported that only 9,428 ballots were received within the three-day extension at issue, and only 669 of those lacked a legible postmark."

You think the supreme court is lying about what the counties reported?

Then even in the best case scenario for you, it would still support my position that the American election system is designed to make it almost impossible to challenge election results and that the election challenges were thrown out, not because of the quality of the evidence but on legal technicalities like lack of standing.

No, by actual realities like the number of votes being contested was far too small to make a difference.

I'm not aware of one single case where the evidence was presented to a judge and jury by witnesses, with their claims cross-examined.

True. I can't think of one that presented any evidence to a judge that warranted consideration. That's not a failing of the election system. It's a consequence of the fact that Trump was fundraising off the court cases, so he was incentivised to bring court cases that weren't worthy of bringing, since at the end of it he was up money from his donors.