Trumpwatch: Voter fraud, Presidential delusions, and Fox News
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Trump’s campaign and presidency has been marked by a series of exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies. One of Trump’s most recent lies is his allegation of massive voter fraud in the US 2016 presidential elections;
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On 25 January, he told ABC News;
“You have people who are registered who are dead, who are illegals, who are in two states,” Trump told ABC’s David Muir. “You have people registered in two states. You have people registered in New York and New Jersey. They vote twice.”
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M70351imlc&w=560&h=315]
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This has been disputed, as explained for The Intercept;
For two months now, Donald Trump has appeared unable to accept the verdict of November’s election: that he is more popular than many of us wanted to believe, but less popular than Hillary Clinton.
As a result of this fixation, he is now promising “a major investigation” into the election that made him president, putting the full weight of the federal government behind his quest to prove that at least three million ballots were cast against him by “those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are dead.”
In an interview with David Muir of ABC News broadcast on Wednesday night, Trump tried to suggest that a 2012 Pew study on problems with people being registered in two states, or the voter rolls not being updated as soon as people die, was proof that illegal voting was taking place.
When Muir pointed out that the author of the Pew study, David Becker, had said that his work did not show any voter fraud, Trump, who clearly had not read the study, suggested, wrongly, that he had somehow retracted his research. Specifically, Trump accused Becker of “groveling”, just as he had when attacking Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times for undercutting his lie that thousands of Arab-Americans celebrated 9/11 in New Jersey.
As several observers quickly noted, members of Trump’s own family and senior White House staff are also registered in two states.
Trump’s bogus allegations have been backed up by an equally bogus “alternative news” website, “Infowars“. An article headed “Report: Three Million Votes in Presidential Election Cast by Illegal Aliens” made explosive allegations of wide-spread voter fraud in last year’s presidential election;
Three million votes in the U.S. presidential election were cast by illegal aliens, according to Greg Phillips of the VoteFraud.org organization.
If true, this would mean that Donald Trump still won the contest despite widespread vote fraud and almost certainly won the popular vote.
“We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens,” tweeted Phillips after reporting that the group had completed an analysis of a database of 180 million voter registrations.
Phillips said in another ‘;tweet’;
“Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million. Consulting legal team,” he added.
On closer investigation, it appears that “Greg Phillips” has no connection to VoteFraud.org, as the organisation made clear shortly after Infowars’ “story”;
We at Votefraud.org and ElectionNightGatekeepers.com had never heard of Greg Phillips when infowars.com carried an article circa November 14, 2016 reporting that Phillips had stated in a Twitter Tweet that, — claiming to having analyzed a database of 180 million voters, — 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton.
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Hillary did call for registering 3 million new voters a few months before the election. While we believe that it’s a reasonable claim that the Democrats succeeded in helping millions of illegals to vote for Hillary, — which is why almost all prominent Democrats, including Hillary and Obama, oppose voter ID laws, — we can find no proof that Hillary made an overt call to register illegal immigrants, or that this actually happened.
We would urge Mr. Greg Phillips to publish how his group made this determination (and we hope he can!).
Apparently, Trump is resting his ‘case’ on fake news, from an alt.right bogus-news website, quoting a non-existent member of another organisation, to assert unsubstantiated allegations of non-existent wide-spread voter fraud.
There is nothing even remotely credible about this farce.
Pro-Republican TV broadcaster, Fox News was equally unimpressed with Trump’s latest foray into the political Twilight Zone;
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xXET9brsKs&w=560&h=315]
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When even the right-wing, pro-Republican Fox News calls “Bullshit Alert!” on one of their own, you know it’s time for a healthy dose of mama’s reality-check elixir.
If anyone is in any doubt of Trump’s delusions on this issue, note the part where he says;
“Of those votes cast, none of ’em came to me. None of ’em came to me. They would all be for the other side. None of ’em came to me.”
Which – if true – would indicate that Trump was somehow able to look at each and every vote cast in “two states and some cases maybe three states” and determine which candidate the ballot was cast for.
This would be extraordinary.
How would he know “none of ’em came to me“? Voting in the United States is supposed to be secret.
Postscript
On 9 January, Trump accepted the CIA and FBI’s allegations that Russia engaged in cyber attacks during the U.S. presidential election last year. Trump, however, did not accept that the hacking interfered in the final results;
“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our government institutions, businesses and organisations including the Democrat (sic) National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”
Perhaps Trump should ask “Greg Phillips“?
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Final Word
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1995
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References
Twitter: Donald J. Trump – “voter fraud”
Youtube: Watch The Terrifying Way Trump Reacts When A Reporter Points Out He’s Wrong To His Face
The Intercept: Just 5 Clicks on an Internet Survey Inspired Trump’s Claim Millions Voted Illegally
Infowars: Report – Three Million Votes in Presidential Election Cast by Illegal Aliens
Youtube: Even A Fox News Anchor Just Called Out Trump’s Voter Fraud BS
Financial Times: Trump says hacking did not influence US election
Indy100: Carl Sagan’s terrifyingly accurate prediction about the future has resurfaced
Additional
Buzzfeed: Here’s A Running List Of All Of President Trump’s Lies
Previous related blogposts
Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?
The Rise of Great Leader Trump
The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election
Trump escalates, Putin congratulates
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= fs =
And when we finish the wall, we are gonna start on the roof. I promise you folks it’s gonna be great. And who’s gonna pay for it? The Martians that’s who.
What? There are no Martian immigrants to the US!
Gina, will pay for it. Gina need to start behaving fairly to the United States, they need to show us respect.
This reply is unrelated to the OP but I’ll reply to these two all the same.
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/FY%2015%20DHS%20Entry%20and%20Exit%20Overstay%20Report.pdf – Home Land Security estimate the number of illegal immigrants in the US at around 11 million and about 5 million of those are working. So even if trump wanted to deport all of them, employers can sponsor workers they want in strawberry fields and other fruit and veg farms across the US which is what undocumented workers in the US do any way. Why is that? Because literally no other persons want to do that job. The up side is undocumented workers become documented and receive minimum wage instead of below minimum.
Building a wall makes it harder to cross the US border but not impossible through tunnels or paper. Right now you can get a permit and bus ticket from Mexico to California where all the strawberry fields are, for about $200US an thousands and thousands of Mexicans do every day. So even if Trump decides to deport undocumented immigrants it’s highly likely they’ll show up the next day to start there shift in the strawberry fields. There are story’s of some Mexican strawberry pickers being deported 6-20 times a year.
A lot of fake news tend to focus on immigrants crossing imaginary dessert boundaries but only a fraction do and most of them are drug mules. The vast majority, by along way cross boarder check points, about 700,000 cross with permits every day – https://www.reference.com/government-politics/many-mexicans-cross-border-year-5cb90159b4355204
So the wall is a monument of shame. The out come of building this illusionary wall will be more pathways for Mexicans seeking US residency, and all the taxes that generates. In a weird way it’s a win win, remember undocumented immigrants get removed from the US multiple times a year. So getting sponsorship won’t be such a bad thing for them. This one boarder jumper isn’t an isolated incident – http://nypost.com/2016/12/31/mexican-man-charged-with-rape-had-been-deported-10-times/
It’s illusionary spending and when every one wakes up to themselves, and uppercut themselves. I’m sure the tweets will be furious.
Thanks for sharing that with us, Sam. It makes a lot more sense than the garbage we’ve been getting from Trump and his minions.
What I find ironic is that, in 1987, Ronald Reagan demanded from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down that wall”.
Now the Yanks are putting up one of their own!
Any time
Sam, I echo Sally’s Husband. Thanks for the additional info. It compliments my story perfectly.
Thanks Frank, maybe it’s the Audkland in me that wants to get all biblical. It makes me so mad some times to see all this money just get wasted by untalented people like trump or the kardasins. The Vandels are truely knocking on the American Empires door, and the rail roads that transmit Americas wealth and technology are crumbling letting the Vandels walk straight into the centre of Chicago because all railroads lead to Chicago.
“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.” #Edward Gibbo
That Sagan quote is pretty sobering.
Perhaps for Trump the sobering moment will finally come when he gets the results of his investigation and finds that fraudulent votes were at most numbered in the thousands.
President Trump signs an executive order to ban the bomb.
Oops, sorry I will read that again.
President Trump signs an executive order to ban the Syrians.
What’s that you say? President Trump signs an executive order to to bomb the Syrians?
I will try that again, President Trump signs an executive to ban and bomb the Syrians.
Gees Guys, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
The Great Wall of Gina?
Call that a wall?
Our wall be bigger, our wall be taller, our wall will be longer.
Just wait and see folks.
The Great Wall of Gina can be seen from space?
That’s nothing.
Our wall will be able to be seen from the Kuiper Belt.
In case my earlier comment doesn’t make the cut, I point out again pipe line has been moved away from Native lands. And … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igFGfa6L2F0
Frank, you’ve gotta admit this guy knows how to move mountains!
Anecdotally, the flu vaccine does seem pretty iffy. Like Trump, I’ve never one, and have had the flu maybe twice in my life (and I’m in my 40’s). My father and brother used to always take it, and while they didn’t get the flu, they spent the entire winter miserable suffering cold after cold. I told them to try stopping with the flu vaccine and both are now healthy throughout the winter months for the last 10 years or so. Like I said, totally anecdotal, but imo this particular vaccine really messes with your immune system (perhaps not surprising given the massive immune challenge that the vaccine must exert?).
Excellent summation. Especially with the bogus “news story” by Infowars. Hoisted by their own Fake News story! LOL!
“it’s time for a healthy dose of mama’s reality-check elixir” -Lily the Pink’s Medicinal Compound?
“…now he’s emperor of Rome.”
Perhaps Trump should instead start by building a high wall around the White House and Trump Tower, to keep the people out? Paranoia starts at home.