BREAKING: Major Error Found In Arizona Results Data said 98% of votes had been counted; only 86% was actually counted
By Hank Berrien • Nov 4, 2020
On Wednesday, a significant error was discovered that could affect the results of the presidential election in Arizona: Edison Research data, which major news organizations including The New York Times utilize to report voting results, reported that 98% of precincts in Arizona had been counted when in fact only 86% had been counted.
New York Times editor Patrick LaForge tweeted, “An error was found in the data feed from Edison Research (used by @nytimes and other news organizations) for Arizona results – 86 percent of ballots have ben counted, not 98%. NYT has not called the state for Biden, though he still leads.”
An error was found in the data feed from Edison Research (used by @nytimes and other news organizations) for Arizona results -- 86 percent of ballots have been counted, not 98 percent. NYT has not called the state for Biden, though he still leads. https://t.co/mPDkiKsExQ
Asked what percent of the remaining ballots are mail-in and what percent were cast on election day, Laforge responded, “According to the link, 100 percent of the absentee ballots were already counted, but I think I’d wait for the data outlet to fix its data before taking that to the bank. Arizona is just waking up (time difference) and presumably officials there will be clarifying matters today.”
According to the link, 100 percent of the absentee ballots were already counted, but I think I'd wait for the data outlet to fix its data before taking that to the bank. Arizona is just waking up (time difference) and presumably officials there will be clarifying matters today.
“According to the Times, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has won 51 percent of the vote compared to President Trump’s 47.6 percent. More than 2.7 million votes have been reported,” The Hill noted.
National Journal editor-in-chief Jeff DuFour noted: “This gives some credence to the Trump camp’s argument in a call with reporters that it expects to pull ahead in Arizona, because most of the outstanding vote is in Trump-friendly territory.”
This gives some credence to the Trump camp's argument in a call with reporters that it expects to pull ahead in Arizona, because most of the outstanding vote is in Trump-friendly territory.
The Daily Wire reported that after Fox News called the Arizona race for Biden, GOP governor Doug Ducey was furious:
Outrage erupted online late on Tuesday night after Fox News called the presidential race in Arizona for Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, a call that many believed was too early and ultimately led to a response from the state’s governor.
Governor Doug Ducey, without specifically naming the network, responded to the call that Biden had won the state, which had not been reported yet by the other networks.
“It’s far too early to call the election in Arizona,” Ducey wrote. “Election Day votes are not fully reported, and we haven’t even started to count early ballots dropped off at the polls. In AZ, we protected Election Day. Let’s count the votes — all the votes — before making declarations.”
Senior Trump campaign official Jason Miller wrote on Twitter: “Fox News is a complete outlier in calling Arizona, and other media outlets should not follow suit. There are still 1M+ Election Day votes out there waiting to be counted – we pushed our people to vote on Election Day, but now Fox News is trying to invalidate their votes!”
“We only need 61% of the outstanding, uncounted Election Day votes in Arizona to win,” Miller continued. “These votes are coming from ‘our counties,’ and the 61% figure is very doable based on what our other Election Day votes are looking like. @FoxNews should retract their call immediately.”
SCOTUS to hear case on exemptions for religious adoption agencies
FILE – In this Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, file photo the Supreme Court is
seen at sundown on the eve of Election Day in Washington, D.C. (AP
Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
OAN Newsroom UPDATED 9:33 AM
The Supreme Court is gearing up to hear a case on whether there should be certain religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws regarding LGBTQ individuals. The high court will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia on Wednesday.
All eyes will be turned toward Justice Amy Coney Barrett as this will be her first major Supreme Court ruling after being confirmed last month.
This case will see a Roman Catholic adoption agency argue that they have the right to deny adoption rights to same sex couples. The agency’s policy was noticed by the city of Philadelphia in 2018, which caused it to deny the agency access to any available foster children.
Many believe this will be Justice Barrett’s first opportunity to show how she will rule in cases related to religious freedoms. Many on the left fear she will try to work away some LGBTQ civil rights, though she spoke heavily during her confirmation hearings about the separation of her personal beliefs from constitutional law.
“It is the job of a judge to resist her policy preferences, it would be a dereliction of duty for her to give in to them,” she stated. “Judges do not run for elections, thus they have no basis for claiming that their preferences reflect those of the people.”
FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2020, file photo Amy Coney Barrett, listens as
President Donald Trump speaks before Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas administers the Constitutional Oath to Barrett on the South Lawn
of the White House in Washington,D.C. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
Justice Barrett is well known for being a student of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. When the Fulton v. Pennsylvania case was first heard, Scalia ruled regulations on the church were constitutional as long as they were universally applicable.
As of now, however, it’s unclear as to how Justice Barrett will rule on this case and whether or not adoption agencies with ties to religious institutions will be allowed to deny adoption privileges to LGBTQ couples.
President Trump Warns Against 4am Ballot Drops and an Hour Later Wisconsin and Michigan Drop 300,000 Ballots For Democrats and ZERO for Trump
By Joe Hoft Published November 4, 2020
President Trump was prophetic again last night during his speech at 3:15am Eastern. The President warned against 4am ballot drops and sure enough, that’s what happened.
President Trump correctly called out the liberal media for not calling Georgia or North Carolina.
In Pennsylvania Trump was ahead by nearly 700,000 votes.
In Michigan Trump was ahead by over 300,000 votes.
In Wisconsin Trump was ahead by 120,000 votes.
President Trump told his supporters, “This is a fraud on the American public. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we won this election. This is a major fraud on the election. So we will be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all of the voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any votes at 4 in the morning. We will win this and as far as I am concerned we already won!”
But then overnight the President’s concerns appeared. After telling the world that they were stopping counting overnight, the Democrats suddenly dropped over 300,000 ballots in Wisconsin and Michigan:
Article by C. Edmund Wright in The American Thinker
The Nasty Street Fight ahead for 2020: This is Why We Elected Trump
Ironic, isn’t it? This could be Trump’s finest hour.
As
befits the already awful year of Our Lord, 2020, the presidential
election is going to come down to a nasty street fight of lawyers,
public relations spin, and positioning involving four states. Donald
Trump has won all four, and now he must successfully defend all four
wins from the very mail-in shenanigans he (and all of us) predicted
would happen months ago. This is flesh and blood people versus
theoretical pieces of mail. The people must win this.
Like
many, as I was transitioning from supporting Ted Cruz in the summer of
2016 to making peace with supporting Donald Trump, the main comfort I
had was that Trump was a fighter, one who seemed fearless, and one who
talked like a real guy instead of a political drone. Then there is the
“it” factor that Trump has, a once in a lifetime gift upon the political
scene. The brilliant Cruz was admittedly a bit weak on all of that.
Okay, more than a bit.
At
the time I was producing a series of twenty attack articles against the
Republican Establishment for Steve Bannon at Breitbart, so I naturally
had enjoyed -- and written about -- the successes during the process of
Trump, Cruz, Ben Carson and Rand Paul -- as they all irked the GOP-E.
And
in the past four years, Trump has rarely disappointed on the fighter
front. His instincts back on March 22nd were to push back against Tony
Fauci, to not let “the cure be worse than the disease” regarding COVID,
and he was right. Something inside was telling him that letting a
narrowly focused bureaucratic scientist who hadn’t treated a human
patient in 40 plus years rule the world’s economy was not a good
idea. Oddly, he backed off of that fight for about seven months --
possibly at the behest of NYC focused Ivanka and Jared or wimpy GOP
consultants, but that’s a discussion for another article and another
day.
As
a result, Mr. Trump, now is the time to really fight, and fight like
you’ve never fought before. Tell Ivanka and Jared and the consultants to
sit down and shut up. Time for you to be you. Now is the time for the
straightest, toughest, and most real unvarnished talking you have ever
done. You shouldn’t have to do this, of course. You should have sailed
into re-election with well over 300 Electoral votes and a booming
economy. Then the scamdemic of COVID happened, with all of the
complications and implications thereof and therein, and the world was
turned upside down. Our economy and your political fortunes included.
Yet
somehow, even with the Fauci mistake, you charged into yesterday with
the incredible momentum of a winner. And you won, legitimately. Taking
out the Marxist strongholds of California and New York, you won the
popular vote in the other 48 state by millions. By all rights, you have
won Michigan, you beat the frack out of Biden in Pennsylvania, and you
held off “the damned Yankees” who have moved into Georgia and North
Carolina and brought their polluting voting habits with them.
But
that’s not where we are. We are still in a war, a war against an enemy,
the worldwide left, that has co-opted the Democrat party, virtually the
entire American media, the social media giants, Big Education, Big
Entertainment and even Big Sports. Yes, the foot soldiers will be the
lawyers, but this battle will have a huge public opinion angle, and
that’s where you must dominate. You must make it clear to the Supreme
Court justices and to everybody else that your supporters are real live
people who love the country and who are passionate.
And
millions of their voters are theoretical pieces of mail that may or may
not have ever been in the hands of a legitimate voter. Remind people
that Republicans did well in The House and The Senate, and across the
country. Just ooze legitimacy, because you are the legit winner. We are
the legit winners.
Quite
likely this is coming down to the Supreme Court, and they are flesh and
blood human beings. They do watch what’s going on. They have feelings
and opinions and have to live in Washington. Keep that in mind. Aside
from the three ultra-liberals, they are not drones. Justice Barrett is
new, and she needs a visible and obvious reason to support flesh and
blood voters over pieces of mail. She needs a reason she can support you
and not be called a lackey. Justice Kavanaugh had his testosterone
drained by the vicious attacks on him, and you need to give him a reason
to get it back. Justice Gorsuch is one of those brilliant but annoying
libertarian leaning guys who needs a public display of such common sense
that he understands pieces of paper cannot disenfranchise real people
by cancelling their votes. Thomas and Alito are solid. And Roberts?
Well, I’ve written him off but would be delighted to be wrong.
I
say, continue to hold rallies. Stay on this every second of every day.
Keep your attorneys fired up. Keep your people fired up. Make it obvious
that this is still a war between the people and the basement dwellers.
More than ever, Trump must be Trump. Go with your gut. Attack. We
shouldn’t be here, but we are. It is what it is. Perhaps we have the one
man who can make it his and our finest hour. The Republic depends on
it.
This is so personally devastating to me: the black male vote for Trump INCREASED from 13% in 2016 to 18% this year. The black female vote for Trump doubled from 4% in 2016 to 8% this year.
Also, once again, exit polls show a majority of white women voting for Trump. (Important note: Pew analysis of actual votes in 2016 showed that it wasn’t a
Also, the percentage of LGBT voting for Trump doubled from 2016. DOUBLED!!! This is why LGBT people of color don’t really trust the white gays. Yes, I said what I said. Period.
Also, the percentage of Latinos and Asians voting for Trump INCREASED from 2016, according to exit polls. Yet more evidence that we can’t depend on the “browning of America” to dismantle white supremacy and erase anti-blackness.
The Good News Is That Biden Is Screwed, Even if He Wins
By David Goldman Published Nov 04, 2020
My gut says that Donald Trump will snatch victory from the jaws of the pollsters. A great deal hangs on Pennsylvania, where Trump now leads by 600,000 but where 1.7 million mail-in ballots remain to be counted. There’s a 2:1 ratio of registered Democrats to registered Republicans among mail-in voters, and the pundits are saying that this will cancel out Trump’s lead. What they don’t consider is that a lot of registered Democrats in Pennsylvania will vote for Trump. Of course, getting the ballots counted fairly is a non-trivial problem.
Politico.com’s headline this morning reads, “Biden looks screwed even if he wins.” The Republicans kept a Senate majority and reduced the Democratic majority in the House. If Biden squeaks by, he will have no popular mandate, no Senate, and no help from the Supreme Court. He won’t be able to pass tax increases, big changes in health care, or his Green New Deal boondoggles. He will have the same headaches confirming his favorite nominees as Trump did, and worse, as a Republican Senate casts a jaundiced eye at Biden’s supporting cast.
The good news is that the election stymied the Democratic Party’s plan for radical transformation of the United States into an Orwellian state enforcing political correctness, and turning the federal budget into a pinata for Democratic constituencies, That’s the genius of the American political system. To make big changes you need either a big majority or a small majority for a very long time, and the Democrats have neither.
Of course, a Biden administration would have the freedom to undo some of President Trump’s accomplishments in foreign policy, for example, returning to the repugant Obama policy of coddling Iran.
If Trump wins — as I hope and expect — the White House will still have freedom of action in foreign policy, as well as the ability to go after Big Tech. He will also have time to drain the swamp in the Intelligence Community. Trump will not forget that Twitter and Facebook suppressed the New York Post’s revelations about the Hunter Biden emails on the recommendation of a gaggle of retired spooks.
As Glenn Greenwald, a left-leaning investigative journalist, told Tucker Carlson last week:
The real story of the last four years of the Trump administration is that for a long time on the Left there was a healthy skepticism of the CIA,. That is all disappeared. And the reason it has disappeared is that the CIA from the very first days of the Trump administration, even before he was inaugurated, devoted themselves to sabotaging his administration because he questioned a few of their pieties.
That can’t be done in Washington. Whoever does that must be destroyed. And so the CIA and Deep State operatives became heroes of the liberal Left…They are now in a full union with the neo-cons, the Bush-Cheney operatives, the CIA, Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
Fifty former top intelligence officials published a manifesto on October 19 to denounce the Biden emails as a “Russian information operation.” They said: “We write to say that the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The mainstream media spiked the political story of the year at the diktat of the spook establishment — perhaps the scariest thing that ever has happened in American political history. If the Deep State can do this sort of damage when it is out of power, I shudder to think what they will do if and when Biden brings them back into power.
That’s why the White House is critical. It’s the Deep State vs. the American republic. But even if Biden squeaks through, the Republican Senate and the Supreme Court provide constitutional bulwarks against the Democratic cabal. We will live to fight another day and win another presidential election.
I Stayed Up to Track the Election Returns So You Wouldn't Have to
By Shipwreckedcrew | Nov 04, 2020
As of about 1:00 am ET, the outcome of the election was clearly going to come down to the following states:
Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.
With those states left to be decided, the electoral map showed Trump leading Biden 232 to 227.
That was after Trump had won Florida and North Carolina, and Biden had won Virginia and Minnesota.
No real earth-shattering results with any of the four, but Florida and North Carolina were “must haves” for Pres. Trump to have a path to 270.
Georgia — Pres. Trump had built a sizeable lead late into the evening on Tuesday, at one point growing to more than 500,000 votes. But as the numbers came in, the not all that shocking realization began to take hold that the heavily democrat counties around Atlanta were seemingly incompetent — again — in being able to get their votes counted and reported to the Secretary of State. Well into early Wednesday morning Fulton and DeKalb counties languished around the 80% mark for reported votes, while the balance of the counties went above 95%. Pres. Trump’s votes were booked, and then the counties around Atlanta decided it was time to get back to work cutting into his lead.
By 4:00 am, all counties were finished reporting — except Democrat Machine counties Fulton and DeKalb. But earlier the NYT website had the final numbers up for those two counties while still showing only 80% of the vote in each was reported. But the Secretary of State’s website showed the NYT vote totals was 100% for DeKalb County, and 96% for Fulton County — with Trump maintaining a 110,000 vote lead. So, as of the time I hit “publish” on this story, Georgia was going to Trump.
Trump 248, Biden 227.
Arizona was a puzzle deep into the night. Media covering the numbers didn’t seem to understand that Arizona published mail-in and early voting numbers first, and then began to add to that the in-person voting numbers today as they were reported by the Counties. Late into Tuesday evening Biden enjoyed a substantial lead — nearly 300,000 votes — while a good portion of the in-person vote was already being reported. But Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa — which Trump had carried 46.5 to 43.5 in 2016 — was showing Biden with a 6-8 point advantage. But as the vote came in — and there were more than 1 million in-person votes in Maricopa County on Tuesday — Trump was winning by a margin of 2-1. Even in Pima County — Tuscon — although Biden would carry the county overall, the in-person vote being counted on Tuesday was favoring Trump. But, as the early morning hours arrived and the remaining Maricopa vote got smaller, Trump was not able to close the gap. With 97% of the vote in, and Biden holding a 130,000 vote advantage, the AP called Arizona for Biden. The passing of John McCain has now been followed by Democrat victories for both Arizona Senate seats and now the state being carried by Joe Biden. That changes things for the GOP going forward with Arizona.
Trump 248, Biden 238
Nevada — seemed to play out according to form. The Clark County/Las Vegas vote came in giving Biden about a 10% advantage, totaling approximately 75,000 votes. Biden did a bit better than anticipated in Washoe/Reno, adding about 10,000 votes to his lead. As expected, Pres. Trump dominated the “Rural Counties” but there just seemed to not be enough votes left from him to overcome the deficit from the two urban centers which was estimated to likely end up around 35,000 when all the votes were in. But then came a couple of meaningful in-person voting reports from Clark County that held a surprise — a decent advantage for Trump. Jon Ralston who I’ve touted here regarding Nevada elections tracked Biden’s lead as it fell throughout the night — from 61,000 to 44,000 to 32,000 to 25,000 to 9000. Ralston also noted another 80,000 votes were due in from Clark County, and then threw in a wild card — tens of thousands of provision ballots remained from same-day registration. New voters who came to the polls. That dynamic in other parts of the country played out heavily in favor of Pres. Trump. Until the precise number of provisional ballots is known — and whether they are predominantly from rural counties or elsewhere — Nevada probably can’t be called.
Trump 248, Biden 238
Wisconsin — Trump enjoyed a significant lead, but as was true in Georgia, the major urban center, Milwaukee, would not competently perform the same tasks as the rest of the state. At approximately 4:30 AM, Milwaukee County dump in 169,000 absentee and early votes, and Biden miraculously had a lead of about 7000 votes. After a few smaller drops, the lead grew to 11,000 votes. It looks like some votes remained uncounted in a few strong Trump counties, but whether they would be in sufficient numbers to overcome the late Milwaukee “surge” probably won’t be known until later in the week. If Wisconsin is lost it will be because of Madison. Clinton received 217,000 votes from Dane County. Biden received 260,000. At 5:00 am., Brown County is only showing 94,000 votes as cast, when in 2016 there were 120,000 votes cast. So there remain a decent number of votes still to come in from Brown — where Trump’s advantage is 57-42. Kenosha likely has around 15,000 votes remaining, and Trump’s advantage there is 60-38. This is likely to be Florida Close when all is done.
Trump 248, Biden 238.
Michigan — Similar to Wisconsin, Trump had a sizeable lead throughout Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. Individual counties Trump won in 2016 remained in his columns and in general his numbers were even better. But — just like with Milwaukee and Atlanta — the officials in Detroit could not get their act together and report their vote totals. Another one-party Democrat run county waiting around to see what numbers might be needed to get the job done? But this might be too heavy a lift. The Trump lead is bigger in Michigan than it was in Wisconsin, and Trump’s numbers were certainly helped by the win of John James in the Senate race — which might explain why Trump was running behind only 58-40 in Wayne County — 18% — when Wayne County has a +37% Democrat registration advantage. Clinton won Wayne County 67-30. Biden running 9% behind Clinton likely dooms him in Michigan. No other strong Biden counties left, as Ann Arbor is 100% reported. Michigan goes for Trump — again.
Trump 264, Biden 238
Pennsylvania — What can you say? Trump’s returns from Central and Western PA were so strong that Philadephia County stopped counting votes at midnight. It is pretty transparent the goal was to leave enough votes uncounted to prevent any media outlet from calling the state. Right now, with my analysis — either Wisconsin or Pennsylvania put Trump over 270. There were 6 million votes cast in Pennsylvania in 2016. At 6:00 the NYT shows total votes in Pennsylvania at 5.3 million — with Pres. Trump leading by nearly 700,000 votes. It doesn’t really matter whether the remaining votes are mail-in or in-person votes — even if you project a vote total of 7 million, that means there are only 1.7 million left to count. To overcome a 700,000 vote deficit in 1.7 million votes, Biden would need to split those vote 1.2 million to 500,000. That’s 71% to 29% — which seems like a pretty big task for someone who trails through 5.3 million votes by 56-43%. There are only 9 million registered voters in the state — the idea that the electorate this year is going to approach 7 million is sort of crazy in itself. But if it’s less than 7 million, Biden task is just more impossible. Trump wins Pennsylvania handily — AS I PREDICTED HERE!!!!
Welcome to a special edition of the Open Thread tonight. We're hanging out, talking about what we're seeing as the votes are counted, posting memes, music, talking off topic, or whatever we feel like.
We've got a few streams conveniently posted so you can watch your tv and check the streams without interrupting what you're watching on tv. We have the following on deck: Right Side Broadcasting, The First, Newsmax, and lastly The Young Turks. The Young Turks you say? Why in the name of all creation would we include them? Well, they had the most spectacular meltdown in 2016, so I thought it would be fun to include them. They're so detached from reality that it's entertaining if you have the stomach and nerves for it.
Well, that's all I've got to say. Check out the streams, have fun posting whatever you feel like posting, and I'll see y'all down in the comments.
Article by David Hines in The American Conservative
How the Right Can Organize Like the Left
The left understands that ideas mean nothing without power. Instead of
complaining, we should follow their lead—starting small, but with
ambitious goals.
Conservatives are understandably upset. In a period of sustained
radical leftist action, including riots, arson, and a genuine effort to
grow a revolutionary movement, the response at all levels is
ineffectual. Lots of conservatives are asking the same questions: what
can I do? What can we do? How did we even get to this point?
When
things aren’t going the way you want, it’s easy to blame luck, or
circumstances, or somebody screwing you over. It’s harder to take a good
look in the mirror. But the first step is to internalize an unpleasant
truth. In this case, the unpleasant truth is that the entire conservative theory of power is wrong
Conservatives tell ourselves power comes from ideas. The body politic
is a marketplace; we like marketplaces! Ideas are debated, inspire
voters, draw action from politicians, and at the end of the day, win.
Okay, how’s that working out for us?
It
turns out that inspiring ideas aren’t useful unless you train people in
the mechanics of building power. That’s not what we do. As
conservatives, we have trained ourselves to elect politicians, who are
seemingly allergic to passing legislation, or to be pundits, who have no
actual power. State power is the only kind of power conservatives have
taught their people how to understand, and when we gain it, tut-tutting
conservative elites argue it is immoral to use.
At some point in
the last 40 years, the conservative movement should have taught us to
exercise power in ways that don’t involve the state. This is what
leftists do. They actively train people to create effective pressure
movements that coerce compliance with their demands. The response of
conservatives to this coercion is to double down on—the importance of
ideas.
If you want to actually produce change, you can’t do it with debates.
You can’t do it with pundits. And you can’t do it by sitting at home
and assuming somebody else will do something. You have to learn to build
a team and work as part of it. And your team has to learn to be part of
a larger team.
You must, in short, build community.
If You’re An Elected Official
The
words every conservative elected official needs to have emblazoned on
his or her wall, in letters four feet high and on fire, are: “Actual
Material Loss.”
Hard lefties understand that if you want someone to change his behavior, you have to be able to inflict actual material loss
on them. Not devastating bon mots, not status hits, not embarrassment.
Actual material loss. For politicians, this means votes. For other
people, usually, it means money.
Republican voters don’t want
YouTube videos or pugnacious tweets from their elected officials. We can
produce those on our own, thanks. What we want is material effect. If
you’re an officeholder, and you’re not willing to materially help your
allies and materially hurt your enemies, there’s really not any point of
you being there.
For an idea of how conservative politicians have
shirked this part of their job, consider this: pro-life protestors are a
rare exception to the right’s inability to form a crowd the way lefties
do. So why don’t we take a cue from leftist tactics and peacefully
occupy abortion clinics? Because when the Democrats controlled Congress
and the White House, they made doing so a federal felony. That’s actual
material loss.
The Republicans had the House, the Senate, and the
presidency for two years, and they didn’t consider repealing that law,
or amending it to give public buildings and thoroughfares the same
protections as abortion clinics, effectively shutting down many leftist
shenanigans. They didn’t even defund Planned Parenthood. By contrast,
Democrats aren’t even back in power yet and already they’re making
noises about repealing Taft-Hartley and allowing unions to use secondary
boycotts. (A secondary boycott is what the activist group Sleeping
Giants does when it targets companies that advertise on Breitbart.)
Leftists know: if your enemy has a successful tactic, make it illegal or
impractical. If your friends are hampered by legislation, change it to
empower them.
If You’re A Donor
If you’re a serious
donor, to one politician or many, don’t put quite so much funding into
TV commercials for national politicians. Instead, put money into
building infrastructure where you live, with your local party and local
activists.
Your money can provide cost-effective on-ramps for
solid new candidates to get their foot in the door. When it comes to
activism, forget about giving tons of money to big national groups; give
modest amounts to a few local groups. And tell your fellow donors to do
the same. Remarkably small amounts of cash can support an activist
culture that not only feeds the party but creates stronger conditions on
the ground, not with attention-getting stunts but with careful,
thoughtful work.
As an example: there are a million national
conservative sites that tell their readers breathless tales of how awful
Democrats are. There probably isn’t one in your town that will tell
your neighbors what the city council and the local Democratic interest
groups are up to. Well-heeled leftists right now are funding nonprofit
groups to essentially replace local newspapers and report on local
conservatives. What kind of stories do you think they’ll tell?
Lots
of your town’s stories will be useful but boring. Others can
potentially get fed into the larger conservative media ecosystem. But
either way, you’ll build your community, and that’s important.
Finally,
if you’re in a solidly red area, look at helping out your ideological
compatriots in heavily blue areas. They could use the moral support and
the help.
If You’re A Random Voter
It’s always fun to
tell people with more power and money what they should be doing. But
this is also on us, the people at home. You can’t build a real community
from Facebook and your couch. You have to talk to people and go build
your own groups, and eventually you, too, can learn to get what you want
by pressuring opponents and using your ability to inflict actual
material loss.
The conservative response to left-wing pressure
campaigns has thus far mostly consisted of sternly telling individuals
not to bow. This is useless. You cannot defeat calculated strategy with
personal pugnacity. If you stand tall, a pressure campaign doesn’t leave
you alone; it moves on to a secondary target with the power to put
pressure on you. Pointing out hypocrisy, how the other guys would
hate it if the tables were turned, does nothing. Actually turning the
tables does.
If you’re just a grassroots voter, your first job is
looking for a group. Don’t imagine exactly what you want in your head
and go looking for that, expecting to find it to the letter. That
doesn’t work in romance, and it doesn’t work in politics. Find a group,
meet people, build out of it.
If you’re an activist, you have two
jobs: 1) grow your group locally and 2) make connections with other
local groups. Forget about big national stuff. Build power where you
are, first and foremost.
People on the right like to imagine
movements as one neatly organized thing, but it turns out what’s most
effective is coalitions of lots of different groups. When different
groups all have strong memberships, those groups can cooperate and pull
off large actions. Righties tend to focus on individual heroes, but
that’s a mistake. If you notice, most of the would-be leaders who show
up on the right are just grifters of one kind or another. If you’re
dreaming of being famous and anointed, forget it. You do not get to be
Greta Thunberg. You do not get to be Linda Sarsour. Thunbergs and
Sarsours do not just appear. They cannot be cloned in righty variants
for instant success. The left has the infrastructure to create them. We
do not.
The bad news is that organizing is slow and it takes time.
You will not be able immediately to compete with the stuff the lefties
do. If you want to be a bodybuilder, you cannot march out on stage as
Mr. Olympia next week. You have to train. Training to be strong is a lot
less fun than just being strong. As eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie
Coleman so wisely put it: “Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but don’t
nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weights.”
So think about what you
want and work backwards. Grab a notebook and a pen. On the first page,
write down your name and your address. Do it the way you did when you
were a little kid: number, street, part of town if applicable, town,
county, state, country, the world, the universe. Circle your town name.
Then
go down a few lines and write your town name by itself in big letters.
Draw a line underneath it. Write down your political districts. You
probably don’t know what they all are. If you don’t, you can probably
look them up online at your county registrar’s office. We’re talking
stuff like precinct, city council, water board. Depending on where you
are, this may take a page or two. That’s okay. It will be intensely
boring. That’s okay, too. Because this boring task is to weed out the
lazy.
Now turn the page and give yourself a nice double-page
spread. You’re going to write about you. Left hand-page: write your
name. Skip down five lines and write three columns: INTERESTS, SKILLS,
ASSETS.
Under “Interests,” put stuff that matters to you. Maybe
you like mixed martial arts, or science fiction, or motorcycles, or
gardening. Put it down. Under “Skills,” list things you can do,
professional and personal, from your accounting degree to your ham radio
license. Under “Assets,” list material things you have that you can use
for the benefit of yourself and others. Maybe you’ve got a space you
can use for meetings. Maybe you’ve got money. Maybe you don’t just know
about radios, you’ve actually got a bunch of portable radios!
Now:
see those blank five lines you left between your name and the three
columns? Go back up there and list the really deep personal stuff that
matters to how you see yourself. Does your religious faith matter deeply
to you? List it. Are you patriotic as hell? List it. Unfailingly kind
to cats? Put it down.
When you’re done, stop for a moment. Look at
your list. Think about what it says. You are now going to ask yourself
two questions: how can I use my interests to meet people? How can I use
my skills in cooperation with other people to shape the world?
If
you have friends who are already like-minded, guess what? You’re ahead
of the game. You are now a group! Get them to grab a notebook and pen
and do this stuff, too. Then go out and meet people. Some will be
interested in helping you form and connect political groups.
On
the right-hand page of the double-page spread, ask yourself this
question: what are some specific things an effective organized right
that is responsive to its base would do? Not generalities (“own the
libs!”); those aren’t actionable. Specifics. But big, powerful things,
10,000-foot goals. Write them down.
Look at each of those things
in turn. Now look at the things you’ve written about yourself on the
left-hand side. Ask yourself: what can I do to get one tiny step toward that 10,000-foot goal?
Suppose
you’re a conservative lawyer. You wish there were a big, well-funded
right-wing legal apparatus that could sue the living bejesus out of
hard-left operators and infrastructure. The reality is that you do not
have the time, money, or power for this. What do you have? You have
yourself. You have your legal knowledge in whatever area you train in.
You probably have some connections in your local area. You cannot make a
well-heeled nationwide organization. But you can make a local one.
You
don’t have the resources or the backup to sue better-connected liberal
folks into next week. But you can raise money. You can gather
information. You can teach people about their rights. I have an online
friend of a couple decades’ standing who is a lefty organizer, and I
broke his brain by explaining to him that there was no such thing as a
right-of-center legal observer organization. (Legal observers attend
demonstrations to make sure protesters’ rights are observed.) Guess
what: legal observer training for local activist groups is something a
couple of lawyers can do.
But
odds are you’re not a lawyer. That’s okay. The world needs honest
people, too. Look at what you do, and what skills you have. Maybe you’ve
got a lot of free time and like research. One essential step in a lot
of organizing is what’s called “power mapping”—figuring out who all the
players in a situation are and their relationships with each other. The
mapping part can be literal. Union organizers physically map the
workplace and who works where.
What far-left groups are there in
your town? How big are they? What kind of stuff do they do? It’s not
like the press is going to tell you, but this is important information,
and you can learn it quietly. Look at the big groups active on social
media. See what else the people liking their posts are into. Help fellow
conservatives understand the big picture. A community is less
intimidating when you actually understand it.
If you like
politics, here is a quick, simple way to build community. In case you
haven’t noticed, we are in the middle of an election season. Political
parties are kind of hyped up during election season, and they are
looking for people. So here’s what you do: remember when you wrote your
address out? And then did all that boring stuff with your political
districts? Turn back to that page in your notebook, then look up the
contact page for your political party and drop them an email: “Hi, I’m
[Name]. I live in precinct X. Specifically, my address is Y. I’d like to
help turn out the vote this season and be part of any precinct work
that is happening. Could I get a copy of my walk sheet? I’m happy to
walk other neighborhoods, too.”
A volunteer who knows his or her
precinct is a rara avis and will catch their attention. A walk sheet is a
list of people in your neighborhood; generally you will get one for
your own party or for the independents. If you’re a Republican in a
heavy Democrat area, you will be surprised how many of you there are.
Most people aren’t hugely engaged. Many don’t even remember their
political party registration. (Seriously.) You might make a couple of
friends who want to start a notebook, too.
It’s good to have a
10,000-foot goal. But it’s impossible to conquer your 10,000-foot goal
in a day. So have a bunch of little goals. If you pile them up, they
stack.
HONG KONG
(Reuters) – China’s surprise suspension of Ant Group’s record $37
billion listing is set to delay rather than destroy its chances of a
stock market debut though the financial technology giant’s valuation and
growth prospects are likely to take a hit.
The last-minute ambush
by China’s regulators has been seen by analysts and investors as an
attempt to cut Ant founder Jack Ma and his financial services empire
down to size but they expected it to eventually list in Hong Kong and
Shanghai.
“Ant’s business is likely to be restricted by new financial
regulations. As a result, the relaunched IPO price will most likely be
lowered,” said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital
Research.
Ant has been trying to present itself as a technology
firm rather than a financial giant and its valuation up until now has
benefited from its tech focus.
But Chinese regulators have become
uncomfortable with parts of its sprawling empire – namely its lucrative
online lending business which contributed almost 40% of its overall
revenue in the first half of the year.
Under draft rules published
on Monday, online lenders in China would have to stump up more of their
own capital for loans, which is expected to hurt Ant’s business model.
Ant’s co-lending subsidiaries Huabei and Jiebei would also no longer be
allowed to sell wealth management products, analysts said.
The
suspension of the initial public offering (IPO) was seen as a stunning
rebuke for billionaire Ma, a former English teacher who built Alibaba
Group Holding Ltd and affiliate Ant into two of China’s biggest success
stories.
Ma’s net worth was set to almost double following the IPO
to $59 billion, based on the valuation of Ant shares. Instead, his
estimated wealth fell $3 billion after shares in Alibaba, in which he
has a stake of 4.8%, slumped 8.1% in New York.
Shares in the Chinese e-commerce giant, which owns a third of Ant, ended 7.5% lower in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
COLLISION COURSE
The Shanghai stock exchange’s decision on
Tuesday to suspend the IPO followed a meeting between China’s financial
regulators and Ant executives, including Ma, who were told the company’s
online lending business would face tighter scrutiny, sources told
Reuters.
The exact nature of the regulators’ concerns and just how
long a suspension might last is not known. The Shanghai bourse
described the meeting as a material event that could cause Ant to be
disqualified from listing.
Ant said in a filing on Wednesday it
would maintain close communication with regulatory authorities and the
Hong Kong and Shanghai bourses on the progress of its IPO and listing
and would disclose information in a timely manner.
Ma’s public
criticism last month of financial regulations as stifling innovation had
put him on a collision course with regulators in China, analysts said.
Regulators
have, however, also become uncomfortable with banks increasingly using
micro-lenders or third-party technology platforms such as Ant for
underwriting loans amid fears defaults could rise and the quality of
loans deteriorate in an economy hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
At
a regular media briefing in Beijing, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman at the
Chinese foreign ministry, said: “(The suspension) is a decision made to
better safeguard capital market stability and protect investor rights
and interests.”
Mom-and-pop investors who put in bids worth a record $3 trillion in
Ant – equivalent to Britain’s annual economic output – were stunned
after regulators abruptly suspended what would have been the world’s
largest stock market debut.
NEW BUSINESS MODEL?
The
halt to the IPO has not only hurt Ant but also the bank leading the
listing, China International Capital Corporation (CICC), as it is likely
to miss out on a hefty payday and a jump in global investment banking
rankings.
Chinese state media on Wednesday described the move as necessary and in the public interest.
“The
basic message of Chinese regulators’ intervention in the Ant IPO is
that this de-risking agenda is still the top priority. No innovation is
so important that it can be allowed to create financial instability,”
said Andrew Batson at Gavekal Research.
Batson said Ant would
almost certainly return to the market but it might have to make
substantial changes to its internal organisation and business model to
meet regulatory requirements.
Analysts pointed to a consultation
paper issued by the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking and
Insurance Regulatory Commission on Monday that recommended the
tightening of regulations for online micro-lending companies as
foreshadowing the regulators’ move against Ant.
“It is
disappointing as there was a lot of work by all parties and it still
surprises us this new regulation was not dealt with earlier,” said a
Hong Kong-based fund manager who bought stock in the IPO.
“The IPO will come back but timing is the question. And valuation
will certainly be lower,” said the fund manager, who declined to be
named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Iris Tan, a
senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said she thought regulators were
aiming to level the playing field for fintech players and traditional
financial institutions and that she expected Ant to be required to have
more registered capital for its consumer credit business.
Chinese
bank shares rose on Wednesday, reflecting the possibility of a more
level playing field, with the CSI300 banks index climbing 1.7%.
But few people were willing to hazard a guess as to just how long the delay might last or how far Ant’s valuation could fall.
Its
listing had been set to value Ant at $315 billion, which would have
made it Asia’s fifth most valuable firm and worth more than the
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s biggest bank by
assets.
As a nation on edge counts down the final hours of the election, major cities traumatized by a summer of deadly unrest are preparing for a repeat outbreak.
DENVER — As a nation on edge counts down the final hours of the election, major cities traumatized by a summer of deadly unrest are preparing for a repeat outbreak following the contentious contest Tuesday.
Denver, a city rocked by recurring riots downtown since George Floyd’s death, has been no exception.
Business centers and storefronts blocks away from the Colorado Capitol boarded up in preparation for what could be an outbreak as bad as this spring when militant social justice warriors cratered minority-owned businesses and toppled civil rights statues igniting a wave of anarchy with a ripple effect that would resurge in several major cities the rest of the year.
CityVet, a Veterinarian clinic six blocks east of the Colorado State Capitol building had boards in the lobby waiting to go up ahead of tomorrow’s anticipated riots.
“We are going to put them back up just out of an abundance of caution,” store Manager Mary Whalen told The Federalist, noting that the store suffered major damage following the initial wave of protests in May and June. Whalen said the store never assessed exactly how much the damage the store took in the spring, but that it shelled out at least $1,000 in windows vandalized with acid pen graffiti.
The store was also forced to close early at least on one occasion following the prior night’s protests after pepper balls used by police ended up all around the building causing residue to seep inside and irritate staff. Several holes remain in the front and side of the store.
Whalen said she was more concerned about Wednesday than she was Tuesday if the results of the election go contested.
“We’ll probably stay boarded up through the week and maybe through the weekend just to see how everything goes,” Whalen said, appearing frustrated that some of the anger from demonstrators has been directed towards local enterprises supporting the community. “We support everything that’s been going on and you know we want change and we support the neighborhood, so hopefully they can support the businesses around here and keep everything towards the Capitol.”
The unease over a prolonged outbreak of civil unrest to follow Tuesday was shared by a local bookstore owner several blocks closer to the Capitol.
“I don’t think tomorrow night is going to be bad,” said 69-year-old Holly Brooks who has been running the store for 15 years. “I think it’ll be the next day and maybe the next week.”
The landlord however, has kept the store boarded up since the spring.
Widespread concern over an epidemic outbreak of violence over an election outcome is not a feature of a healthy republic and is a first in recent American memory.
Other cities such as Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New York have seen businesses boarded in to prepare for any outbreak of what might come.
Legacy media meanwhile, which downplayed the riots all summer, have primed the public for this very moment.
“Perspective: The election will likely spark violence — and a constitutional crisis,” the Washington Post prophesied in September. “In every scenario except a Biden landslide, our simulation ended catastrophically.”
The Denver Police Department told The Federalist it was limited with what it could share related to its preparations for Tuesday, but said it would “have the necessary staffing available” to confront whatever might happen.
“The Department is in communication with Denver election officials to help inform the allocation of DPD resources,” the department wrote in an email. “As always, it’s important for the community to continue partnering with us in helping to make the election period safe by immediately reporting to police any illegal or concerning activities they see.”
