CSotD: Desperation sets in

It’s the time of year when the leafblowers go into service, and, since I share a property line with both the post office and the library, I get extra doses.

But the whining of leafblowers pales beside the noise of those facing a Trump defeat next Tuesday, and the latest cause celebre is the purported proof that Hunter Biden somehow leveraged his position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company to introduce some guy to his father.

There’s no record of such a meeting taking place, though we know that some Russian operatives held a meeting in Trump Tower that involved a Trump son and a Trump son-in-law.

But that’s not relevant here.

He’s also accused of pursuing profits in China, which may include gaining valuable trademarks . . . wait, no, that last part is about somebody else.

I don’t know what, if anything, Hunter was doing in China.

Chip Bok (Creators) is one of many conservatives complaining that nobody is covering the story, though he’s off the mark here because, while Fox’s bevy of propagandists are waxing eloquent on the topic, Fox News turned up their journalistic nose at the dubious accusations.

 

Paul Berge (Ind) offers one explanation for the silence from most news organizations: They aren’t covering it for the same reason they aren’t covering the Bat Boy or the search for Bigfoot.

 

Tucker Carlson had evidence, but the dog ate it.

Let’s be fair: Stuff does get lost, in the mail or by FedEx or UPS or Pony Express or whoever, and I guess if you’re Tucker Carlson, they’ll make this kind of concerted effort to find out what happened to your package.

Though the mishap would have made me start firing people at Fox, since somebody must have known, and let slip, what was in that particular envelope, n’est-ce pas? Or do all their envelopes arrive opened?

However, before we start snicking off disloyal heads, why did he need the originals? He mentions that he gave the carrier company “pictures” of what was lost. Does that mean he had the sense to scan these documents before shipping off the originals?

And while hindsight is 20/20, if I had his budget, and if these documents were so valuable, and if there were some reason on earth that the originals needed to be in Los Angeles instead of safely locked away in New York, I’d have put them in a briefcase and had somebody pop on a plane.

But, at this point, I think the best solution is to pump the dog’s stomach and see if they can be recovered.

 

Meanwhile, Scott Stantis (Counterpoint) is still flogging the “Wretched Old Joe Biden” story, because a guy who jogs and rides bikes and all but skips down the ramp at West Point is no match for a fellow who stumbles over his words and needs two hands to drink a glass of water.

He’s not alone. In her 60 Minutes interview, Norah O’Donnell noted that, if elected, Biden would be the oldest president ever inaugurated, and asked him if, assuming he dropped dead after being inaugurated, his runningmate was qualified to take the reins.

Y’know what?

Whoever wins this race will be the oldest president ever inaugurated, and there’s only four years difference between the Dotard and the Challenger.

But why ruin a good argument with facts, logic and the evidence of your own eyes?

 

One thing that’s not in question is that McConnell got his three justices: One that should have been Obama’s, one that came with Anthony Kennedy’s retirement and one that, unlike Gorsuch, didn’t have to wait for a new president.

Assuming there is one. Dear Leader has said that he wanted Barrett on the Court in case he lost the election and needed to successfully appeal it.

As David Rowe (Australian Financial Review) tells the story, this may be McConnell’s final party — if he survives the election himself, he’s still not apt to have as congenial a puppet in the White House — but he’s done very, very well for his party, and should be happy to pick up the tab, even without bothering to pass any Covid relief for the peasantry.

 

Howsoever, the game ain’t over yet.

In an excellent rant accompanying this cartoon, Clay Jones (Ind) points out that there’s nothing in the Constitution limiting how long it can take to count the ballots, and that Beer-lovin’ Brett wrote the opinion of the Court that Wisconsin doesn’t have to count late-arriving ballots just because their own state court said they should.

It might disrupt things by changing the outcome, and you’ve got to give them credit for saying this before they knew that outcome, though the smart money says Trump supporters will vote in person and the hundreds of thousands of ballots being mailed in are mostly from Biden voters.

Meanwhile, Beer-loving Brett had to change part of his well-reasoned opinion because he had cited a non-fact about Vermont’s election laws.

Perhaps Squee is clerking for him.

Never mind. For all the talk about Originalism on the court, they’ll likely follow the example established in 2000, when the Bush/Gore recount was shut down by their predecessors.

Here’s a fascinating account from the NYTimes archives that details how late-arriving overseas ballots became part of our national history.

As noted the other day, the recount was supervised by Florida’s Sec’y of State, who happened to be Bush’s campaign co-manager but felt that was no reason to recuse herself.

A major factor was overseas absentee ballots — including from military members — that were postmarked by Election Day but arrived late and thus should have been excluded, but then weren’t.

The Sec’y issued a memo stating that, after thinking it over, timely postmarks weren’t really necessary after all, but then either Hillary Clinton got to her computer or Tucker Carlson’s dog ate it.

Well, never mind. What’s done is done.

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends.

 

3 thoughts on “CSotD: Desperation sets in

  1. Thanks for that note, D.D. It would have gone completely over my head, and maybe the heads of a lot of others, too.

  2. Too bad it’s not The Daily News — then the headline would be: TRUMP TO COUNTRY: DROP DEAD.

    The headline I’d like to see on November 4 is WON: NO TRUMP — or is that a bridge too far?

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