I'm appreciative of this writing making clear his politics in framing the report the way he did. I now know I can dismiss it entirely with respect to any importance on this topic.
If our diplomats and spies are suffering this from social contagion, we're in even worse shape than we thought.
While it's possible, how likely is it? The cases occurred, not in a relatively compressed time, but sporadically over several years in widely separated locations. That they are concentrated in a particular profession/workplace is somewhat suspicious, but then both the profession and the workplaces are also plausible targets of a hostile intelligence service. One problem with the social contagion theory is that there's no way to prove it. Normally, if we can exclude any known alternative explanation, then an unprovable but still plausible hypothesis is the best explanation, for the time being, anyway.
While there is no technology known that could produce these symptoms in a deliberate, directed way, neither was radiation poisoning understood for a few decades after radioactive elements were isolated. At least in theory, Madame Curie could have eliminated a rival by slipping a teaspoonful of radium into her tea and no toxicologist at the time would have known what to look for. In the 1980s a few American military pilots reported blinding effects when near Russian fighters. It was speculated that lasers may have been used, though I don't know what became of that idea.
Havana Syndrome reminds me of the of the videos of objects moving in bizarre ways that Navy pilots have taken. Nobody thinks they're simply a hoax, and while there have been suggestions they are light artifacts of some kind, nothing definitive has been announced. You'd think the Navy would be on top of something like that.
More data would be helpful, no? How hard would it be to design and make high-energy RF detectors and distribute them widely among diplomatic and intelligence staff? The goal would be to detect blasts of RF energy across a range of frequencies. Delicate sensitivity would not be required. In the event that high power RF was detected at a location, more precise instruments could be deployed. Then make a similar effort to make and distribute detectors for high-energy ultrasound.
That reported symptoms included those expected from exposure to high-energy RF and those expected from exposure to high-energy ultrasound does not discredit the reports. A capable attacker might well deploy both.
Even if a wide deployment of detectors yielded uniformly negative results (i.e. zero detections), it would bring us a big step closer to sorting out the causes of HAVANA episodes.
First check the party affiliation of all the alleged victims. If they're mostly, or all, Democrats, one can reasonably assume this is nothing more than either a hoax or mass psychosis.
The symptoms of the first sufferer seem consistent to me with an acute vertigo attack (and recurrence, two weeks later). The leap toward assuming he was targeted could have initiated a "contagion" among other agents. For example, much of the population has some form of tinnitus (and for me it does in fact sound like crickets), which is known to become exacerbated by focusing on it, and the only "cure" is literally to train your brain to de-prioritize the sounds. Havana Syndrome seems very similar to me to the cases of teens acquiring Tourette Syndrome from TikTok, and many more children than in the past experiencing body dysmorphia. I would love to see medical researchers look into how the internet can fuel contagions like this. In this case "text chains, WhatsApp messages, and private facebook groups" took the place of TikTok for these agents.
Xactly what happens... When "the great way is lost". The US has this Very Nice building, for what?
Not too much faith remains for our Judges, FBI, CIA, DOJ, Congress, Cabinets and then , oh my,
the gobble-dy-gook Media. Try to wrap up all the crap and place "IT" in the Cuba emblazon Embassy.
Which by the way could be a nice place for our homeless.
Back to business...People "out there" invent all kinds of things, like burning down 50 foot xmas trees FOR whatever. And we also could have "copy cats" just for attention...happens, "when the great way is lost"...yepper.
miles...and and and the voters took over from the corrupt Pa. judges. A so called Blue Bluff State, gone Racehorse Red on the election for their judges. The voters could not stand for the Cheaters...oh plea
I wonder if the cause is an attempt at eavesdropping. Using microwaves or something else to pick up human voices. That might explain why diplomats and spies are targeted.
Psychogenic is the most likely. This presentation is quite similar to other episodes of mass psychogenic hysteria. As others have pointed out, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And the passion of the detractors and believers reminds me of the era of repressed memory, and multiple personality disorder, where so called experts were oh so certain, only to be summarily dismissed, losing careers and reputation. And the lives and families destroyed were far too many before we came to our senses. These cycles repeat themselves regularly. Add to it the claimed entitlement of compensation and justification for one's symptoms, can lead one to easily see the forces in play the propagate the expansion of cases, and the resistence to consider psychogenic causes.
On another note, Substack of all places put on Eric Tolpo - a known Big Pharma propagandist - as a “writer in residence.” I love that Substack is a platform for anyone, but having now been bought out by big pharma, it’s questionable if this platform is even real anymore. I can hardly watch TV anymore because it’s inundation with big pharma commercials - being funded by my tax dollars (and yours!!!). And now Substack is PAYING a big pharma propagandist to be on this platform. So disappointed. 😩. If they want to write on the platform like everyone else fine. Paying a propagandist to write on here makes me wonder if this whole thing isn’t just another manipulative mirage…..
This concluding observation rang a bell, “we remain convinced that the very bad thing that is happening to us is being imposed from the outside—a mysterious force infiltrating our homes and warping our brains.” That conspiracist mentality underlies most antisemitic thought. It may only be a matter of time before someone claims that the Rothschild Space Laser is behind Havana Syndrome.
When the magicians Penn & Teller had their second Broadway show, Penn ended it with an important statement. When we search for an explanation, rather than admit to the uncertainty of not knowing, we should avoid the certainty of a false explanation. Yet, five years seems a long time.
Common Sense is one of the best things going in journalism today, but what's with the gratuitous attack on Trump? Savodnik concludes his piece by editorializing "... five years after America veered off its prescribed historical-political course, we remain convinced ..." That's an opinion that has nothing to do with the subject of the piece.
It's obvious how Bari Weiss feels about Trump (she referred to him as "grotesque" in a Megyn Kelly podcast a few months back), but if she's pursuing journalism in the old school sense (i.e. objectively), then this kind of aside is unhelpful and might alienate an otherwise supportive segment of the readership.
There's a good reason for that - reminding the "otherwise supportive segment of the readership" that she has not drunk the MAGA Koolaid and has no intentions to.
It's a preventative measure to nip any expectations of audience capture in the bud.
Oh, give me a break! It's all a part of the big game the US has been playing ever since the CIA was created in 1947. "Diplomats" have close ties to the "intelligence community" and the anti-intelligence agencies in other countries know it, just like the FBI knows that foreign diplomats work for their country's intelligence agencies. It's all part of the game - you fuck with us, we'll fuck with you. The United States assumes this persona that we're so great we're above it all but we're really down there in the mud with all the rest. There's a reason the US classifies information - to keep the American people from knowing what they do in our name.
Mr. Savodnik discredits himself and his essay by asserting that those claiming injury are all "of us" and that "our" brains are being "warped." The affected group is, what, 200? All reported a particular collection of symptoms contracted after they were in virtually identical circumstances. Bari Weiss owes her readers more respect than to publish such tripe.
"There was also the question of timing. Havana Syndrome arrived on the American scene at the end of a tumultuous presidential campaign that had left tens of millions of Americans feeling unsure of what came next: Was the country about to be taken over by fascists?"
Um, no. It *wasn't* the "tumultuous presidential campaign".
It was the pathological, deliberate, willful lies and dishonesty and malfeasance of the alphabet legacy media's REPORTING (sic) on the presidential campaign that was greatly responsible FOR the tumultuousness of the presidential campaign and that was greatly responsible FOR the uncertainty felt by many Americans.
Let's be sure we call a spade a spade, please.
The alphabet legacy media are the cancer among us. Trump WAS right. They are enemies of the American people, of both sides of the aisle, of all sides of the aisle.
Trump sure made it easy for the alphabet media, by openly announcing his intention to fabricate claims of fraud in the event that he lost. Which, sure enough, is exactly what he did, up to the point of inciting a mob as extra leverage over Mike Pence.
How many of the J6ers have been charged with the crime of "insurrection"? How many J6ers were apprehended with firearms and/or charged with firearms crimes or violations?
So it was an insurrection in which none of the participants has yet been charged with "insurrection", and an insurrection in which none of the participants brought a firearm to the party.
NOTHING that you think happened, happened. Anywhere.
Trump's legal team went 0-60 in court with their bullshit fraud cases. That shit happened, and the court transcripts are actually pretty hilarious to read. The judges were seriously unimpressed that Trump's lawyers were wasting their time with such obvious bullshit.
Between that and the Capitol riot (which was largely a pressure tactic on Pence), it's a fair comment for BW to refer to "a tumultuous presidential campaign that had left tens of millions of Americans feeling unsure of what came next: Was the country about to be taken over by fascists?"
The problem wasn't the cases as originally filed which looked to anomolies and improper methods of changing voting requirements (agencies changing rules w/out authority to do so, etc) which violated due process and equal protection; legit theories. Whether they would have succeeded or not who can tell, if they succeeded would it have produced a different outcome? Who knows.
BUT the Rudy Guiliani got involved and started banging the desk with claims of fraud. The original attorneys were made to look like fools by this jackass and the legit questions were never addressed.
It almost certainly wouldn't have changed the outcome for 2 reasons:
1) The cases were not filed until well after the election, which raises the concern of "rolling the dice" on the outcome (ignore the issues if we win, but file cases if we lose). That's a huge legal no-no.
2) The intervention the cases called for (throwing out votes) is a cure that's worse than the disease. Voters followed the rules they were given; if they'd been given different rules, then who knows how those voters might have cast their ballots differently?
The only way the initial cases MIGHT have had a shot was if they asked for a "do-over", but that wasn't what they filed for. As soon as the original lawyers asked the judges to start throwing out votes, their cases were toast.
miles, you need a calendar and a reading comprehension specialist.
You wrote "Between that [Trump's alleged court losses) and the Capitol riot (which was largely a pressure tactic on Pence), it's a fair comment for BW to refer to "a tumultuous presidential campaign that had left tens of millions of Americans feeling unsure of what came next: Was the country about to be taken over by fascists?""
Um, I hate to break the news to you, but the "tumultuous presidential campaign" referenced in the article is the 2016 one, not the 2020 one! The alleged fascist takeover fear was...Trump's legitimate election in 2016.
THAT is why *I* wrote,
"It was the pathological, deliberate, willful lies and dishonesty and malfeasance of the alphabet legacy media's REPORTING (sic) on the presidential campaign that was greatly responsible FOR the tumultuousness of the presidential campaign and that was greatly responsible FOR the uncertainty felt by many Americans...the alphabet legacy media are the cancer among us. Trump WAS right. They are enemies of the American people, of both sides of the aisle, of all sides of the aisle."
As I recall it didn't break the news until well after 2016. If Bari was talking about the 2016 campaign, then yeah, I'd agree that what she wrote was pretty over the top.
I'm going to agree with 'Andrew the Great', you're reading comprehension needs work miles. You are continually referencing Bari Weiss as the author of this article when in fact it was written by Peter Savodnik - do better guy
"Havana Syndrome arrived on the American scene at the end of a tumultuous presidential campaign..." ~ Havana Syndrome arrived in late 2016.
Heck, the very start of the article is, "The first person to report strange symptoms was a CIA officer posing as a diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Cuba.
Sorry, can’t let total falsehoods go by. Trump didn’t go 0 for 60 because there never were court cases, the judges refused to hear them based on standing. Chickens all.
Quite frankly any voter should have standing because a fraudulent vote cancels the legal voter. But that’s a different topic.
Just suffice it to say, great try at gaslighting, but no dice.
The reason the judges threw out the cases on standing was because Trump's lawyers were arguing for retroactive changes to vote eligibility rules. They might have run their mouths on Fox News and Twitter about having smoking-gun fraud cases, but in court (where they could get disbarred if they perjured themselves), they played it much safer, and only put forward rule-dispute arguments like "Well if this mail-in voting rule had hypothetically been different, then these 400,000 votes would have hypothetically been ineligible".
That's a bit like playing the Superbowl, losing, and then after the game is over, trying to get the ref to backdate an alternate rulebook, and overturn a bunch of the winning team's touchdowns.
Miles, you're half right. The actual original claims mostly addressed things like agencies who lacked authority to change voting rules who changed voting rules anyway.
Guiliana came in pounding the desk with fraud claims.
Everything went to hell and the original and legit claims never got addressed.
2 things I'd say to that. 1 is it wasn't just Guliani who was banging the desk about fraud - hell even Trump himself was doing the same.
The other thing I'd say is the lawyers had an obligation to show they'd at least started the process of raising challenges before the election. Otherwise, judges had a very reasonable objection that Trump's team were effectively hedging their bets: "If we lose we'll dispute the voting rule changes, but if we win anyway we just won't say anything".
So even before the waters got muddied with fraud claims, the original lawyers had painted themselves into a corner. They waited too long to file their cases, and that made the intervention they were calling for (throwing out votes) more undemocratic than the alternative of letting those votes stand.
"reasonable" is a stretch, because of the severity what they were asking for (clawing back vote counts retroactively).
It's one thing to lose the Superbowl and call for a rematch/do-over due to discrepancies; it's quite another to lose, and after the game is over, call for the ref to take back 20 points off the opposing team's score while your own score stays untouched, thus flipping you to the winner.
miles...did happen, playoff game and now they look closer. That is xactly why you go to the judge, not always with the evidence you/others might need down the road.
Rules were broken, Penn. and elsewhere. Rules/controls will be tighter, so watch yourself...yep
Except no actual rules were broken, only hypothetical rules. For example, the NFL has 4 downs and CFL only has 3.
So if the Superbowl gets played as 4-down football, you can't after the game say it SHOULD have been 3-down football, and then put forward what you think the score WOULD have been if possession was turned over after 3 downs.
Biden won 4-down football, and Trump claimed that was "cheating" for not turning over the ball after 3 downs.
NO NO and nope...miles, please, this has been explained many times, THE Rule that was broken was Law. The law states that Any change to the Voting Rules is to be made by Legislation. The judges came along and changed the voting
regulations, without legislation.
Sooooo... this has nothing to do with your football game. In your football game the rule might be changed after the game.
In the game with a judges fiasco, the judges failure will answer to the Voter, which did happen...Bingo "no more judges"...the end.
Still not voter fraud by any sense of the definition. Even given the "fiasco", there's just no way in fucking hell that a scoreboard adjustment after the game was ever a reasonable possibility.
I guess you were looking for a score board change...why? Unless attention was drawn to the election, we might not have the changes being made Now....it's happening for the betterment of the world, not just the US.
Yes, rules were broken. For example, in WI only the legislature can change voting regs. But agencies changed them. That is breaking the rules. Did this change the outcome? Who knows. But it was a violation of the rules... not a hypothetical violation
The votes themselves were not in violation of the rules. You're talking about the changes to the rulebook itself, and whether or not the rulebook revisions "before the game" went through the proper channels. Those agencies probably did exceed their authority, yeah.
American elections are notoriously shady, and Republicans are particularly bad for that (though Democrats exaggerate by calling it voter suppression). Polling stations get relocated the day before the election, advance voting rules change right before the Sunday church voting drives, all kinds of greasy shit goes down in the runup to election day to try to thumb the scale.
This particular time, the Republicans got outmaneuvered by the Democrats (who used Covid as an excuse to open up mail-in voting rules), but rather than just taking the L, the GOP started pounding the desk about how the Democrats only won because millions of "fraudulent" votes were entered into the vote counts. Those votes themselves were not fraudulent, or against any rules as they stood on election day.
Voters voted according to the "official" rulebook; it's not the voters fault that the rulebook got rewritten at the 11th hour under questionable circumstances. Furthermore, if the rules were different, who can really speculate as to how many voters would have voted via a different process?
Judges really didn't have a choice here, because they were forced to decide between actual vote counts and hypothetical vote counts. Of course they went with actual votes.
miles...just in case...the Pa Judges changed the voting rules and what they did was Not Legal according to Pa State law. Now they (judges) are Out, as in strike 3.
All is fine...one would call attention to a certain play/ vote so as to make a correction, that correction could be made by the public vote down the road. It happened in Va. and Really Did Happen in Penn. ...now we can love, because truth has destine. That is why you Go to court.
If the judge was Always correct (sometimes they can not be) we would not need Lawyers, since some toddle.
I'm appreciative of this writing making clear his politics in framing the report the way he did. I now know I can dismiss it entirely with respect to any importance on this topic.
If our diplomats and spies are suffering this from social contagion, we're in even worse shape than we thought.
While it's possible, how likely is it? The cases occurred, not in a relatively compressed time, but sporadically over several years in widely separated locations. That they are concentrated in a particular profession/workplace is somewhat suspicious, but then both the profession and the workplaces are also plausible targets of a hostile intelligence service. One problem with the social contagion theory is that there's no way to prove it. Normally, if we can exclude any known alternative explanation, then an unprovable but still plausible hypothesis is the best explanation, for the time being, anyway.
While there is no technology known that could produce these symptoms in a deliberate, directed way, neither was radiation poisoning understood for a few decades after radioactive elements were isolated. At least in theory, Madame Curie could have eliminated a rival by slipping a teaspoonful of radium into her tea and no toxicologist at the time would have known what to look for. In the 1980s a few American military pilots reported blinding effects when near Russian fighters. It was speculated that lasers may have been used, though I don't know what became of that idea.
Havana Syndrome reminds me of the of the videos of objects moving in bizarre ways that Navy pilots have taken. Nobody thinks they're simply a hoax, and while there have been suggestions they are light artifacts of some kind, nothing definitive has been announced. You'd think the Navy would be on top of something like that.
More data would be helpful, no? How hard would it be to design and make high-energy RF detectors and distribute them widely among diplomatic and intelligence staff? The goal would be to detect blasts of RF energy across a range of frequencies. Delicate sensitivity would not be required. In the event that high power RF was detected at a location, more precise instruments could be deployed. Then make a similar effort to make and distribute detectors for high-energy ultrasound.
That reported symptoms included those expected from exposure to high-energy RF and those expected from exposure to high-energy ultrasound does not discredit the reports. A capable attacker might well deploy both.
Even if a wide deployment of detectors yielded uniformly negative results (i.e. zero detections), it would bring us a big step closer to sorting out the causes of HAVANA episodes.
First check the party affiliation of all the alleged victims. If they're mostly, or all, Democrats, one can reasonably assume this is nothing more than either a hoax or mass psychosis.
The symptoms of the first sufferer seem consistent to me with an acute vertigo attack (and recurrence, two weeks later). The leap toward assuming he was targeted could have initiated a "contagion" among other agents. For example, much of the population has some form of tinnitus (and for me it does in fact sound like crickets), which is known to become exacerbated by focusing on it, and the only "cure" is literally to train your brain to de-prioritize the sounds. Havana Syndrome seems very similar to me to the cases of teens acquiring Tourette Syndrome from TikTok, and many more children than in the past experiencing body dysmorphia. I would love to see medical researchers look into how the internet can fuel contagions like this. In this case "text chains, WhatsApp messages, and private facebook groups" took the place of TikTok for these agents.
Xactly what happens... When "the great way is lost". The US has this Very Nice building, for what?
Not too much faith remains for our Judges, FBI, CIA, DOJ, Congress, Cabinets and then , oh my,
the gobble-dy-gook Media. Try to wrap up all the crap and place "IT" in the Cuba emblazon Embassy.
Which by the way could be a nice place for our homeless.
Back to business...People "out there" invent all kinds of things, like burning down 50 foot xmas trees FOR whatever. And we also could have "copy cats" just for attention...happens, "when the great way is lost"...yepper.
miles...and and and the voters took over from the corrupt Pa. judges. A so called Blue Bluff State, gone Racehorse Red on the election for their judges. The voters could not stand for the Cheaters...oh plea
I wonder if the cause is an attempt at eavesdropping. Using microwaves or something else to pick up human voices. That might explain why diplomats and spies are targeted.
Just a thought.
Fresh from the press. Lol
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10288759/George-W-Bush-Havana-Syndrome-G-8-summit.html
Psychogenic is the most likely. This presentation is quite similar to other episodes of mass psychogenic hysteria. As others have pointed out, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And the passion of the detractors and believers reminds me of the era of repressed memory, and multiple personality disorder, where so called experts were oh so certain, only to be summarily dismissed, losing careers and reputation. And the lives and families destroyed were far too many before we came to our senses. These cycles repeat themselves regularly. Add to it the claimed entitlement of compensation and justification for one's symptoms, can lead one to easily see the forces in play the propagate the expansion of cases, and the resistence to consider psychogenic causes.
On another note, Substack of all places put on Eric Tolpo - a known Big Pharma propagandist - as a “writer in residence.” I love that Substack is a platform for anyone, but having now been bought out by big pharma, it’s questionable if this platform is even real anymore. I can hardly watch TV anymore because it’s inundation with big pharma commercials - being funded by my tax dollars (and yours!!!). And now Substack is PAYING a big pharma propagandist to be on this platform. So disappointed. 😩. If they want to write on the platform like everyone else fine. Paying a propagandist to write on here makes me wonder if this whole thing isn’t just another manipulative mirage…..
This concluding observation rang a bell, “we remain convinced that the very bad thing that is happening to us is being imposed from the outside—a mysterious force infiltrating our homes and warping our brains.” That conspiracist mentality underlies most antisemitic thought. It may only be a matter of time before someone claims that the Rothschild Space Laser is behind Havana Syndrome.
When the magicians Penn & Teller had their second Broadway show, Penn ended it with an important statement. When we search for an explanation, rather than admit to the uncertainty of not knowing, we should avoid the certainty of a false explanation. Yet, five years seems a long time.
Common Sense is one of the best things going in journalism today, but what's with the gratuitous attack on Trump? Savodnik concludes his piece by editorializing "... five years after America veered off its prescribed historical-political course, we remain convinced ..." That's an opinion that has nothing to do with the subject of the piece.
It's obvious how Bari Weiss feels about Trump (she referred to him as "grotesque" in a Megyn Kelly podcast a few months back), but if she's pursuing journalism in the old school sense (i.e. objectively), then this kind of aside is unhelpful and might alienate an otherwise supportive segment of the readership.
There's a good reason for that - reminding the "otherwise supportive segment of the readership" that she has not drunk the MAGA Koolaid and has no intentions to.
It's a preventative measure to nip any expectations of audience capture in the bud.
https://theportal.wiki/wiki/Audience_Capture
Oh, give me a break! It's all a part of the big game the US has been playing ever since the CIA was created in 1947. "Diplomats" have close ties to the "intelligence community" and the anti-intelligence agencies in other countries know it, just like the FBI knows that foreign diplomats work for their country's intelligence agencies. It's all part of the game - you fuck with us, we'll fuck with you. The United States assumes this persona that we're so great we're above it all but we're really down there in the mud with all the rest. There's a reason the US classifies information - to keep the American people from knowing what they do in our name.
Mr. Savodnik discredits himself and his essay by asserting that those claiming injury are all "of us" and that "our" brains are being "warped." The affected group is, what, 200? All reported a particular collection of symptoms contracted after they were in virtually identical circumstances. Bari Weiss owes her readers more respect than to publish such tripe.
"such tripe" as Savodnik's assertions. GD
Perhaps they need instead, the consultation of a competent gerontologist.
Yes, getting old is a bitch, but its far better than the alternative.
"There was also the question of timing. Havana Syndrome arrived on the American scene at the end of a tumultuous presidential campaign that had left tens of millions of Americans feeling unsure of what came next: Was the country about to be taken over by fascists?"
Um, no. It *wasn't* the "tumultuous presidential campaign".
It was the pathological, deliberate, willful lies and dishonesty and malfeasance of the alphabet legacy media's REPORTING (sic) on the presidential campaign that was greatly responsible FOR the tumultuousness of the presidential campaign and that was greatly responsible FOR the uncertainty felt by many Americans.
Let's be sure we call a spade a spade, please.
The alphabet legacy media are the cancer among us. Trump WAS right. They are enemies of the American people, of both sides of the aisle, of all sides of the aisle.
Trump sure made it easy for the alphabet media, by openly announcing his intention to fabricate claims of fraud in the event that he lost. Which, sure enough, is exactly what he did, up to the point of inciting a mob as extra leverage over Mike Pence.
check your dates...miles off
Yup, other guy mentioned that BW was talking about the 2016 election, not 2020. In that case, yeah talking about imminent fascism is kinda ridiculous.
How many of the J6ers have been charged with the crime of "insurrection"? How many J6ers were apprehended with firearms and/or charged with firearms crimes or violations?
So it was an insurrection in which none of the participants has yet been charged with "insurrection", and an insurrection in which none of the participants brought a firearm to the party.
NOTHING that you think happened, happened. Anywhere.
Andy...but but but, so funny...yep
Yes, because until that point in America's history, the media were perfectly fair, unbiased, and honest.
Nothing else you wrote happened, either.
Trump's legal team went 0-60 in court with their bullshit fraud cases. That shit happened, and the court transcripts are actually pretty hilarious to read. The judges were seriously unimpressed that Trump's lawyers were wasting their time with such obvious bullshit.
Between that and the Capitol riot (which was largely a pressure tactic on Pence), it's a fair comment for BW to refer to "a tumultuous presidential campaign that had left tens of millions of Americans feeling unsure of what came next: Was the country about to be taken over by fascists?"
The problem wasn't the cases as originally filed which looked to anomolies and improper methods of changing voting requirements (agencies changing rules w/out authority to do so, etc) which violated due process and equal protection; legit theories. Whether they would have succeeded or not who can tell, if they succeeded would it have produced a different outcome? Who knows.
BUT the Rudy Guiliani got involved and started banging the desk with claims of fraud. The original attorneys were made to look like fools by this jackass and the legit questions were never addressed.
It almost certainly wouldn't have changed the outcome for 2 reasons:
1) The cases were not filed until well after the election, which raises the concern of "rolling the dice" on the outcome (ignore the issues if we win, but file cases if we lose). That's a huge legal no-no.
2) The intervention the cases called for (throwing out votes) is a cure that's worse than the disease. Voters followed the rules they were given; if they'd been given different rules, then who knows how those voters might have cast their ballots differently?
The only way the initial cases MIGHT have had a shot was if they asked for a "do-over", but that wasn't what they filed for. As soon as the original lawyers asked the judges to start throwing out votes, their cases were toast.
miles, you need a calendar and a reading comprehension specialist.
You wrote "Between that [Trump's alleged court losses) and the Capitol riot (which was largely a pressure tactic on Pence), it's a fair comment for BW to refer to "a tumultuous presidential campaign that had left tens of millions of Americans feeling unsure of what came next: Was the country about to be taken over by fascists?""
Um, I hate to break the news to you, but the "tumultuous presidential campaign" referenced in the article is the 2016 one, not the 2020 one! The alleged fascist takeover fear was...Trump's legitimate election in 2016.
THAT is why *I* wrote,
"It was the pathological, deliberate, willful lies and dishonesty and malfeasance of the alphabet legacy media's REPORTING (sic) on the presidential campaign that was greatly responsible FOR the tumultuousness of the presidential campaign and that was greatly responsible FOR the uncertainty felt by many Americans...the alphabet legacy media are the cancer among us. Trump WAS right. They are enemies of the American people, of both sides of the aisle, of all sides of the aisle."
again Andy...too funny, now stop that
As I recall it didn't break the news until well after 2016. If Bari was talking about the 2016 campaign, then yeah, I'd agree that what she wrote was pretty over the top.
I'm going to agree with 'Andrew the Great', you're reading comprehension needs work miles. You are continually referencing Bari Weiss as the author of this article when in fact it was written by Peter Savodnik - do better guy
Fine - I was defending BW for publishing rather than directly authoring. Better?
It's a nice clarification but I still agree with Andrew
"The onset of what is now called Havana Syndrome came at an inopportune moment for the outgoing Obama administration."
"Havana Syndrome arrived on the American scene at the end of a tumultuous presidential campaign..." ~ Havana Syndrome arrived in late 2016.
Heck, the very start of the article is, "The first person to report strange symptoms was a CIA officer posing as a diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Cuba.
It was December 2016."
miles...were you ever in the Emblazon Cuba Embassy?
Sorry, can’t let total falsehoods go by. Trump didn’t go 0 for 60 because there never were court cases, the judges refused to hear them based on standing. Chickens all.
Quite frankly any voter should have standing because a fraudulent vote cancels the legal voter. But that’s a different topic.
Just suffice it to say, great try at gaslighting, but no dice.
The reason the judges threw out the cases on standing was because Trump's lawyers were arguing for retroactive changes to vote eligibility rules. They might have run their mouths on Fox News and Twitter about having smoking-gun fraud cases, but in court (where they could get disbarred if they perjured themselves), they played it much safer, and only put forward rule-dispute arguments like "Well if this mail-in voting rule had hypothetically been different, then these 400,000 votes would have hypothetically been ineligible".
That's a bit like playing the Superbowl, losing, and then after the game is over, trying to get the ref to backdate an alternate rulebook, and overturn a bunch of the winning team's touchdowns.
The judges, obviously, said fuck no to that.
Miles, you're half right. The actual original claims mostly addressed things like agencies who lacked authority to change voting rules who changed voting rules anyway.
Guiliana came in pounding the desk with fraud claims.
Everything went to hell and the original and legit claims never got addressed.
2 things I'd say to that. 1 is it wasn't just Guliani who was banging the desk about fraud - hell even Trump himself was doing the same.
The other thing I'd say is the lawyers had an obligation to show they'd at least started the process of raising challenges before the election. Otherwise, judges had a very reasonable objection that Trump's team were effectively hedging their bets: "If we lose we'll dispute the voting rule changes, but if we win anyway we just won't say anything".
So even before the waters got muddied with fraud claims, the original lawyers had painted themselves into a corner. They waited too long to file their cases, and that made the intervention they were calling for (throwing out votes) more undemocratic than the alternative of letting those votes stand.
It wasn't just Guiliani, true. But he was the loudest most obnoxious lawyer representing Trump and got the most attention. So, he's the posterchild.
On the second point people can have reasonable disagreements.
My point is that the claims started out reasonable; then the posterchild showed up with the circus and sanity evaporated.
"reasonable" is a stretch, because of the severity what they were asking for (clawing back vote counts retroactively).
It's one thing to lose the Superbowl and call for a rematch/do-over due to discrepancies; it's quite another to lose, and after the game is over, call for the ref to take back 20 points off the opposing team's score while your own score stays untouched, thus flipping you to the winner.
miles...did happen, playoff game and now they look closer. That is xactly why you go to the judge, not always with the evidence you/others might need down the road.
Rules were broken, Penn. and elsewhere. Rules/controls will be tighter, so watch yourself...yep
Except no actual rules were broken, only hypothetical rules. For example, the NFL has 4 downs and CFL only has 3.
So if the Superbowl gets played as 4-down football, you can't after the game say it SHOULD have been 3-down football, and then put forward what you think the score WOULD have been if possession was turned over after 3 downs.
Biden won 4-down football, and Trump claimed that was "cheating" for not turning over the ball after 3 downs.
NO NO and nope...miles, please, this has been explained many times, THE Rule that was broken was Law. The law states that Any change to the Voting Rules is to be made by Legislation. The judges came along and changed the voting
regulations, without legislation.
Sooooo... this has nothing to do with your football game. In your football game the rule might be changed after the game.
In the game with a judges fiasco, the judges failure will answer to the Voter, which did happen...Bingo "no more judges"...the end.
Still not voter fraud by any sense of the definition. Even given the "fiasco", there's just no way in fucking hell that a scoreboard adjustment after the game was ever a reasonable possibility.
I myself received 3 ballots and never asked for any...
I guess you were looking for a score board change...why? Unless attention was drawn to the election, we might not have the changes being made Now....it's happening for the betterment of the world, not just the US.
Yes, rules were broken. For example, in WI only the legislature can change voting regs. But agencies changed them. That is breaking the rules. Did this change the outcome? Who knows. But it was a violation of the rules... not a hypothetical violation
And drop boxes for mail in voting were up in Madison (near an anti-Trump rally) BEFORE they were legally allowed.
The votes themselves were not in violation of the rules. You're talking about the changes to the rulebook itself, and whether or not the rulebook revisions "before the game" went through the proper channels. Those agencies probably did exceed their authority, yeah.
American elections are notoriously shady, and Republicans are particularly bad for that (though Democrats exaggerate by calling it voter suppression). Polling stations get relocated the day before the election, advance voting rules change right before the Sunday church voting drives, all kinds of greasy shit goes down in the runup to election day to try to thumb the scale.
This particular time, the Republicans got outmaneuvered by the Democrats (who used Covid as an excuse to open up mail-in voting rules), but rather than just taking the L, the GOP started pounding the desk about how the Democrats only won because millions of "fraudulent" votes were entered into the vote counts. Those votes themselves were not fraudulent, or against any rules as they stood on election day.
Voters voted according to the "official" rulebook; it's not the voters fault that the rulebook got rewritten at the 11th hour under questionable circumstances. Furthermore, if the rules were different, who can really speculate as to how many voters would have voted via a different process?
Judges really didn't have a choice here, because they were forced to decide between actual vote counts and hypothetical vote counts. Of course they went with actual votes.
miles...just in case...the Pa Judges changed the voting rules and what they did was Not Legal according to Pa State law. Now they (judges) are Out, as in strike 3.
All is fine...one would call attention to a certain play/ vote so as to make a correction, that correction could be made by the public vote down the road. It happened in Va. and Really Did Happen in Penn. ...now we can love, because truth has destine. That is why you Go to court.
If the judge was Always correct (sometimes they can not be) we would not need Lawyers, since some toddle.