Last Call For The Big Lie, Con't

Conservative groups remain unable to find the "massive voting fraud by Democrats" in swing states like Wisconsin because it never existed, and even the most diehard Trump liars are finding themselves with no evidence and having to admit that fact.

A 10-month-long review of Wisconsin’s 2020 election conducted by a conservative group in the state found no signs of widespread or significant election fraud, according to a new report of its findings, further disproving continued baseless allegations of election fraud as the battleground state undergoes a contentious partisan election audit.

The investigation by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found “no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” which it defined as “an intentional effort to subvert the election” by preventing voters who support a specific candidate from voting or having their vote counted, “attempting to procure votes that were never cast” or “falsely increasing” one candidate’s vote share.

The investigation, which examined nearly 20,000 ballots and 29,000 absentee ballot envelopes alongside other analysis methods, found “limited” evidence of individuals casting ballots when ineligible to do so, such as 130 reported instances of registered felons voting and 42 reported ballots from deceased voters.

Despite claims on the far right that link election fraud to voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems, WILL found “no evidence of significant problems with voting machines” and noted Democrats performed “worse than expected” in areas that used Dominion machines.

The group also struck down right-wing claims of “ballot dumping” that artificially inflated President Joe Biden’s vote total.

The investigation did have numerous criticisms with how the state’s election was run, taking aim at ballot drop boxes, how state voter rolls were maintained and private funding that went to Democratic-leaning areas, and contended there were many votes cast “that did not comply with existing legal requirements” for Wisconsin elections.

That being said, WILL noted there’s little to no evidence showing that voters who cast those ballots “did anything intentionally wrong” and they were likely just following election officials’ advice, and even if some state rules were not correctly followed, that is not cause for throwing out those ballots or a basis to “infer fraud.”

“There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump,” WILL’s report concluded. “We found little direct evidence of fraud, and for the most part, an analysis of the results and voting patterns does not give rise to an inference of fraud.”

 

The sour grapes are enough to strip paint off a prison bus.

 

Notice that their major complaint is "ways in which more Democrats are voting" and that their recommendation is abolishing that. 

Which is the real point of the exercise.

The Merkel Era Ends

Germany's next Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, takes office today and with it comes the end of the Angela Merkel era after 16 years and four US presidents.

Angela Merkel was assured of a place in the history books as soon as she became Germany’s first female chancellor on Nov. 22, 2005.

Over the next 16 years, she was credited with raising Germany’s profile and influence, working to hold a fractious European Union together, managing a string of crises and being a role model for women.

Now that near-record tenure is ending with her leaving office at age 67 to praise from abroad and enduring popularity at home. Her designated successor, Olaf Scholz, is expected to take office Wednesday.

Merkel, a former scientist who grew up in communist East Germany, is bowing out about a week short of the record for longevity held by her one-time mentor, Helmut Kohl, who reunited Germany during his 1982-1998 tenure.

While Merkel perhaps lacks a spectacular signature achievement, the center-right Christian Democrat came to be viewed as an indispensable crisis manager and defender of Western values in turbulent times.

She served alongside four U.S. presidents, four French presidents, five British prime ministers and eight Italian premiers. Her chancellorship was marked by four major challenges: the global financial crisis, Europe’s debt crisis, the 2015-16 influx of refugees to Europe and the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s undeniable that she’s given Germany a lot of soft power,” said Sudha David-Wilp, the deputy director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Berlin office. “Undoubtedly she’s elevated Germany’s image in the world.”

“When she first came onto the scene in 2005, a lot of people underestimated her, but she grew in stature along with Germany’s role in the world,” David-Wilp added. Others in Europe and beyond “want more of an active Germany to play a role in the world — that may not have been the case before she was in office, necessarily.”

In a video message at Merkel’s final EU summit in October, former U.S. President Barack Obama thanked her for “taking the high ground for so many years.”

“Thanks to you, the center has held through many storms,” he said.

 

I've only been here on ZVTS for 13 years, by comparison. Scholz has enormous shoes to fill and right off the bat there's a good chance he'll be facing a massive refugee crisis should things go badly in Ukraine, along with COVID Omicron sweeping across Europe, and growing violent protests over vaccine mandates in the EU.

 

With Merkel, the heart of the European Union project, out of the way, it's anyone's guess as to what happens next.

In Defense Of The Republic

House Republicans sure have no issue working with Democrats when it comes to nearly $800 billion in Pentagon spending, and House Democrats have no problem working with the GOP to spend a crapload of money when they want to, deficits be damned.

The National Defense Authorization Act, the annual must-pass legislation that sets the policy agenda and authorizes almost $770 billion in funding for the Department of Defense, passed in the House of Representatives on Tuesday night. 

The bill now moves to the Senate, where it will likely be voted on later this week, before it can be signed into law by President Joe Biden. 

The bill passed with strong bipartisan support, with a final vote of 363-70, with 169 Democrats and 194 Republicans voting for the bill, while 51 Democrats and 19 Republicans voted against it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the only member to not vote. 

The final version of the bill, which leadership from both chambers have agreed to, contains changes to how sexual assault and harassment are prosecuted and handled within the military, a 2.7% pay increase for military service members and Defense Department civilian employees, and $300 million in military aid to the Ukrainian Security Assistance Initiative, adding $50 million more than what was proposed in the budget request, summaries of the bill's text from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees stated. 

The sweeping bill targets issues that have been top-of-mind for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin since he took the helm of the department in January, from the handling of sexual assault and harassment within the military to changes to bias and discrimination training for all military branches. 

On the foreign policy front, it also establishes a "multi-year independent Afghanistan War Commission" to examine the war in Afghanistan after the US military withdrawal in August, covering the entire 20 years of the war.

 

So "changes to how sexual assault and harassment are prosecuted and handled in the military" is a euphemism for absolutely ripping the spine out of a bipartisan Senate bill that would put most felony cases into that hands of federal prosecutors, not just harassment claims and assure that the bill never gets a vote.

The bigger issue is "Why do we need even more money for the Pentagon when we're leaving Afghanistan" and the answer is "Whatever nonsense Russia and China are up to with Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively".

There's always money in the banana stand for the shooty bits.

StupidiNews!

• Manhattan billionaire Michael Steinhardt has surrendered nearly $70 million in stolen relics along with a lifetime ban on acquiring such objects in a deal with federal prosecutors.
• Israeli defense forces have completed the "Iron Dome" barrier along the Gaza border with the aim of shooting down Hamas rockets fired into the country.
• COVID Delta and Omicron variants are hitting Ontario "hard and fast" this winter as Canadian health officials are warning citizens to mask up and get vaccinated.
• Australia's government is joining the Biden administration in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in  February.
• Illinois Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Carroll wants unvaccinated COVID-19 patients to pay 100% of hospital costs out-of-pocket, but his legislation faces major legal and federal hurdles.