Other Voices Weigh In On President Biden's Quasi SOTU Speech - And Tim Scott's Reply

Joe Biden

Joe Biden Turns the Tables on Republicans

by Amanda Marcotte | April 30, 2021 - 6:51am | permalink

— from Salon

President Joe Biden's plans are ambitious. I know this because every headline Thursday morning after Biden gave his first speech to a joint session of Congress said so.

"Biden Just Gave the Most Ideologically Ambitious Speech of Any Democratic President in Generations," Politico's wordy headline screamed. "Biden bets big," Axios said more succinctly. "Big Government Is Back," said the NPR headline. The Washington Post described Biden's "sweeping agenda" and the New York Times called it a "risky gamble."

Except that none of this actually feels risky. On the contrary, Biden was able to frame everything he said in convincingly reasonable tones. Put at ease by his patented "c'mon, man" approach, so far, it seems like the public can't be bamboozled into feeling angry, scared or worried about Biden's surprisingly progressive aspirations. Snap polls after the speech showed that 85% of viewers approved of Biden's speech, out of a crowd that was only 54% Democratic. This comports with previous polling that shows that, while Biden's approval numbers are stuck in the low 50s because of GOP voters who will never say they like him, an overwhelming majority like his actual policy ideas. Demonizing him as "tax-and-spend" isn't working, because voters are increasingly keen on the idea that we should be taxing corporations and wealthy people and spending it on the programs that Biden has successfully — and correctly — identified as investments in our nation's future: infrastructure, child care, jobs.

"We have to prove democracy still works," Biden said during his speech. "That our government still works – and can deliver for the people."

It all feels so reasonable. Why shouldn't Americans get to have democracy and get to have a functioning government, especially since we pay for it? Why shouldn't we want, as Biden said, "the wealthiest 1% of Americans to pay their fair share"? Why shouldn't we try to eliminate child poverty, an idea that made Republicans in the chamber so salty they refused to clap for it? Why shouldn't the wealthiest country in the world be able to provide its citizens with the same standard of living so many other less wealthy countries do with ease?

The thing is, these are the same exact arguments that progressives have been making for decades, and yet Republicans — aided by a loud right-wing media, the racism of the majority of white voters, and a mainstream media addicted to false equivalencies — were successful at demonizing such reasonable points as basically communism. Why then does it seem like Republicans suddenly can't land a glove on Biden?

Part of the credit should go to Biden himself, who is rising above what doubters like myself thought of him. He was able, as John Harwood of CNN said, to speak "in plain, non-political, non-ideological language invoking the people he wants to help."

But let's face it: Republicans also did this to themselves.

For decades, Republicans have increasingly abandoned policy debate in favor of culture war antics, race-baiting and raw tribalism. From Monica Lewinsky to Barack Obama's birth certificate, the modern GOP has turned politics into conflicts about personality and identity, not policy

Joe Biden

Biden’s Speech Pointed to a Possible End to Reagan’s Rancid Legacy

by William Rivers Pitt | April 30, 2021 - 5:58am | permalink

— from Truthout

Last night, for a brief moment, President Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress looked like one of those New Hampshire town meetings. Here stands Biden, asking the Board for funds to purchase a new city plow so the streets can get cleared faster after a storm. Better for business and safer for families, is his argument, and it is sound. Oscar Wilde would recognize the scene in an eyeblink.

The mirage, alas, was punctured by the image of Ted Cruz’s eyes rolling up in his head like a guy who’d spent too much time in Cancun. Yes, this was Congress in all of its squalid glory, the man at the podium was the president, but the difference between now and last year is the difference between a friendly shoulder rub and being devoured by a hammerhead shark.

“Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President,” said Biden as he began. Those words had never been spoken in that chamber before. It was an intense moment, a piece of long-awaited history, and seemed to promise a day to come when all three seats in that upper podium will be occupied by women.

As for the content of the speech, well, it was a time warp all its own. Biden’s list of policy proposals represents something of a rewiring of the American experience, from work to family to school to medicine and science, from transportation to elder care. Much of what he proposed came thanks to the sustained pressure of progressives, which started the minute Biden won the nomination.

It was that very slate of markedly progressive proposals that kept the Republicans in their seats as if they were nailed to them. Even behind his mask, the smile on Bernie Sanders’s face when Biden said, “Health care is a right, not a privilege,” could be seen from space.

In the News

America Isn't a Racist Nation, This We Know, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina Told Us So

by Jaime O'Neill | April 30, 2021 - 6:28am | permalink

How easy it seems for these Republicans and others to twist themselves into ever more intricate knots of contradiction and exploitation in order to line their pockets or up their options. All it takes is a little up yours to personal integrity or honesty.

And that brings us to Senator Tim Scott, yet another shithead from south of the Mason-Dixon line who is sniffing around, hoping he might become the Republican candidate for the presidency in 2024, if Trump doesn't run himself. Scott was chosen to make the Republican appeal for unity following President Biden's address to Congress on Wednesday, a speech in which he had appealed for unity on a range of issues. Senator Scott, however, heard little of what Biden said, and his rebuttal was mostly a regurgitation of right-wing hysteria and gaslighting about all the bad stuff Biden has done in the brief time he's been in office, along with a reminder of what a great America Biden had inherited from Trump back just a few months ago before everything went to hell. Senator Tim Scott (is there a whiter name than that?) shared the usual talking points, lies, and deceptions so commonly heard on Fox or Breitbart or a scad of other fascist propaganda outlets.

Senator Scott also devoted a bit of his speech to whining of the sort reminiscent of poor Clarence Thomas crying about his "high-tech lynching," or Brett Kavanaugh, his face contorted in an expression of outraged innocence, making whining rather traditional now among the right wingers. Trump, of course, served as a model for self pity, and it's now baked into the Republican cake. Bigly. In Senator Scott's case, he whined about how racist Democrats had referred to him as an Uncle Tom. Poor fellas. Now who could imagine anyone ever thinking this Mike Pence in blackface could be considered an Uncle Tom? Where could such an idea have come from, anyway? It couldn't be because he is the sort of black man who can so baldly state that America isn't a racist country even in a speech celebrating himself for all he had to overcome.. If you can get a black man to blind himself to the overwhelming evidence of historical and current racism, you have got yourself a Tom who can be counted upon for damn near anything an almost entirely white and thoroughly racist political party might want such a guy to say.

I personally don’t make much of Tim Scott’s ability to reason. This is the same man who said in March that “woke supremacy,” whatever that is, “is as bad as white supremacy.” There is no world in which recent efforts at enlightenment can be equated to enslavement, lynching and mass incarceration. None.- 

Charles Blow,  NY Times

Why Gamers Should NOT Be In The Stock Market

 

"Surprise, Dummy!  You lose!"

Back in February I noted the sorry gamer who had no clue about what to do with the bundle of tax forms he'd received after playing day trader for a year on GameStop.  In the words of the guy, Joseph Holler, ( 'Day Traders, Here's Your Tax Bill', WSJ, Feb. 6-7, p. B5)):  "It's so convoluted I have no idea what it means. I think I will need to hire a professional!"   

 But that doesn't begin to tell the tale of most of these characters-   many former gamers - who had no clue what they were doing in the stock market.   The sheer depth of their ignorance came to light in a recent WSJ column  ('The Know-Nothings Running With The Bulls',  March 27-28, p B7) , by Jason Zweig.  As he acidly observes:  

"Bragging rights used to go to those investors who worked the hardest at learning.  Now the glory often goes to those who know the least and don't even care.  That has turned the traditional investing hierarchy upside down..."   

He was referring to the proliferation of gamers and online gamblers who had migrated to day trading, do it yourself sites like GameStop in which the callow newbe's made fortunes by betting against the Street, e.g.

• The 'Game Stop' Speculative Frenzy And The Emergi...

Mr. Zweig's savvy tracking of online comments disclosed the extent of regret of some of these characters.   E.g. from one Tik Tok video posted in January: 

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.  I just know I'm making money."

Not cool if you have no idea HOW you are making money.  Zweig went on to note:  "He added that he'd only been trading stocks for three days but....just like that, made $300 in one day."   

We then learn: "In the next few weeks that young man racked up 500,000 followers."

Obviously also yearning to know how to make money without doing much of anything, or knowing anything.    To reinforce the pathos of this bunch Zweig then turns attention to the WallStreetBets forum  featuring recurring comments like:  "I can't read!"  and "I have no idea what I'm doing!"  

Zweig also notes the site is laden with users insulting each other with endearing terms like, "idiot", "stupid" or "3,500 related terms."     This according to TopStonks which tracks stocks mentioned on Reddit and other sites.   

Zweig's basic contention is that the stock market's meteoric rise is no mystery.  Basically, over the past year "fiscal and monetary stimulus have flooded the economy with cash"  and this was clearly pumped into the markets - so "stocks shot up more than 75 percent."     

But... people could have done anything with that money, including paying off more mortgage or college loan debt,  paying off back rent, or even donating to St. Jude's Research Hospital or other charities. But many chose not to, and decided to play the stock market instead.  This choice perhaps also propelled by tens of thousand of gamers getting bored with the online gaming (e.g. Fortnite)  and gambling. 

 Zweig also points out another aspect:  the markets were so juiced that "you could have made money even with bad stock picks."   Market success - even relative- thus became detached from intelligence, hard work.....and ignorance.   Even the semi dopey gamer semi-stoned could make a buck in this market. The natural barriers that had existed before, preventing (or intimidating) any Tom, Dick and Harry from jumping in, no longer existed.    As Zweig describes the nature of the market into which the gamers dived: 

 "It was like being invited to bet on black, without limits, at a roulette wheel on which 37 of the 38 pockets were black.  Why waste time and energy educating yourself when sheer ignorance pays off so easily?"   

Why indeed, because basically it is human nature to take the easy route.  As Zweig notes:  "What's more, many traders boasting of their own cluelessness are buying stocks with money they otherwise would have used for gambling."   

In other words, confirming the Repuke tightwads claim that too many "didn't need the government handouts".  Hence, much more ought to have been done to get the money exclusively to those on their last legs - maybe one week from getting their utilities shut off, or one week from being evicted from their apartment.  But in a pandemic no one ought to be using relief money to gamble or do day trading. It's unseemly and somehow tawdry, morally bankrupt.   

Zweig is spot on correct that most bettors (like these gamers turned traders) know deep down "the house almost always wins."  But "no one minds because the hope of winning is so exciting, no matter the odds."  

A lesson we well learned playing the slots in Vegas five years ago, e.g.

• As We Learned - You Really Can Win $800 With Slot...

When we ended up winning nearly $900 but then lost all but $50 in our irrational exuberance  to build the winnings even higher.   But hey, we basically played through hours on end mostly with house money.   Too many gamers, OTOH,  have lost thousands of their own money - or at least their Covid relief money.    

This brings up another point made in Zweig['s piece:  "Now that just about anyone can trade commission-free, gambling on stocks offers a much better chance of making money than other kinds of wagers." 

Well, also because - like playing the slots - the commission-free traders shorting Game Stop shares-  don't need to do any serious research.  Besides, by switching from gaming to stock trading "they're already winners - getting as much entertainment value while paying much less to the 'house'"   

So in the end, as long as trading is basically commission free,  and the markets are indifferent to ignorance - the gamers can still come out ahead.

Who'd have thought?  Will they ever learn they don't belong in the stock market?  Maybe, after Jay Powell and the Fed finally jack up interest rates several hundred basis points - when inflation proves to be as real as a heart attack.  

Zweig himself offers this somber take at the end: "One of these days, perhaps sooner than later, stocks will stop rising up and the importance of understanding what you own will reassert itself."

Hopefully, for the sake of the nation's sanity, that reckoning will come sooner rather than later.

See Also:

Economic Policy

Our Modern-day, Post-WWII Economic Boom

by P.M. Carpenter | April 30, 2021 - 6:06am | permalink

A Basic Analysis And Perspective On Cosmic Curvature

Curvature is a fundamental property of the universe and figures prominently in Einstein's theory of general relativity as well as in many cosmological theories.

We begin by noting that the metric on any space -like slice å  (t)  is given by the scale factor a(t) times the constant curvature, e.g. k   = (+1, 0, -1).  Further we note that  the “sectional curvature” is defined:  

   k /a(t) ²   

So when:

‖ k ‖  =  1

The scale factor a(t)  is simply the curvature radius.  And when k  =  0  the scale factor remains arbitrary.  Basically, the function a(t)   describes the evolution of the universe. It is completely determined by Einstein’s field equation, see e.g.

• A Look At General Relativity and Tensors (Part 3)

For a homogeneous and isotropic space -time it reduces to an ordinary differential equation:

(a’/ a) ²  +  k  / a ²  =    8 p G  r  / 3 

Where,  a’ = da/dt,  G is the Newtonian gravitational constant, r  is the mass-energy density and units are chosen to make the speed of light c = 1.  Note also the first term is the square of the Hubble parameter :

H = a’/ a.   

Currently, we estimate the corresponding constant H o  » 70 km/ sec/Mpc).   If we substitute H =  (a’/a) into the simplified Einstein field equation  we see that when  k   =0 the mass –energy density is:

  r _o      =   3 H ² /  8 p G

Which  mass density works out – using the current value of  H o   to about :

9.3  x  10 ^-27  kg/ m³ 

 

In effect,  if we can measure the current mass- energy density (r _o )  and the Hubble constant we can obtain the sign of the curvature.   

Thus, when k =  1  the mass energy density must be greater than  3 H ² /  8 p G.  Further, if   k  ≠   0    we can solve for the curvature radius, e.g.

a = 1/ H  Ö k /8 p G r / (3 H ²   -  1) 

=   1/H  Ö (k / W - 1 )       k ≠   0   

Where the density  parameter is the dimensionless ratio of the actual density to the critical density:   

r _c =   3 H ² /  8 p G

As a further refinement in formalism, it’s important to point out the universe contains different forms of mass-energy which contribute to the total, and which relates to the critical threshold density, e.g..

W =  r / r _c   =   r _y   +   r _m   +  r L   =

   W  _y   +   W _m  +   W L

 

Where  r _y is the energy density in radiation, r _m  is the energy density in matter,  and r L  is a possible vacuum energy.  Vacuum energy with density  r L =   3 L /  8 p G  mimics the cosmological constant,  L.  

In a universe containing only ordinary matter we would have:  W _y   =   W L =  0,  and  the mass- density scales as: 

  r  =   r _o  (a _o / a) ³  

Substituting into the original equation: 

(a’/ a) ² +  k / a ²  =    8 p G r / 3 

Exact solutions can be obtained for a(t).  The solutions predict that if W <  1  the universe will expand forever. And if  W >  1   the universe will re-contract.  If however W =  1  the universe will expand forever but at a rate a’ approaching zero.   

It is well to point out here one element of confusion for some cosmologists.   That is, assuming that a negatively curved universe must be the infinite hyperbolic 3-space H ³.  

This careless  conflation has led to the use of the term "open universe" to mean three different things: 

 1- A negatively curved universe

2- A spatially infinite universe

3- Expanding forever universe

On the positive side, as finite manifolds have become more widely understood - basically via more research, published papers- the terminology of curved space-time has moved toward greater coherence. Specifically, one now sees a general consensus that universes of positive ( k = +1), negative ( k = - 1),  and zero ( k = 0) curvature are called "spherical",  "hyperbolic" and "flat" respectively.   

To fix ideas, the top graphic illustrates the first two curvatures.  The one on the left side represents a spherical ( k = +1) space-time and on the right a ( k = -1) or hyperbolic one.   In like manner, universes that recollapse are called "closed", those that expand forever are with zero limiting velocity are called "critical" and those that expand forever with positive limiting velocity are called "open".    

The primary downside to this cosmological terminology?   It conflicts with topologists definitions of closed and open.  Well, you can't have everything!

See Also:

• Looking at Non-Euclidean Geometry and the Poincare...

And:

• A Look At General Relativity (Part 4): Expanding U...

And:

Space, Time and Gravitation

We Need DOJ To Shut Down The Arizona Republicans' Sham Election "Audit" - And Toss The "Cyber Ninjas" Into Prison

"We must learn the language of fascism because, for the foreseeable future, that moment will always be coming. Learn just enough that we'll never have to speak to it, just as scientists study viruses so they can develop vaccines."  - Jeff Sharlet, 'Mystics & Clowns',  Vanity Fair, April, p 36

That the Repukes are miserable sore losers is now beyond any remote doubt.  Months after the smoldering orange hulk's election defeat, the GOP imps are still crying, pissing and whining about the loss. Simply put they haven't been able to handle it. Which is to say, they can't handle democracy or electoral decisions and outcomes.  For which the name of the game is the winners govern, the losers suck it up like men - and go home- try again next time.  If on the other hand, the losers try every which way to reframe their loss as really a "win" and the victors as cheaters - then they are nothing but mealy- mouth crybabies and deserve no respect.  

 The GOP across numerous states, their legislators, have now proven they are no better than wimps, crybabies and sore losers  First they tried court challenges and lost, then an ungodly treasonous insurrection- which these morons tried to blame on Antifa.. Now  in the latest futile iteration - they're undertaking a bogus "audit" of ballots in Maricopa county, Arizona. Why this county?  Because it's the one Trump lost by 45,000 votes which was enough to carry Arizona for Biden and the Dems.

But legislative Republicans in Arizona -  like their kooky crackpot compadres in the other battle ground states where they lost -  don't want to admit defeat.  So they are now engaging in monumental chicanery and fraud to try to fool enough Americans into believing Trump really did win AZ.   They also want other Repuke state legislators to adopt the same fraudulent M.O. Obviously to try and reinforce a legalist form of insurrection - i.e. that Trump is the real victor and Biden is an illegitimate pretender. And in this way they will ensure millions  lose faith in our democracy.

To wit, these sore losers are challenging the outcome as they embark on an unprecedented effort to audit the results in the state’s most populous county. No one, however, ought to take this exercise as anything other than a hollow and futile circus.  It has zero validity and is only being used to reinforce the Repukes'  Big Lie that Dotard actually won the 2020 election when he was really  blown out by 8 million votes.

The AZ  state Senate commenced this latest bloodless (so far) insurrection by using its subpoena power to take possession of all 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County and the machines that counted them, along with computer hard drives full of data. In so doing, and by using a fraudulent intent and process, they have effectively tarnished all the county ballots so they now become unusable for any future judicial review. Why?  Because we have no idea how they are fucking them up to conform with their conspiracy ideations and QAnon-fueled fantasies!  (They are keeping all procedures hidden, calling the methods of audit and re-counting "proprietary".)

Clearly to enable this perfidy they'd need an accomplice just as scurrilous and treacherous as they are.  They found it in a coterie of psychos, sociopaths and QAnon conspiracy addicts  called Cyber Ninjas-   a Florida-based "consultancy" with no election experience.  In other words the perfect foil for carrying out fraud and fake audits to try to claim Trump really won in Maricopa county and hence in Arizona. .

 To this end the Arizona Repuke traitors  handed the ballot materials over to these conspiracy kooks to run a grand scam to come up with a pre-decided outcome (Something like LBJ's Warren Commission)  The Ninjas are run by a conspiracy crackpot who has shared ideations  claiming the official 2020 presidential election results are "illegitimate".   I mean from this alone the kook ought to recuse himself and his nefarious company on the basis of conflict of interest. How can you conduct any kind of objective electoral audit if you already believe the 2020 general election to be illegit?  It boggles the mind.

Needless to say, the bogus (and non-transparent)  process is alarming election professionals who fear the  "auditors" are not up to the complex task and will severely undermine faith in democracy.  Well, doh, of course they're not up to the task!  And of course they will (undermine faith in democracy if not destroy it)  This is simply a fatuous exercise by unpatriotic imps, sleaze bag scum and sore losers to spread the Big lie that their orange fungal turd Trump really won. 

Jennifer Morrell, a partner at Elections Group, a consulting firm advising state and local election officials,  has rightly observed:

“I think the activities that are taking place here are reckless and they in no way, shape or form resemble an audit,” 

The Cyber Ninjas outfit is  clearly exploiting conspiracy ideations spread by the likes of the 'Stop the Steal' morons, QAnon and the insurrectionists, i.e. that Joe Biden’s victory is based on mail ballot cheating.  A crap meme that's been disproven over and over but has had particular staying power in Arizona, which flipped to the Democratic column for just the second time in 72 years.  Thereby making all the resident repukes' heads explode.

Trump on Friday predicted the audit would "reveal fraud and would prompt similar reviews in other states he lost."   Of course it will, because that is the aim of the disreputable bunch conducting this fucking farce.  You don't need a Mensa level I.Q. to figure that out!

Cyber Ninjas began a manual recount of ballots Friday, a day after Democrats asked a judge to put an end to the bogus audit. The judge ordered the company to follow ballot and voter secrecy laws and demanded they turn over written procedures and training manuals before a hearing Monday on the Democrats’ request.  Up to now none of that's been done as Maddow pointed out last night.

He offered to pause the count over the weekend if Democrats posted a $1 million bond to cover added expenses, but the party declined.  The Dems declined with good reason, given any judge worth his reputation and salt would never have allowed this sham to continue at all.   Any judge with an IQ over room temperature digits would see the whole exercise is an elaborate scam to try to hood wink more voters. So why should the Dems pony up to pause the scam?  

What we really need - since state judges can't be trusted - is Attorney General Merrick Garland's DOJ  to step in and halt this destructive, phony bull shit one time.  Then hurl the Cyber Ninjas bunch into jails for running an election scam, fraud and stoking sedition..

Meantime, on a since-deleted Twitter account, Cyber Ninjas owner Doug Logan used hashtags and shared memes popular with people promoting unsupported allegations casting doubt on Biden’s victory.

Logan insists that his personal views are "irrelevant"  because he’s running a transparent audit with video streamed online. This sewer rat then belched:

“There’s a lot of Americans here, myself included, that are really bothered by the way our country is being ripped apart right now.  We want a transparent audit to be in place so that people can trust the results and can get everyone on the same page.”

But Logan is a lying weasel. If he were truly bothered by the way the nation is being ripped apart, he'd cease his own nefarious efforts to rip it apart with a bogus audit - after the votes were already certified. He and his Cyber Ninjas crackpots would accept the results of the 2020 election as one of the most secure ever - and move on.  Try to regroup for the next election. But no, sore losers that they are they want to use a sham excuse for a recount and fake "audit" to try to prove Trump really won and thereby further engender distrust of the  electoral system

The claim of wanting a transparent audit is also choice. Especially as this Reeptard  refuses to disclose who’s paying him or who’s counting the ballots.   Hell, he won’t even commit to using bipartisan teams for the process. So much for "transparency".  We see again Logan has confirmed it's just a big con, a scam like often used by his master Trump.

To put the cap on the bogus nature of the whole effort, the GOP-dominated AZ Senate refuses to let media members observe the count. Oh, except for the fruitcakes from OAN - Trump's favorite network. But, reporters can accept a six-hour shift as an official observer, but photography and notetaking are prohibited. Obviously, because Logan and his scammers don't want anyone to catch their chicanery!

The AZ Senate has put up $150,000 for the audit, but Logan acknowledged that’s not enough to cover his expenses. Not to worry,  the right-wing cable channel One America News Network - also pushing the 'steal' balderdash -   has raised money from unknown contributors for the project.   The money goes directly to Cyber Ninjas, which will now hope to invade other states at the behest of the resident Repukes- to carry out the same scam -  while forever compromising those states' ballots as well.

Typical of a grifter and sleazy con man,  Logan would also not commit to disclosing the donors and would not provide an estimate for the total cost of his audit. Cyber Ninjas plans to have teams of three people manually count each ballot, looking only at the presidential and U.S. Senate contests, which were won by Democrats.  (Again, a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution - which also extends to singling out just one county for an audit).

Logan claimed the counters are "members of law enforcement" and the military as well as retirees.  But that doesn't prove diddly or squat, given experienced people are needed for such a task, not new be's who don't know shit from Shinola. The very fact he insisted the tabulation methods are "proprietary" proves the whole thing is one huge scam - a circus to try to disprove an outcome that's already been settled- with Arizona's electoral count certified on January 6th.

As of a week ago, 70% of the so-called observers were Republicans, according to Ken Bennett, a Republican former secretary of state who is serving as a liaison between the Senate and the auditors.  As if the bogus ballot counting wasn't enough,  Cyber Ninjas also plans to review ballot counting machines and their data, and to scan the composition of fibers in the paper ballots in search of fakes. The Logan Ninjas gang also plans to go door-to-door in select precincts to ask people whether they voted. True to form the imp was vague about how the precincts were chosen but said a statistical analysis was done “based on voter histories.”  Oh yeah, what statistical analysis?  Chi-squared?  Z-test?  Student's t-test?   Without details his claim isn't worth an ounce of doggie lickspittle.

Our election system is not a plaything to be toyed with for any psycho's amusement or worse, used as a con artist's vehicle to undermine faith in the democracy serious citizens treasure.   This entire audit - as I noted - is merely a form of bloodless insurrection and ought to be prosecuted as such - at least as much as the bloody insurrection of January 6th.  

We therefore need attorney general Merrick Garland's DOJ to step in and shut down this entire freak show forthwith.  It is damaging to our democracy and will be even more so if it infects other states as well- especially employing the same renegades.  Thus, AG Garland also needs to toss the main perpetrators-  from Cyber Ninjas-  into a secure prison.  Say like SupeMax here in Colorado, where the other insurrectionists also need to be.

Once a democracy is lost it usually doesn't come back. Ours is fragile and needs to be protected as it is now under sustained attack by insurrectionists, seditionists, sore losers and wacko conspiracy seeders. The best way is to snuff out these rancid rats in Arizona before they can bring their infection to other states - while  trying to make a mockery of the electoral system -  to appease Trump. 

See Also:

Donald Trump is turning Arizona into the Area 51 of politics

AND:

As Trump seizes on Ariz. audit, officials fear more partisan vote counts

AND:

Voting Rights

How to Stop Republicans from Stealing Elections

by Robert Reich | April 28, 2021 - 6:30am | permalink

— from Robert Reich

Excerpt:

Republican-controlled state legislatures have introduced over 361 voter suppression bills in 47 states, and some states, like Georgia, have already enacted them into law.

There’s only one way to stop this assault on our democracy. It’s called the FOR THE PEOPLE ACT, and the window for Congress to pass it is closing.

These Republican voter suppression bills are egregious —they shrink early voting periods, add onerous voter ID requirements, limit eligibility for mail-in ballots, ban ballot drop boxes and drive-through voting, and even make it a crime to give voters in line water.