About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Thanksgiving Proclamation In The Year Of The Independence Of The United States Of America The Two Hundred & Fifth

In selecting this year's Thanksgiving message I thought how the recent election reminded me of the election of 1980 in which the United States went from four years of malaise to a triumphant spirit where Walter Cronkite's nightly countdown of the number of days American hostages were held in Iran ended @ 444 when Iran released the hostages to U.S. personnel during President Reagan's inaugural address; where former President Carter, acting as an emissary after attending the Reagan inauguration ceremony the day before, flew to an Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden, West Germany on January 21, 1981 to receive & visit with the hostages before the hostages were given a ticker tape parade on January 30, 1981 through the Canyon of Heroes in NYC; & where a man (Lenny Skutnik) dived into the icy Potomac River on January 13, 1982 after an airplane crashed into the 14th Street  Bridge during a blizzard to save the life of a woman he never met & later that man's heroism was acknowledged as President Reagan's guest @ the State of the Union address. 

These were all exhilarating times in America in the early 1980s much the way a considerable portion of the country feels uplifted today following Donald Trump's 312 to 226 electoral college victory & popular vote plurality 49.87% to 48.25%.  

Already one caravan of 3,000 migrants that started near the Guatemala border heading for easy entrance into the U.S. broke up upon hearing of Trump's election.  Also it will be a Happy Thanksgiving if the seven American hostages in Gaza along with about 100 Israelis are released by Hamas in the coming days. 

So impressive to me in writing this Thanksgiving message is that the 1980 Thanksgiving Day proclamation below was issued by Jimmy Carter just nine days after he suffered a humiliating  popular vote & electoral college defeat 489 to 49, winning only five states as the incumbent.

But the biggest difference between the two losing Democrat administrations in the 1980 & 2024 elections respectively: I never once felt that Carter was intentionally working against America & I never once, for a second, thought that Biden/Harris weren't intentionally working against America.

Jimmy Carter photo
39th President of the United States: 1977 ‐ 1981

Proclamation 4803—Thanksgiving Day, 1980

November 13, 1980


By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The greatest bounty of our Nation is the bounty of our heritage our diversity as immigrants and descendants of immigrants, our common identity as Americans.

We have set aside one day a year to give thanks for all that we have. Yet Thanksgiving is more than just a day of celebration. It is also a commemoration of the day America's earliest inhabitants sat down to table with European colonists.

That occasion was historic not only because it established a national holiday, but because it marked the start of a national tradition of cooperation, unity and tolerance.

Even in times of trial and frustration we have much to be thankful for, in our personal lives and in our Nation. As we pause on Thanksgiving to offer thanks to God, we should not forget that we also owe thanks to this country's forefathers who had the vision to join together in Thanksgiving, and who gave us so much of the vision of brotherhood that is ours today.

Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, do proclaim Thursday, the 27th of November, 1980 as Thanksgiving Day. I call upon all the people of our Nation to give thanks on that day for the blessings Almighty God has bestowed upon us, and to join the fervent prayer of George Washington who as President asked God to "... impart all the blessings we possess, or ask for ourselves to the whole family of mankind."

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fifth.

Signature of Jimmy Carter

JIMMY CARTER

Jimmy Carter, Proclamation 4803—Thanksgiving Day, 1980 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/250884


Tuesday, October 29, 2024

January 20th - Noonday's Beginning Hour

"This is the most important election of our lifetimes. . .This is the most consequential election of our lifetimes. . . This is the most critical election of our lifetimes. . . This is no ordinary election."  These are all comments I have heard about the election, & in this case, I'm not talking about the presidential election of 2024 - I'm referring to the one of 2012: BO versus Mitt Romney. 

You'll remember that Republicans were worried @ the time about whether or not the country could survive four more years of BO after it was  thought, with good reason, that BO had worked against the interests of the country by deliberately undermining the founding principles - or fundamentally transforming the country in BO's words.

Laura Ingraham was so upset that she said that Republicans should shut down the party if they could not beat an incumbent with BO's dreadful record of government dependency, never recognizing that the majority of the citizenry was very happy being government dependent.

Did you vote for Mitt Romney?  If you did, how happy have you been with that vote over the last twelve years as Romney, first as past Republican presidential nominee & since 2018 as U.S. senator from Utah, has taken one anti-American position after another?  During Biden's first two years in office Senator Romney voted with Biden's legislative positions 56.5% of the time.  This converts to a Liberty Score of F @ 44%.  Every time Carol & I would hear of one of Romney's anti-American votes that were so unbecoming for a man who had previously been entrusted with his party's nomination for our highest office, we were so glad that we didn't vote for Romney for president in 2012. 

But in November 2012 Romney was regarded as the firewall against the existential threat seen in BO.  Although I couldn't bring myself to vote for Romney, Sean Hannity & Larry Kudlow shamelessly endorsed Mitt & his policies no matter what they were or how far they strayed from what these men professed to believe.  They were against ObamaCare but had no trouble with RomneyCare in Massachusetts which was the prototype for ObamaCare.  This post will provide some similar parallels between Trump & Harris.

Now in 2024 we hear again it is the most important, consequential, & critical election of our lifetimes - first Biden & Trump were our choices in this  election of greatest importance & now Harris & Trump.  And once again Hannity & Kudlow are shamelessly backing the Republican no matter what he says or does.

Over recent weeks the two presidential campaigns have deteriorated into seeing which candidate can offer the most benefits from the public treasury in order to buy votes - a process with eight stages duplicated in every failed democracy known throughout history as Death Of Democracy.   The stages are:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence; 
From dependence back into bondage.

Harris's benefit bonanza includes no tax on tips, $25,000 down payment assistance for first time home buyers (with more generous support for those whose parents did not own a home), restoring & making permanent the $3,600 per child tax credit, $6,000 baby bonus for child's first year, universal pre-K, paid family & medical leave, & most recently long-term care coverage through Medicare for seniors who are unable to live independently but want to stay in their homes.

All of the above benefit bonanzas are mentioned on Harris's website although the long-term care issue needs better definition.

It seems that Trump adds a new vote-buying benefit @ every campaign rally he holds (as I write this Trump is promising for the first time a tax break for family caregivers as he starts his speech @ MSG on Sunday night.)  Similar to Harris's plans the Trump website also says that Trump will provide a long-term care benefit "to help Seniors remain in their homes* & maintain Financial Security" & will "promote homeownership* through tax incentives & support for first time buyers."  Also, no tax on tips* (presented in Las Vegas), no tax on Social Security (presented to seniors), no tax on overtime pay (presented to unions), no tax on car loans (presented in Detroit), unexplainably wanting to restore the SALT deduction that was capped by the tax law he signed in December 2017, & lowering taxes on U.S. citizens who live abroad. 

Trump thinks he would benefit American workers by pledging 10% to 20% across the board protective tariffs on all imports* & 60% or higher protective tariffs on Chinese imports all the while ignoring that importers & consumers pay most of this extra burden plus not acknowledging that tariffs hurt businesses that rely on imports & countries reciprocate with their own tariffs on American exports.  The Constitution (Commerce Clause - Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 & Export Taxation Clause - Article I, Section 9, Clause 5) emphasizes making trade regular, not imposing across the board protective tariffs that would hinder economic growth.  The Founders intended tariffs to be the exception not the general rule as Trump intends.

Except for the * marked items none of the above tax reductions or the 60% China tariff imposition are mentioned on Trump's website - so is all of this just blather shooting from the hip to attract voters?

The nonpartisan "budget watchdog" Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) issued a report on October 7 entitled The Fiscal Impact of the Harris & Trump Campaign Plans that studied both candidates' policy proposals & concluded that Trump's plans add $7.5 trillion over the 10 year budget window while Harris's plans add $3.5 trillion meaning that both candidates "further increase deficits & debt above levels projected under current law."  Maya MacGuineas, President of the CRFB, said "Neither has anything close to a plan to deal with the overall debt, but clearly the Trump agenda would be significantly worse than the Harris agenda," in part because Trump is even more anti-free-trade than Harris.

People receiving Social Security benefits should be interested to know that the CRFB also found in a report dated October 21 entitled What Would The Trump Campaign Plans Mean For Social Security?  that Trump's proposals would move up the date by three years from 2034 to 2031 that Social Security will run out of money to pay full benefits & would also require larger benefits cuts than currently anticipated when the Social SecurityTrust Fund is exhausted (i.e., the accounting gimmick runs out of money).  Specifically the CFRB found Trump's planned elimination of income tax on Social Security benefits coupled with the deportation of workers who pay into the program, the tariffs' propensity to increase the annual cost of living adjustments, & the elimination of payroll tax on tips & overtime pay all would reduce revenue to pay benefits.  See graphic below.

  Click on graphic to enlarge

Both Trump & Harris claim to protect, or want to protect, Social Security & Medicare.  Neither knows what they are saying & we have enough information, like that provided above, to know they don't.

None of the above Harris or Trump giveaway programs increase economic growth.  Accordingly, each will contribute to a less robust economy & to the extent that the FED monetizes the deficit spending of the programs inflation will increase.  As such America will be less prosperous as a result of the adoption of any of these programs.  For all the bragging that Trump does about his economy during his first term there never was a full year of 3.0% economic growth while he was president.

Both Trump, directly through his first term, & Harris, as VP to Biden, are proliferate spenders.  Trump is the biggest one term deficit spender in American history & Biden (Harris by extension) is the second biggest & may even overtake Trump - that race will be closer than the presidential race.  See table below with actual results from 1789 through 2022 & projected results through Biden's term.

Growth Of National Debt
YearsPresidentNational Debt - $ TDeficit Spending - $ T% GrowthDeficit Per Year - $ T
1789 - 20011 through 425.665.66Base0.03
2001 - 2009GW Bush10.705.04890.63
2009 - 2017BO19.989.28871.16
2017 - 2021Trump27.757.77391.94
2021 - 2023Biden Actual31.423.67131.84
2021 - 2025 Biden Projected34.877.12261.78
Biden Actual 2021 & 2022 actual deficit spending per Fed
Biden Projected = Biden Actual + .75(1.569) + 1.846 + .25(1.671) Trillions From P135 of Biden Budget

There is not a dime's worth of difference between them regarding the propensity for increasing federal government spending.  Spending is what drives the country down the Death Of Democracy path.  Not taxes.  Not the budget.  Not even the deficit itself.  But spending.  If we can see & understand this neither Trump nor Harris should be president.

There is a reason that three quarters of the country did not want a Trump-Biden rematch & when Biden dropped out Harris was a vapid upgrade.  It is a choose your poison election.  Do you prefer strychnine, arsenic, anthrax powder, phosgene, or Tylenol made by McNeil Laboratories in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania in July 1982 that was laced with potassium cyanide?  Either way you get the same result with any of these poisons & Trump & Harris.

All things considered I would rather concentrate my efforts on the good senators & congressmen who need our support & will be needed to hold the line if Harris wins.  Senator Rick Scott of Florida has improved his Liberty Score to B @ 86% & has offered many ideas that have been rejected by the Republican establishment, especially Mitch McConnell, who Rick is looking to replace as Republican senate leader.  Rick has won his last three elections by very narrow margins & the Democrats are targeting this seat as a flip.  

Please do not mistake Ron DeSantis's gubernatorial win by almost 20 points in 2022 as a sign that Florida is no longer a swing state.  DeSantis's victory was impressive but his opponent was terrible.  Democrats stayed home.  DeSantis's 2022 opponent received over 940,000 fewer votes than his 2018 opponent (4,043,723 - 3,100,603 = 943,120 fewer votes) meaning there are still plenty of people in Florida capable of voting for a Democrat senate candidate, especially when Florida has a contentious abortion initiative on the ballot that will extend legal abortions from the current recently passed six week ban to allowing abortions up to the time of fetal viability.  The ballot initiative needs 60% to pass so expect a large proabortion turnout that will not favor Republicans.

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party nominee in 2012 & 2016, said that a wasted vote is when you vote for someone you don't believe in.  If there ever was an election other than 2012 to break away from the two party system 2024 is it.  With Trump & Harris you can't win.  I'm looking for an election like Ronald Reagan versus Steve Lonegan where you can't lose.

But even beyond the ruinous deficit spending that both Trump & Harris are capable of there are countless issues over the last four years documented on RTE as to why neither of these people are worth voting for.

Harris has nothing but abortion, people's hatred of Trump, & the Democrat party's get out the vote machine - that is her campaign & is all she can talk about

Trump has the disgraceful way he conducted himself after losing the 2020 election that persists even today.  What Trump, in violation of his oath to the Constitution, asked Pence to do - to not accept electoral college votes when no state had asked for their electoral ballots to be returned so they could recertify them showing Trump the winner - is so egregious that it alones disqualifies him from ever holding office again.  Just like in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro lost the election but has stayed in power - that is exactly what Trump tried to do.  In our case our glorious Constitution & the institutions that it created & supports held.

People who overlook Trump's actions or dismiss them are making a great mistake in judgment.

Harris is the person in January 2025 who will be in the position to do what Trump wanted Pence to do & she will be in that position with the support of the hostile anti-American media.  If Harris really loses, like Trump did in 2020, & throws out enough electoral votes to show her the winner we will have a terrible constitutional crisis on our hands.  And a little thing like Harris declaring the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 unconstitutional on her way to perfecting the lawlessness that Trump tried last time is a mere formality. 

I have used an interactive map of the U.S. to plug in various combinations of who wins the seven swing states & congressional districts ME-02 & NE-02 to see the paths to victory (270 electoral votes) for both candidates.  The map starts with Harris winning 20 states plus DC for 225 electoral votes & Trump winning 23 states & three congressional districts for 218 electoral votes.  If this election really is as close as the polls say there are several paths leading to a 269 to 269 electoral vote tie in which case it is possible to have a President Trump & VP Walz or a President Harris & a VP Vance.

But one of them is going to win the presidency.  And I make it a practice to always try to like the new president when they are sworn in on January 20th @ what Robert Frost called "noonday's beginning . . . hour" referring to JFK's inauguration in 1961.  If I hadn't supported the new president during the campaign, I am hoping that the weight of responsibility they feel taking the oath of office will make them see the momentous undertaking that lies ahead.  

It's my way of seeking unity every four years in the tradition of the great Founding Father Patrick Henry. 

In Bill O'Reilly's book "Confronting The Presidents" he ends the chapter on GW Bush by providing the message that Bush gave BO on January 20, 2009.  It reminded me of my above described sentiments @ the start of every new president in my adult life:  "There will be trying moments.  The critics will rage.  Your friends will disappoint you.  But you will have an Almighty God to comfort you, a family who loves you, & a country that is pulling for you, including me."

Sunday, October 13, 2024

A Data Professional's Analysis Of The 2020 Presidential Election

It was only minutes after the Trump-Harris debate on September 10 that Trump appeared outside the media spin room saying that two unidentified polls he had checked showed he won the debate 92 to 6 & 88 to 11 respectively.   Although neither Trump or Harris said anything of substance during the debate, when real statistical results came out on average it was Harris 67 - Trump 33.  But Trump persisted saying it was his best debate performance ever.  When his friend Lindsey Graham was asked in the spin room which part of the debate he liked best Graham replied "Trump's closing statement," many thinking Graham was indicating he was glad the debate was over.

A mini-parallel can be drawn between Trump's debate claim & his false claim about the 2020 presidential election being stolen.  According to Trump he never loses.  A golden thread in all the claims is that no evidence to back up his claims is ever produced.  

For instance, a few days after the 2020 election a story surfaced that a truck delivered hundreds of thousands of ballots for Biden from New York to Pennsylvania.  The ballots, the truck, or the driver were never produced.  The story just faded away.

Now there are plenty of stories about election claims that are not as well known as the above mysterious truck claim & Ken Block did a very good job in his book entitled Disproven of explaining the ones he was hired by the Trump campaign to work on.

  Click on image to enlarge

Ken has a degree in computer science from Dartmouth & is an expert in database technologies & data analytics whose specialty is digging into a large data set, figuring out what questions can be answered by the data, & then letting the data take him wherever it leads.  Ken's analysis has been used in multiple lawsuits regarding the conduct of elections.  See page 15 of Disproven.

Ken was approached the day after the 2020 election, unsolicited, by Alex Cannon, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, to have Ken's firm Simpatico Software Systems investigate the claims of massive fraud that the Trump campaign thought existed in the 2020 presidential election.  On November 5, 2020 Ken signed a contract to look for voter fraud in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, & Wisconsin.  The list soon expanded to include Michigan. 

The work consisted of data mining (i.e., the process of searching & analysing a large batch of raw data in order to identify patterns & extract useful information) for voter fraud.  In the initial assignment Ken was to concentrate on deceased voter fraud & finding people who voted in multiple states.  Ken assured Cannon that the work done by Simpatico would be of sufficient quality to stand up in a court of law.

It didn't take long before the initial assignment expanded again to include the investigation of specific claims presented to Ken by Cannon.  Obviously, like the above mysterious truck claim, the new ones presented by Cannon were hashed out @ campaign meetings following the election.  Members of Team Trump drew up or worked out the new claims as more information, reliable & unreliable, became available.

There was a second firm, the Berkeley Research Group (BRG), that had produced voter data work directly to the White House instead of the campaign.  BRG found no massive fraud that would have changed the election result.  Obviously Ken did not know this during his investigation which was conducted simultaneously.

An example from Ken's original assignment was to investigate the claim that 16,097 voters had cast ballots in the battleground state of Nevada plus other states - i.e., double votes.  A lawsuit was being prepared that would be based on Ken's data analysis if it supported the claim.  Ken  found there were 299 confirmed exact matches with the same voter in Nevada & another state.  This number was too small to affect the election result in Nevada & the lawsuit was never presented.

But there is more.  Although Ken did not have the time working for the Trump campaign in November 2020 to check further he did come back to this example in writing Disproven.  Ken suspected that the 299 exact matches were duplicate registered voters which is not illegal because a voter can legally have active voter registrations in two states.  It is only a crime if that voter casts a ballot in each state,

After Ken did a deeper statistical dive regarding the matter, the bottom line is that a total of four people cast double votes in Nevada & California & all four people were registered Republicans in both states.  Not 16,097.  Not 299.  But four people double voted in Nevada & California - & all four were registered Republicans in both states.

An example from Ken's expanded assignment list (to address claims the Team Trump campaign members brought up as time moved along) involved the application of Benford's Law - the mathematical observation that in large datasets the first digit in those numbers is likely to be closer to 1 than to 9.  For instance when counting from 1 to 25 the number 1 is the first digit 11 times, the number 2 is the first digit 7 times, & the numbers 3 to 9 are all the first digit once each.  If the data being analyzed is large enough Benford's Law is a mathematical certainty & "the American court system accepts Benford's Law as a tool to highlight fraudulent transactions." - Disproven page 56.

In short, Benford's law describes the relative frequency distribution for leading digits of numbers in datasets.

Click here to see the mathematical derivation of Benford's Law done @ the Naval Academy.  The derivation result is that Benford's Law shows the probability that the leading digit of a number N can be calculated as log (1+1/N).  Example for N = 1: log (1+1/1) = log (2) = 30.1% when expressed as a percent.  See graphic below for the entire distribution of the nine digits 1 to 9.  

    Click on graphic to enlarge

Specifically, Ken's work involving Benford's Law started on November 11, 2020 when Attorney Cannon called Ken to ask him to analyze Pennsylvania county vote totals because some members of Team Trump did not believe the data followed Benford's Law - which, if true, & if applicable would mean voter fraud had occurred.

Ken analyzed the Pennsylvania county vote counts & found it indeed did not follow Benford's Law's distribution when plotted on a graph like the one above.  Further analysis found that Pennsylvania county populations also did not plot in accordance with Benford's Law & neither did the registered voter counts by county.  Lastly, Ken plotted the first digit of every street number for every address (over 8.75 million) in the Pennsylvania voter registration file & found it matched the Benford Law distribution.

The next day during a conference call Ken presented his conclusion that the claim was false by telling the group "since the population sizes by Pennsylvania counties don't conform to Benford's Law, no one could credibly expect the county vote totals to conform."  Page 62 of Disproven.

Ken knew the disappointment the people on the other end of the call had because they so wanted to believe they had found some real evidence of fraud that would help Trump.  The call, & any possibility of a legal claim, ended when someone on the conference call said "We are done here."

On page 58 of Disproven Ken writes "Benford's Law must be applied against sets of 'appropriate' data.  The data against which the theory is used should be random, & the data set should be large."  Team Trump members were not qualified or equipped to evaluate the validity of highly technical claims which is why Cannon hired Ken in the first place.

In Disproven Ken details other false claims he worked on for the Trump campaign such as: 1) did 740,070 voters in Wisconsin double vote? - once by mail & once by machine; claim made by a group of volunteers who analyzed Wisconsin's voter data file, 2) whether or not voters in Pennsylvania voted by mail after they had died, 3) were nearly 100,000 mail ballots in Pennsylvania fraudulently requested?, 4) did noncitizens vote in Arizona?, & 5) was there a legion of votes cast by both dead & double voters.

In summary, Ken wrote on page 114 of Disproven that "every voter fraud claim presented to me by the Trump campaign was disproven."  The lawyers working on the Trump campaign who hired Ken dropped the claims Ken refuted but Trump held to the stolen election assertion - even today.

Regarding the original assignment to in general look for voter fraud in six swing states Ken found that Trump overwhelmingly won the smaller (even tiny) population counties across the county but lost 80% of the large population counties.  Ken found that "Trump took a smaller percentage of the votes compared to his Democrat challenger almost everywhere in 2020 compared to 2016," performing "more poorly in 2020 in all but three red states (Arkansas, Florida, & Utah)."  Ken called this "bleeding support."  See my table of such results for Arizona, Georgia, & Wisconsin below.

Ken found that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen earned more votes than Biden's margin of victory in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, & Wisconsin. 

The idea that Trump motivated new voters to vote for him in 2016 & motivated even more voters to vote against him in 2020 is borne out by Trump receiving over 11 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016 but Biden receiving over 15 million more votes than Hillary.  There were over 4.6 million fewer third party candidate votes in 2020 than in 2016.  The Trump increase in percent of total vote from 2016 to 2020 was 0.69% while the Democrat candidate increased 3.04% (see page 130 of Disproven).  Ken used this national data as a backdrop as he analyzed all 50 states & DC, drilling down to the county level in the six swing states, to see the dynamic that led to Biden's electoral college victory.  Trump's 2020 vote margin in the six swing states averaged 2.58% lower than his vote margin in 2016 (see page 134 of Disproven).

There is a chapter in Disproven devoted to analyzing mail fraud - how the mail ballots were handled, the total number of mail ballots that were spoiled, the total number of mail ballots rejected & why (e.g., missed deadline, missing or bad signature, no witness signature, multiple ballots in an envelope, required ID not provided, voter deceased, & mail ballot rejected because a vote had already been cast).

Ken summed up this section of Disproven on page 137 saying "I was paid by the Trump campaign to look for evidence of massive fraud in the election data & that I found nothing that came close to proving that large-scale voter fraud occurred in those six states.  I have shown that Trump took a performance hit literally across the nation when looking @ statewide election data."

After finding no massive voter fraud Ken wondered why Trump continued (continues) to claim there was.  His answer is the same as mine presented in the referenced post below when I wrote "Starting in July 2020 Trump set the stage for his post-election claims of fraud & court appeals when @ one of his signature rallies he presented an out of character scenario in which he raised the possibility of him losing the election - he gave the excuse of losing because of voter fraud.  I remember, watching live, thinking to myself, if he knows all of these details of potential fraud why doesn't he do something about it now - months before the election?  This way he could win."

Ken wrote on page 122 of Disproven that "this sagging support (i.e., shown by all of Ken's extensive work & the examples I provide in the table below) must have been known to Trump's campaign team well before the 2020 election."  

I believe it was known & wrote in the reference post below "But one poll after another had continuously & repeatedly shown Biden winning the presidency by large margins.  I believe Trump's internal polling showed him losing also, especially in the important swing states that he had won in 2016 by very narrow margins.  It makes sense that Kellyanne Conway not only told him that he lost after the election, as she wrote in her recent book, but most likely also told him that he was going to lose before she left the White House in August 2020 - why else would the only woman who had successfully guided a presidential campaign to victory resign shortly before her chance @ a second victory."

Ken also felt the time to do something about suspected fraud was before the election.  Ken writes on page 85 of Disproven "States where the margins of victory are expected to be close should be identified well in advance of the election, & their voter registration data should be carefully examined; problems with the data can be corrected & potentially have a meaningful impact - before votes are cast.  Of course, no preparatory work occurred before Election Day to help the Trump campaign evaluate the election results in the search for voter fraud.  The entire effort, from my vantage point, was reactive & unplanned."

But not having the qualifications to analyze large datasets did not stop people like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Mark Meadows, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, & the late Lou Dobbs from doing so.  As time went on & one claim of excessive election fraud after another fell through, Rudy & Sid's claims became ever more preposterous & desperate.  Out of what today looks to be a cult-like loyalty to Trump these people pitifully, blindly, & willingly put their professional reputations on the line for virtually "anything that could impugn the election & create a narrative that massive fraud occurred." Page 63 Disproven.

Because of Rudy's misplaced loyalty to Trump he has been forced to file for bankruptcy (defamation case in Georgia) & has been disbarred in both New York & Washington, D.C.  Sid pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case.  As part of her guilty plea Sid faces six years of probation & will be required to testify @ future trials, write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, pay nearly $9,000 in restitution, & turn over documents.  Jenna Ellis, after being censured by a Colorado judge, signed a plea deal & legal acknowledgement that she "made a number of public statements about the November 2020 presidential election that were false" & did so with a "reckless state of mind" & with "a selfish motive."  Ellis admitted in state disciplinary proceedings that she made at least 10 false statements about the 2020 election as part of an effort to mislead the public, according to court documents.  Mark Meadows has signed immunity deals regarding future litigation.  FNC made a $787 million settlement payment for deliberately & knowingly presenting false information on air regarding Dominion voting machines rigging the 2020 presidential election for Biden.  Newsmax & One America News have made undisclosed settlement payments to Smartmatic for similar charges - Smartmatic has a pending lawsuit against FNC.  Dominion has ongoing defamation lawsuits against Newsmax, One America News, & individual Trump supporters.

It is obvious that none of these people's lives will ever be the same.

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State, wrote in the Foreword to Disproven that Trump lost Georgia because he received less votes than the fourteen Republican congressional candidates in the general election.  Many readers will remember I made a detailed tabulation (see referenced  post below) of congressional district voting not only for Georgia but for Wisconsin & Arizona as well.  See tabulation below.  Click here to see the Table entitled Presidential & House Vote Count By Congressional District - 2020. 

Presidential & House Vote Count By Congressional District - 2020
Wisconsin
CDCongressman% of Vote# of VotesTotal Congressional Votes CastTrump% of Vote# of VotesTotal Cast for President
1Steil59.3238,271401,75453.9220,668409,363
5Fitzgerald60.1265,434441,59956.8255,803450,097
6Grothman59.2238,874403,33356.8232,820409,886
7Tiffany60.7252,048415,00759.2248,822420,340
8Gallagher64.2268,173417,83857.2241,140421,811
Totals1,262,8002,079,5311,199,2532,111,497
Trump received 63,547 fewer votes than the total votes received by the five winning Republican congressional candidates in WI.
Biden received 64,880 more votes than the total votes received by the three winning Democrat congressional candidates.
Georgia
CD
1Carter58.3189,457324,695Trump55.5184,846332,905
3Ferguson65241,526371,31862235998380,895
8Scott64.5198,701308,01362195,867316,121
9Clyde78.6292,750372,54776.4291,992382,279
11Loudermilk60.4245,256405,88256.9234,930413,230
12Allen58.5181,038309,54455.8177,142317,584
14Greene74.7229,827307,62573.4235,008319,995
Totals1,578,5552,399,6241,555,7832,463,009
Trump received 22,772 fewer votes than the total votes received by the seven winning Republican congressional candidates in GA.
Arizona
CD
4Gosar69.7278,002398,623Trump68280,122411,938
5Biggs58.9262,414445,65756.5262,810465,598
6Schweikert52.2217,783417,42751.4222,166432,328
8Lesko59.6251,693422,46757.3251,443438,952
GOP Totals1,009,8921,684,1741,016,5411,748,816
1O'Halleran51.6188,469365,178Biden50.1187,186373,570
2Kirkpatrick55.1209,945381,05454.5213,408391,436
3Grijalva64.6174,243269,83762.8174,882278,497
7Gallego76.7165,452215,73273.7165,129224,168
9Stanton61.6217,094352,27460.8224,192368,798
Dem Totals955,2031,584,075964,7971,636,469
Weak performance by Trump & Biden but Biden had 2,945 net more votes than Trump over respective congressional totals.
Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes - not shown on above table.
Misc
CD
CA -12Pelosi77.6281,776362,950Biden86.1337,517392,046
MN - 5Omar64.3255,924398,26380.3328,766409,330
NY - 14AOC71.6152,661213,10173.3161,973220,982
Totals690,361974,314828,2561,022,358
Strong performance by Biden receiving 137,895 more votes than the total received by three popular congresswomen.

So Trump continues, four years later, to discount all of the above information & not only say he won the 2020 election but demand that his vice president say so also.  Vance not only supports the stolen election lie but has indicated he would not have done what Pence did on January 6 & presumably as vice president would have found a way for Trump to have won the 2020 presidential election.  Vance outrageously said that "I would have told the states . . . that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, & I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there."  This malady ruined Vance's October 1 VP debate performance when @ the end of the debate he would not answer whether or not Trump lost the 2020 election in what Tim Walz called a damning non-answer.

We have no reason to believe that if Trump wins on November 5 he will not continue the disgraceful way he left office in January 2021.