MORT'S MUSINGS

Returning to publication after hiatus This blog has been dormant since shortly after the Nov. 3, 2020 General Election. However, a rising tide of unsubstantiated assertions of voter fraud and malfeasence has made clear the need to reopen this blog. Readers are invited to comment on postings, with the caveat that uncivil, profane, or obscene comments or characterizations will be deleted. Further, statement of opinion will be allowed to remain. Undocumented assertion of facts not already in evidence, however, will be deleted, along with the entire commentary in which they were made. The first of the topics to be addressed will be the Arizona State Senate's partisan recount of Maricopa County's 2020 General Election presidential votes.

Study: No partisan benefit from mail voting in 2020 election By NICHOLAS RICCARDI March 5, 2021 https://apnews.com/.../donald-trump-coronavirus-pandemic... Donald Trump last year publicly worried that the explosion in voting by mail during the pandemic would increase turnout so much that “ you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again .” But a new study shows the record rates of mail voting in 2020 didn’t help Democrats or lead to an increase in voting. The research is only the latest in a years-long number of studies finding no partisan benefit to mail voting. But it also draws the conclusion that making it easier to vote did not increase voting levels because voters were already highly motivated to participate in the 2020 contest. “We find a pretty precisely zero effect on turnout,” said Jesse Yoder, one of the study’s authors and a Ph.D. student in political science at Stanford University. “Voter interest was really driving turnout more than these convenience vot...

FACT CHECKS This series will focus upon fact checks done by recognized and reputable sources Washington Post Mar. 2, 2021 “Capitol Police requested National Guard help prior to January 6th. That request was denied by Speaker Pelosi and her Sergeant at Arms.” — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in a tweet, Feb. 15, 2021 The Facts There are three key players here: Steven A. Sund, the U.S. Capitol Police chief; Paul D. Irving, the House sergeant-at-arms, and Michael C. Stenger, the Senate sergeant-at-arms. All three resigned under pressure after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Without evidence, Jordan asserted that House Speaker Pelosi had denied a request for National Guard troops two days before the insurrection. Instead, public testimony shows she did not even hear about the request until two days later. Jordan also tried to pin the blame on the House sergeant-at-arms, but testimony shows the Senate sergeant-at-arms also was not keen about the idea. We will keep an eye on this issue in case new...

FACT CHECKS This series will focus upon fact checks done by recognized and reputable sources Washington Post Mar. 2. 2021 “I requested … I definitely gave the number of 10,000 National Guardsmen, and [said] I think you should have 10,000 of the National Guard ready. They took that number. From what I understand, they gave it to the people at the Capitol, which is controlled by Pelosi. And I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it would look good. So, you know, that was a big mistake.” —Former president Donald Trump, in an interview with Steve Hilton of Fox News, Feb. 28, 2021 We’re going to try to have a high bar for fact checks of former president Donald Trump. His speech Sunday to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was mostly a replay of false claims he has said many times before, all documented in our Trump claims database. So we took a pass on that. But this is something new. Trump’s claim generated a lot of attention in right-leaning circles, espe...

As usual, Will makes a great deal of sense. Read the whole column, using the link below.  I have often suggested the Republican Party may someday go the way of the Whigs and Federalists.     kmortland The Washington Post:  Opinions Will Senate Republicans allow their louts to rule the party? George F. Will Columnist Feb. 13, 2021 at 10:35 a.m. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/will-senate-republicans-allow-their-louts-to-rule-the-party/2021/02/11/ce082db6-6caf-11eb-9ead-673168d5b874_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2fa130d%2F602910db9d2fda4c88e2c8fe%2F5972a49dae7e8a1cf4aca9d0%2F10%2F76%2F602910db9d2fda4c88e2c8fe  “As the trial proceeded, there appeared a new aspirant for membership in the Republican senators’ large Lout Caucus: Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), e...

FACT CHECKS This series will focus upon fact checks done by recognized and reputable sourcesAP WP Fact Check “Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, under these critical asylum cooperation agreements, the burden of illegal immigration is now shared all across the region. Now, when an illegal immigrant is arrested at our border, they can be sent to a neighboring country instead of into a U.S. community. Before my getting here, countries wouldn’t accept them. They would say, no, no, no. … They said they won’t take them back. They came. They may be murderers, they may be cartel heads. They may be some really vicious people. The countries didn’t want them back. And I stopped all payments to those countries. I stopped everything going to those countries. And after we stopped for about a month, you remember after we stopped for about a month, they called. They said we’d love to have them back.” - Trump Trump often fabricates conversations in which he stuns various heads of state with his ...

FACT CHECKS This series will focus upon fact checks done by recognized and reputable sourcesAP WP Fact Check “We also have, and we had, but we have them all the time, we have terrorists from the Middle East coming into our country through the southern border. That was before what you see right here [gestures at border wall], because it was easier to come into our country through the southern border than it was through airports or any other means. … These are people from some very seriously dangerous places in the Middle East. And the numbers are far greater than anybody would understand.” - Trump The Trump administration first asserted this in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, offering a range of misleading statistics to buttress the claim that terrorists from the Middle East were filtering through the U.S.-Mexico border. But administration officials never offered any proof or identified a single terrorist. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/14/guide-understa...