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The National Task Force on Election Crises released its final report [PDF] on the 2020 general election.

The task force is made up of folks with expertise from a broad spectrum of political actors in the US, including a former RNC chairman, noted academics/think tankers and politicians of all stripes.

The Executive Summary of the report::

The 2020 election was defined by paradox and contradiction. Thanks to millions of poll workers, election officials, and citizens who stepped up to make our democracy work, the election was secure and free from systemic or significant fraud. A record 160 million Americans voted and had their voices heard. Yet still, voter intimidation and racial disparities in access to the ballot continued, our election system was revealed to be aging and unnecessarily confusing, Americans weathered a wave of disinformation and, of course, there were unprecedented efforts to delegitimize and overturn the election results—ultimately inciting a crisis, the likes of which we’ve not experienced in modern history. In the end, Congress counted all of the electoral votes, but only after President Trump sought to both coerce federal and state officials to overturn the results and incited a violent insurrection. This attack on our democracy culminated with white supremacist rioters attacking the Capitol seeking to not only overturn the Constitutional order, but also to take hostages and assassinate members of Congress and the Vice President. While American democracy has survived this crisis so far, we will only be able to prevent the next one if we both 1) ensure accountability for all those who incited, abetted, and participated in the insurrection, and 2) adopt preventative reforms based on the lessons we learned in this election. Those lessons and reforms are the focus of this report.

The National Task Force on Election Crises is a nonpartisan group that was formed to help the country prevent and confront election crises, in order to protect a free and fair 2020 election. In this report, the Task Force highlights many challenges that emerged in the election, including instances in which the president undermined the electoral process. Of course, the Task Force would have highlighted challenges to a free and fair election and a smooth transition if they came from another presidential candidate.

Election administrators helped mitigate a crisis.

State and local officials conducted the general election in spite of extraordinary challenges posed by a global pandemic. Officials from both parties worked together to expand voting options, recruit hundreds of thousands of poll workers, and become expert crisis communicators, often for the first time. At the same time, there were challenges and failures, including long lines in a number of states, complications stemming from absentee ballots, voter intimidation, isolated system malfunctions, and—above all—widespread challenges of disinformation and partisan polarization around efforts to make voting accessible.

Social media companies learned key lessons from 2016.

Some platforms adapted their policies to be more vigilant against election-related disinformation in the 2020 election cycle, attempting to contextualize disinformation and slow its spread. That said, false claims were far-reaching, coming particularly from President Trump, his allies, and his family members. These claims resulted in widespread refusal to accept the results, and troubling threats of violence against election officials and others. Social media platforms also were used to both inspire and coordinate participation in the insurrection on January 6th.

Election reporting was careful and voters patient.

Because of the unprecedented volume of absentee ballots and lack of pre-canvassing or processing in critical battleground states, preliminary results took much longer than usual. In general, the media and voters were prepared to wait for results and traditional and social media correctly described President Trump’s claims of victory as false. Outlets took care to explain why results may change during counting, were transparent about how election projections are made, and resisted political pressure to interfere with their decision desks. That said, this election proved that responsible reporting is no match for disinformation spread by candidates and political leaders.

President Trump’s refusal to accept the results badly damaged the perception of election legitimacy and led to the insurrection on January 6th.

Baseless allegations of fraud, false claims of victory by President Trump, and attempts to overturn the result were supported by many Republican officials. This delayed the presidential transition, helped convince the vast majority of Trump’s supporters that the election had not been legitimate, and led to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

Efforts to disenfranchise voters and reverse the outcome were a threat to democracy.

Starting on Election Night and continuing through to January, there were concerted efforts to delegitimize the election, seed doubt in the outcome, and overturn the results. These attempts included baseless lawsuits that sought to disenfranchise entire states and pressure state officials to interfere with the counting and certification of results. Attempts to overturn a legitimate, democratic election took a toll on the country and likely caused lasting damage to the perceived legitimacy and long-term stability of American institutions and our system of government.

I encourage everyone to read this report and understand the facts around this election and its aftermath. There have been far too many lies, exaggerations and bullshit around this. We should be *proud* of how our elections worked, especially given the myriad challenges to doing so.

So we all know that HUD has declared that you can't evict anyone for the foreseeable future on account of the whole coronaids thing, yeah? Given that, here's the pitch: The Odd Couple 2. Trump invokes that to stay in the White House and calls in film crews to the residential bits, which he can do as a resident. Be honest with yourself, you'd watch it.

It's a funny old world where the guy who uses the words "peaceful and patriotic" multiple times during his address is Inciting to Riot but the BLM guy in the capitol-raiding mob who says "Let's burn this motherfucker down" is regarded with "He was vocal, but I wouldn’t say he was inciting violence".

And just you try and find information in the MSM, or even on this very site, about how said BLM guy says he knew about the plan to storm the capitol way in advance. You'll have your work cut out for you because that would mean Trump was completely innocent on the impeachment charges, since you cannot incite something long after it's been planned, organized, and is getting ready to be carried out.

The NRA has filled for bankruptcy

Shortly after the announcement, New York Attorney General Letitia James said she would not allow the NRA to "evade accountability" or oversight. Her office's lawsuit last year highlighted misspending and self-dealing claims that have roiled the NRA and its longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, in recent years -- from hair and makeup for his wife to a $17 million post-employment contract for himself.

"The NRA's claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt," James said.

In other news, a couple was fined a total of $3,000 for violating Quebec's curfew by claiming that the woman was out walking her dog. She held the dog leash, attached to a dog collar around the neck of her partner-in-stupidity. covid fatigue?

Maybe in her defence she'll say the Bible says all men are dogs …

I don't normally post videos.

I don't normally post shit from Twitter.

But I just saw this linked to on another site and I'm just flabbergasted.

I was aware of the lies and misinformation coming out, but I had no idea that members of Congress, senators and so many other folks had pretty much come out and told people to *literally* rise up against the US government.

And it isn't whackos on Facebook or thedonald.win or parler either. This is on Fox and other channels in your fucking cable lineup.

Many elected officials and many of right wing media folks, along with those in Trump's orbit calling for insurrection against our legitimate government.

WTF?!?!?

I usually never shut up, but frankly I'm speechless.

Just watch the damn video mashup.

Before I talk of robots, I need to say a few words about my own robot that I reviewed here. In the review, I was steamed about today’s lack of ever giving anybody any manuals. I thought of this again when I put a box by the basement door, with the book on the top an inch thick manual for a quarter century old Sound Blaster; just a sound card, not a whole device.
        Then today I noticed something a woman would have seen the day before I actually started the robot.
        For hundreds of thousands of years, humans and their progenitors were hunter-gatherers. The men hunted game, women gathered nuts, fruits, other edible vegetables. This is why there are almost no color-deficiant women, as a color blind female hominid would have starved without charity. Likewise, evolution made men's sight so that movement caught his eye, so he could spot game. His eyes aren't wired to look for stationary things.
        This is my sorry excuse for fucking up.
        This afternoon I saw, on its edge, wedged between a cardboard box and a gallon of windshield wiper fluid, a booklet. It was the manual to the robot, and other than being as grammatically challenged as anyone with English as a second language, or a computer, it was actually a very good manual.
        I owe the ILIFE people an apology. I was going to make an effort to change the Amazon review, but saw that there were thousands of reviews so I didn’t bother. I did see that the broom costs sixty bucks more than I paid.
        It had been sweeping for less and less time every day for a while until it only swept for fifteen minutes, and I feared I had gotten a bum battery—then remembered some other devices’ lousy guessing at the battery charge, so I did a cold boot. It swept for hours afterwards.
        Then there are the robotic meat puppets. One of Vlad's puppets, President Pinocchio, had been programming his few thousand meat puppets, half of whom were liars and the other half stupid enough to not only believe that the Democrats could actually rig an election in a Republican state, but in more than one! Then, of course, there were those who post things like “democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner.” I often wonder why these people don’t move to North Korea.
        After months of programming these hapless fools, he ordered them to the capitol and told them they had to get mean. I wonder what they’ll think when they don’t get their expected pardons?
        When the dust settled after the coup attempt, meaning kind of a couple of days ago, when he slithered out from under his rock, waved his hand, and said “people said it was innocent. These are not the droids you’re looking for.”
        The Governator, who was a child in Nazi Austria during the “night of the broken glass,” likened the attempted taking of the capitol to the horror of that night.
        If Trump and his legislative enablers don't face some harsh consequences for what they have done, you will see it happening over and over.
        I personally prefer steel or plastic robots to meat robots. My floor has never been as clean.

This is not so much a philosophy journal, it is more an acknowledgement of a bizarre phenomenon, serendipity, or the coincidence of the absurd.

Marx says somewhere, that Hegel says somewhere, that everything in history occurs twice, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Seems this would be funny, if it were not so true. Our example: the recent rebellion by insane people in the United States of America. Tea Party? As Colorado Gun-nut Congresswoman Lauren Boebert said, "It's 1776!" just before she tweeted the location of the Speaker of the House to the rioters. She needs a better calendar app on her Glock. But it is not so much that, it is the details that cinch the insight. I refer, of course to the guy with the horn-head-dress, Jacob Anthony Angeli Chansley, who also goes by Jake Angeli. And what, pray tell, is our serendipity? Behold, from Yahoo (appropriately) News:

One of the men arrested after last week's violent attack on the U.S. Capitol was kicked out of the Navy two years into his enlistment for refusing to take a required vaccine.

Jacob Anthony Angeli Chansley, a 33-year-old Navy veteran from Arizona who was arrested and charged after last week's siege at the U.S. Capitol, refused to take the anthrax vaccine while in the Navy, ending his two-year career, a Navy official confirmed to Military.com. Task and Purpose first reported the circumstances that led the Navy to boot Chansley from the ranks.

Chansley, who also goes by Jake Angeli, was arrested Saturday and charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority, the Department of Justice announced this weekend. Chansley was photographed among supporters of President Donald Trump who carried out a violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. He was shirtless, wearing a horned fur headdress and red, white and blue face paint.

Of course, being anti-vax does not go over well in the US Military, as not being antifa does not go over well. But I have noticed a large proportion of seriously insane veterans involved in the recent insurrection by Trump supporters. I put it down to exposure to chemical weapons, or moral damage, but in this case, the similarities are uncanny. What was the "Angeli Shaman's MOS?

Chansley served as a Navy supply clerk seaman apprentice from 2005 to 2007. Navy officials declined to provide further details about his career, including what kind of discharge he received from the military, citing privacy concerns.

Do we know anyone else, who was a Navy supply clerk, and who's discharge records have not been released? (Possibly because they do not exist?). Yes, it is our own traitor, Runaway1956. Haven't seen him be antivax, ever, but fits the rest of the profile. So Runaway was the tragedy, and Jacob is the farce? But they both are supporting the Trump attempt to overthrow the US Constitution. Coincidence, you say? I don't think so!

Oh, and poor Jake Angeli is allegedly starving in detention, since the Feds will not serve him pure organic food. Oh, and did I mention he is a QAnon crazy? Even more serendipity!

I'm sick and tired of hearing about the Overton Window as if it's some great advance in social psychology. It's not, and never was.

But for all those who blathered about it, the so-called Overton Window is being slammed shut. Thanks to Trump.

Just before Trump's attempts to overthrow the government, we saw Pornhub having to delete the majority of its porn stash - not by government, not by petitions, not to comply with laws about their illegal hosting of kiddie porn and revenge porn, but by the credit card companies. People were holding them accountable for enabling pernhub.

So the pendulum had been beginning to reverse (pendulums do that).

It would have continued anyway as more hosting companies are being held liable for enabling their clients websites, but Trump lit a fire under this reversal.

Starting with Twitter temporarily banning Trump, the trend gained spread. It's now extended past social media to companies providing hosting such as Amazon, and banning of social media apps on both Apple and Google that don't have moderation to prevent them from being misused. It's only a matter of time until all web sites have to comply, with crackdowns on anonymous posting, fake accounts, and violations of laws in the users jurisdiction. Same as Twitter currently bans all Nazi posts being viewable in Germany under penalty of €10,000 per day per offence.

The old excuse of "we are trying but it's too hard" no longer is acceptable. Can't do it? Then close. Same as every other business that can't comply with laws and regulations.

Even Republicans are now pointing out that the first amendment doesn't apply to private businesses like internet platforms.

Skip to #4 for a warning about mislabeled masks. They're everywhere plenty of misleading packaging, and some outright fraud.

1. As Trump rattles around the White House going through social media withdrawal, he can at least still stream music. My suggestions;

1. Fool on the Hill (originally written about Richard Nixon)
2. Should I Stay or Should I Go?
3. Nowhere Man - another Beatles song
4. Jailhouse Rock
5. Jagged Little Pill
6. R E S P E C T
7. Every Move Tou Make
8. (Can't Get No) Satisfaction
9. All Along the Watchtower (Hendrix version - the Dylan version sucks)
10. Money Money Money
11. Only Women Bleed
12. Hotel California
13. It's the End of the World as We Know It
14. Eve of Destruction
15. Turn, Turn, Turn
16. Believe in Me
17. What a Difference a Day Makes

Feel free to add.

2. A possible answer to "where have all the old coders gone?" A recent story had comments about cognitive decline after the flu pandemic, increases in Parkinson's, etc. and the possibility of a link between repeated bouts of inflammation from flu linked to mental decline, and the coronavirus is linked to cognitive difficulties (long covid brain fog, etc).

Given that there are 4 coronavirus that cause common colds, and that the majority of the population don't develop long term immunity after infection, could repeated infections of coronavirus and flu be an explanation for why old coders no longer do much more than simple maintenance, or administrative / management functions? Has creativity been burned out of their brains?

Once again, time to say I got it right. I told everyone that I hoped Trump would win because (a) the DNC nominated Hillary Clinton, the ONLY person Trump could beat, and (b) he would destroy the Tea Party, and wreck the Republican Party.

Trump made the Tea Party an extension of him. They're as dead as he is. As an example, a week ago people were taking Ivanka Trump's talk of running for the US senate in Florida seriously. Now it's laughable.

Ted Cruz? Obsolete, like Ted Kazinsky , who he's starting to look like.

I'd say Mission Accomplished.

4. I've been using washable cloth masks. When I went back to volunteer Thursday I was told a government inspector said we had to use the disposable masks we have seven using for months, with a box at the entrance for anyone who didn't have their own.

Being half blind, it was hard for me to read the side of the box, but apparently nobody else did. They're for protection against light dust.'

I pointed this out (surprise everyone) but rather than argue, I used both that crappy mask and mine on top.

It was awful. The filter paper is coarse and prone to shedding fibres. Yuck. So the next day some people wentback to fabric masks and coffee filters.

Rather than argue, I had a surgical mask for a change. Eat your hearts out! But seriously, I've looked at the masks one of my sisters gave me as "you need to be using these type masks, and I used the phone as a magnifier - turns out the packaging on the front is misleading - it's a dust mask.

The whole supply chain is probably full of this sort of crap, so people are wandering around with a false sense of security.

'and this I not even getting into the whole fraudulently labeled 3-packs of masks at discount stores.

From an article in the Guardian about French bean plants:

“We see these signatures of complex behaviour, the one and only difference being is that it’s not neural-based, as it is in humans,” Calvo said. “This isn’t just adaptive behaviour, it’s anticipatory, goal-directed, flexible behaviour.”

Should we start running now?