Election denier Tina Peters laughed during her sentencing, argued with the judge, and then was led away in handcuffs to serve a 9-year sentence. @MarcSallinger reports for @nexton9news. #copolitics pic.twitter.com/ruiGoUAco5
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) October 4, 2024
For those who missed the comments in this morning’s dawn post (or who just want to enjoy it again)…
Tina Peters, former Colorado clerk, sentenced 9 years for voting scheme. She lied at her sentencing which is stupid. She asked for mercy while lying. Judge said she was unserious. She will have ample time to think about her lying. Trump can’t pardon her. https://t.co/LvB25HOofL
— John W. Dean (@JohnWDean) October 3, 2024
Per the Associated Press:
A judge ripped into a Colorado county clerk for her crimes and lies before sentencing her Thursday to nine years behind bars for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
District Judge Matthew Barrett told former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters — after earlier sparring with her for continuing to press discredited claims about rigged voting machines — that she never took her job seriously.
“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen,” Barrett told her in handing down the sentence. “You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan.”
Jurors found Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access to the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that person’s identity…
At trial, prosecutors said Peters, a Republican, was seeking fame and became “fixated” on voting problems after becoming involved with those who had questioned the accuracy of the presidential election results.
A one-time hero to election deniers, Peters has been unapologetic about what happened.
Before being sentenced, Peters insisted that everything she did to try to unroot what she believed was fraud was for the greater good…
It’s impossible to overestimate the damage Peters has done to other election workers in Colorado and elsewhere, Colorado County Clerks Association director Matt Crane told the court.
“In a real and specific way, her actions have led directly to death threats and general threats to the lives and the families of the people who work in our elections,” Crane said. “She has willingly aided individuals in our country who believe that violence is a way to make a point. She has knowingly fueled a fire within others who choose threats as a means to get their way.”
He, his wife and his children have been among those threatened, Crane said.
Shortly before Tina Peters was sentenced to 9 years in prison, she angered the judge by saying that she was sure that he really agreed with her election fraud conspiracies. He wasn’t happy. pic.twitter.com/Suz0SCP7uq
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 3, 2024
Per Colorado Public Radio:
… Ahead of sentencing, Peters asked for probation. She said she recognized the jury’s decision to find her guilty on most of the counts, but that the jury wasn’t allowed to hear other evidence she wanted to present. That evidence was largely tied to conspiracies about the county’s Dominion Voting Machines, which were ruled inadmissible.
“I’m not a criminal and I don’t deserve to go into a prison where other people have committed heinous crimes,” Peters told the judge tearfully. She showed the judge pictures of her deceased husband and her son, a Navy Seal who died in the line of duty. She asked for probation in part to be able to keep visiting her 95-year-old mother in Virginia.
“I’m remorseful. Yes sir, I really am,” said Peters. “I never expected that just doing an image which was completely legal, before and after the trusted build would’ve landed me here. I thought it was going to come out quietly.”
But Barrett said his sentence was not just about punishment and the acceptance of responsibility but also deterrence. A stiff sentence, Barrett said, would ensure other elected officials respect the responsibilities of their office…
Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis said the estimated cost of Peters’ actions to Mesa County taxpayers was $1.4 million. That includes Peters’s salary while she was barred from the elections office, as well as numerous recounts the county paid for to prove their elections were accurate.
While Davis explained the efforts to convince the public that Peters’ claims were untrue, Barrett interjected to ask what the hand count and other recounts showed.
“I want to know, what was the difference?” Barrett asked.
“They were identical,” Davis said, of the votes, noting that a hand count as well as a tabulation by a different voting machine company confirmed the election tallies were accurate. “No material difference.” …
Peters was found guilty of three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. She was also convicted of first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failure to comply with an order from the Secretary of State, all misdemeanors.
The investigation began a little more than three years ago when images taken during a secure update of Mesa County’s voting equipment surfaced online. At the same time, a copy of Mesa County’s hard drive was displayed and discussed at a “cyber symposium” hosted by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has been at the center of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Over the course of a lengthy trial, prosecutors laid out a timeline demonstrating that Peters had begun meeting with election conspiracy theorists in early 2021 about assumed “irregularities” in voting totals. In response, Peters and others hatched a plan to bring in an unauthorized person to observe a software update of Dominion Voting Machines. The plot involved creating security credentials for a local man named Gerald Wood and using those credentials to help another man gain access to voting equipment.
That man was retired surfer Conan Hayes, who clandestinely joined the software update and made copies of sensitive information that ended up online. That deceit was what the jury found Peters guilty of.
This speech by Judge Matthew Barrett today in sentencing Tina Peters to 9 years for tampering with voter data was brilliant. What struck me most was that it almost word for word applies to Trump. Worth a listen. pic.twitter.com/6wDk9mhntB
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 3, 2024
Of all the dumb ways to literally throw your life away, imagine doing so for Donald Trump. https://t.co/4c55UpXraE
— Patrick Skinner (@SkinnerPm) October 3, 2024
Baud
I hope she enjoys her 15 minutes.
Mapanghimagsik
Good riddance to bad trash
sab
She isn’t exactly a spring chicken, so she didn’t throw her life away for Trump. She threw her older years away where she wasted her younger years. Trump was just the latest stop.
suzanne
YOU committed a heinous crime, you fucken potato.
CHETAN R MURTHY
I found the video of her arrest quite satisfying. I know that makes me a bad person and I don’t care.
Raoul Paste
She’s going to miss that hairstylist when she’s in the slammer.
danielx
She’s roughly the same age as me, but prison time is hard time. She’ll be looking mighty old by the time she gets out, if she ever does.
Captain C
Isn’t that video of her being taken out the kind of thing that they use when deciding just which prison to send you to? It seems inadvisable to be difficult like that on camera at such a time, but what do I know?
West of the Cascades
@CHETAN R MURTHY: “Stand up like an adult” at the end is delightful.
SW
Does she get a pillow in prison?
KatKapCC
The Lion, the Witch, and the Audacity of This Bitch
CHETAN R MURTHY
I took my oath of naturalization in 1987. All these public servants take oaths. I remain amazed at the way these people can just violate their oaths like it’s nothing.
Baud
@CHETAN R MURTHY:
These people all think they’re above us and everything else.
KatKapCC
@West of the Cascades: Is this one of the videos in this post? Or elsewhere?
Craig
@CHETAN R MURTHY: she’s straight out of Wm. Burroughs Thanksgiving Prayer: “For decent church-goin’ women, with their mean, pinched, bitter,evil faces.”
CaseyL
Rasputin was said to be a deeply unpleasant person – foul-mouthed and foul-smelling and all that. Yet he also apparently had a hypnotic personality, and mesmerized no less a person than the Empress of Russia. Go figure.
There are unfortunately quite a few ghastly people throughout history who managed to attract cult followers. Charlie Manson was another one.
I believe there is some psychological theory behind it (people who believe themselves to be pathetic losers finding validation in someone who exemplifies what they hate about themselves) but I don’t understand it in any intuitive sense.
bbleh
It’s a CULT.
I am entirely sure she sees herself as a Righteous Martyr, wronged by the Evil Pharisees, and that she is suffering for the Greater Good and its Leader, the Chosen One.
Exactly how the various tragedies and other experiences of her life combined to make her vulnerable to this probably would take a therapist a long time to sort out. But she’s as much a cultist as any insect-ravaged numbwit who drank the Flavor Aid in Guyana.
Tony Jay
Pffft. Once President-4-Life Trump makes the Presidency great again, he’ll just tell the Governor to use his pardon power to free this martyred heroine. I bet the biopic of her life scoops Gina Carano a frikken Freedom Oscar.
But seriously, when the hammer drops in November and MAGAworld has to swallow another Blue Wave election result, it’s self-made troobelievers like this that are going to crack right down the middle. Over here the certainty of inevitable Tory defeat had been made more palatable to their stalwarts by newnewlabourinc’s lunge to the Right. It is pleasing to me that American conservatives don’t get that comfort when they consider at least four years of Harris/Walz.
Ken
“AND NOW, WHAT IS YOUR SECOND WISH?” says the smirking djinn.
kindness
Isn’t it funny that those who have lead lives of privilege (upper middle class white woman) feel so entitled as to not have to face the consequences of their actions. And utterly shocked when they find, they do have to face the consequences.
Sister Golden Bear
@CHETAN R MURTHY: When you’re white they let you do it.
feebog
She expressed no remorse or even any understanding of the severity of her crimes. Nine years is a long time for someone who is already a senior citizen. Everything Trump touches dies.
RSA
She’s 69 and can expect to live about another 20 years. She’s put herself in prison for half of her time left on Earth.
billcoop4
Betraying her dead son. Wasting his sacrifice. I rarely wish that people will just rot, but this one is close.
BC
WaterGirl
@KatKapCC: I did’t hear that in any of the videos, either, so I’m glad you asked. I have the same question.
bbleh
@Tony Jay: I would like to believe that large numbers of them would crack down the middle, but (FSM willing a Blue Wave happens) I don’t think they will. I think their defenses are too strong, not least because they have been so long in the making and strengthening and they have such deep roots.
I think the BEST we can hope for is a step-by-step (some faster, some MUCH slower) Californiazation of the country, where the crazies retreat into ever-smaller enclaves and political impotence. But the heart of Trumpism is the heart of contemporary Republicanism, and it goes back to the Confederacy; it’s a hard rock, and imo at best it will erode gradually rather than crack.
dmsilev
You are, by the verdict of a jury of your peers, a criminal. Sorry if this upsets your worldview. Did I say “sorry”? I meant “fuck your feelings”.
Josie
@WaterGirl:
It’s in the last video, in which she is being arrested, near the end.
Baud
Via reddit
XeckyGilchrist
Early Christians were fed to lions, now they have to go to prison where there are no magnet beds. The martyrdom just never ends.
Jeffro
“Asking For Mercy While Lying” almost sounds like an interesting band. Almost.
Phylllis
I swear no one resists arrest more yet suffers the least harm in doing so than any given white woman being handcuffed.
A Ghost to Most
Fuck Around. Find Out.
Nukular Biskits
I feel sorry for her mother.
I do not feel sorry for her.
Jeffro
@XeckyGilchrist: the lack of a magnetic bed may actually improve her mental health…I’m just sayin’…
Baud
Via reddit, if your a black Nazi, the GOP is hiring for senior level positions.
PIGL
i’m glad she was convicted and sentenced, but let’s not loose sight of the fact got in most of the world nine years would be considered pretty hard time. I’d rather a hell of a lot more white collar criminals did 3 to 5 years in a federal prison that one hapless schmuck do nine.
Glidwrith
I like this. A lot. At last, in a court of law, the lies are given no credit, no benefit of the doubt, called out for the oathbreaking and the consequences for doing so.
May it continue.
BR
CliosFanBoy
Anybody here ever do any “ghost hunting” with an EMF meter? I was thinking of getting an inexpensive one for the heck of it as I work in a few historic homes as a volunteer.
Starfish
@Tony Jay: President-4-Life-In-Prison
CliosFanBoy
@Ken:
and the monkey’s paw turns one finger down. (or is it one middle finger up?)
Nukular Biskits
@Tony Jay:
@bbleh:
Which is something I’ve wondered about. While I don’t want to take the election for granted and hope with all my ability for a Harris/Walz victory (actually, I want to see a f’ing blowout with coattails), what are a lot of these MAGAs going to do? As much as I hate to say this, I can’t help but believe some will literally throw their lives away.
Lethe
@CHETAN R MURTHY: To them oaths are just the empty words you parrot to join whatever club / job you’re trying to get into. I’ve met a number of folks over the years that were quite astounded that they were actually expected to hold up the oaths they had sworn. And that some of us took oaths very seriously. Two of them were court martialed, to my great satisfaction. In the words of the great Gomer Pyle – surprise, surprise, surprise.
Tony Jay
@bbleh:
I look at it this way. Over a long enough stretch of time all cliches prove adequate. So take a little ‘very slowly, and then all at once’ mixed with some ‘you never step in the same river twice’ and you’ve got a recipe for the catastrophic implosion of this era of Republicanism.
They’ve been sustained for a generation by ‘one kewl tricks’ in the form of Supreme Court Bush vs Gore fuckery followed by War President + Swift Boat boosting, then the whole Tea Party farce, and they still had to take a deep dive into nakedly racist apocalypticism with Trump to eke out a 2016 victory.
They’ve been in ‘very slowly’ phase for a long while, over the course of which the GOP has purged and purified itself into a Party that’s barely able to function as more than a Dark Web collective of unclubable weirdoes. This election has all the makings of an ‘all at once’ event where things and people simply break from overstrain.
WaterGirl
@Josie: Somehow I had not registered that that video was about her. Holy shit. She is going to have a really rough time in prison. I imagine she will not be able to accept it. I think she’s in the county jail for 6 months before she goes to prison. They had better have her on suicide watch
P.S. Happy birthday!
WaterGirl
@Baud: Looks like she has been doing a lot of crying.
Chet Murthy
@PIGL: I disagree. This was no ordinary white collar crime: this was fucking with the machinery of elections, the central cog of our democracy. Nine years is too gentle. And hell, she’ll be out on parole in 4.5yr, IIUC.
princess leia
@WaterGirl:
Would not be surprised if she gets put in a special unit away from other inmates and given pretty kind treatment by the county deputies . They are mostly MAGA and they don’t have to treat everyone the same.
HumboldtBlue
Charlie Brown met Snoopy on this day, 74 years ago.
Ryan
I hope she enjoys her
15 minutes9 years.Fixed.
Ryan
@Ryan: Whoops, meant to add 9 years to that post
Chet Murthy
@Lethe: It’s why I get so angry at Arab-Americans who think it’s OK to vote to send us into a dictatorship (which is what they’re doing by not voting Dem) b/c the Dems are supporting Israel. Fucker, you swore an oath of naturalization just like I did, and if you wanna now prioritize a foreign country over -our country-, then you need to fuckin’ get on a plane, get yourself an AK-47, and start fighting. You forswore all foreign allegiances in that oath, and NOW you’ve decided that, no, Palestine matters more than America? FUCK YOU.
Chet Murthy
@princess leia: Oskar Grant’s murderer, Johannes Mehserle, was allowed to serve out his manslaughter sentence in the San Diego city jail. Gotta believe he had some cushy digs.
Tony Jay
@Starfish:
Hell of a tattoo for Inmate 2024 to wear, but if he’s too squeamish I’m sure that the weird creature with the Nixon on his back will find some skin to accommodate the message.
Nukular Biskits
OT but for anyone who is still on Twitter (I refuse to call it that other thing), how many times a week does your account get locked and you have to take the stupid Arkose Challenge?
zhena gogolia
“Shut up! What an asshole thing to say to me.” While “Let It Be” plays in the background.
This is an acid trip. (Not that I would know what that is.)
zhena gogolia
@CHETAN R MURTHY: I know right?
Starfish
@Chet Murthy: It’s not just Arab Americans. It is the diaspora of Muslim Americans who are turned off by our policy on Gaza.
But some of them like my mom were more willing to vote for Harris than they were willing to vote for Biden
And allegiance to country doesn’t mean “Let’s watch some children die of famine because our country thinks it is right.” People were allowed to protest the wars in the Middle East.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: It’s the last tweet, the arrest.
BR
@Starfish:
I wonder if articles like this might help:
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/07/palestinians-gaza-warm-kamala-harris-prefer-anyone-over-trump
HumboldtBlue
@KatKapCC:
Here ya go
WaterGirl
@Ryan: Fixed it for you.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Were her friends all ignoring the whole thing, pretending that nothing was happening?
Chet Murthy
People are definitely allowed to protest. I want us to cut off Israel completely by a definite date, if they don’t give up all the Occupied Territories. But I’m not going to hold our Republic hostage over it. And these Arab-Americans who’ve decided they cannot vote for Harris are doing just that. Frankly, they’re no better than your average MAGAt.
WaterGirl
@princess leia: I wonder.
I kind of assumed that she was sentenced to county jail for shit she did when they were arresting or questioning her. If I’m right, I doubt that would have endeared her to them.
Chet Murthy
@WaterGirl: There’s a vid that starts indoors, maybe at some party function or something? And yeah, everybody around her is completely ignoring her arrest. It’s wonderful!
Nukular Biskits
@WaterGirl:
Unless I misheard, she was sentenced to both county jail and state prison, depending on which charge(s).
Starfish
@Chet Murthy: There are not that many Arab-Americans, and they are not that influential. They might be able to swing Michigan.
But I think Harris has been talking to them, even though she had some jokers interrupting her events (after she took the time to talk to them.
And I hate blaming small minorities for the behavior of white dudes who never went to college. I bet the white dudes who never went to college (and are voting for Trump) have more of an impact than some Arab Americans in Michigan staying home.
It feels like all those times that those failed votes for gay rights were being blamed on Black voters.
bbleh
@Tony Jay: I hope you’re right. But as noted elsewhere, not least by Lyndon Johnson, I think the driving engine of
moderncontemporary Republicanism, just as it was that of the Confederacy, of the Dixiecrats, of the Hardhats and of the Reagan Republicans, is racism, and even if today’s Saddam is pulled down, another will arise, because they cannot let the Others become any more than second-class humans and they will always flock to a prophet who preaches it.My hope is that it will indeed gradually die out, because the number of people who have never lived in multicultural communities, who have no real experience with non-White people, is becoming smaller every day, and they are increasingly older and in increasingly isolated (and unfortunately dying) communities. In brutal brief, I hope that part of our country will mostly die off, and what will be left won’t matter.
bbleh
@WaterGirl: @Nukular Biskits: correct: 6 months in county jail for crimes directly affecting the people of the county, followed by 8-1/2 years in state prison.
Baud
OT IBEW Reddit represent!
skerry
One less vote for Trump
Craig
@PIGL: I’d rather a lot more white collar criminals did 9
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: It sure seemed like it!
Chet Murthy
@Craig: One big difference between white-collar criminals and the kind that commit violent crimes, is that white-collar criminals can be deterred by the firm prospect of prison, incarceration among violent offenders. If you’re some soft-handed wall street trader, you’re not gonna wanna end up in gen pop, and if that’s a certainty for your crimes, you’re not gonna commit those crimes.
princess leia
@WaterGirl: We can only hope!!! But they won’t like any of the entitled attitude, for sure!!!
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
cocainewhite privilege is a hellva drugPhylllis
@HumboldtBlue: Is it just me or is Linus kind of an asshole?
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
New York Jets fans are hopeless
TS
The Judge sounds like he is talking to trump except for the sentence
“no-one is above the law” Seems the SCOTUS are so close to announcing trump is above the law, I’m not sure this will hold.
FootnotesFaulkner
@Baud: 15 minutes for 9 years. Sounds like her business skills are almost as good as 45*’s..
WaterGirl
@Nukular Biskits: Correct. I had mentioned that in an earlier comment, but not in that one. Sorry if that was confusing.
mrmoshpotato
@suzanne:
Objection!
HumboldtBlue
@Phylllis:
He is, and the Great Pumpkin is stupid.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I liked the parting shot:
HumboldtBlue
Latest Harris ad
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I agree with you – that whole scene was surreal.
edit: At least I agree with what I am guessing you think! :-)
VFX Lurker
@Starfish:
I don’t care about a person’s demographic or their reasons. I will judge citizens by their actions this November.
If we lose this November, I’m blaming every. Last. Eligible. Citizen who did not vote for Harris-Walz.
Non-voters.
Third-party voters.
Trump voters.
Every. Last. One.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue:
I couldn’t help laughing out loud, even though it’s not funny that this awful, evil man had all that power and wants it back.
WaterGirl
@VFX Lurker:
That’s exactly what I wrote in a letter to my entire family in Nov 2016. And I have one family member who is still angry at me for saying that.
Craig
@Chet Murthy: exactly. I have a former friend who went to Federal prison for 5 years, no parole, for embezzling 500,000 bucks from old ladies retirement funds when he was a financial advisor. He likely wouldn’t have done that if he’d been aware of the actual risks. He just thought he’d never get caught, and if he did it’d just be a slap on the wrist. Oops
Starfish
@VFX Lurker: I think we have a pretty good shot. People who were not going to vote for President are voting for President. People who were not going to help out are writing postcards now.
I am not saying “relax nothing to worry about” because it is too close for that, but I am saying that I am more confident than I was.
And this is a strange thing for me to say because I am a complete Eeyore.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
👍
zhena gogolia
@VFX Lurker: Me too.
Chet Murthy
@WaterGirl: Good for you, WaterGirl! I feel exactly the same way, but there is one hitch. My mom lives in TX, and I’m trying to get her come out to CA for the weeks around the election. TX makes it -hard- to get an absentee ballot[1], so it’s likely she couldn’t vote unless she were physically present. Which, as it turns out, she’s adamant about: she says “they won’t run me out of my home”. Thing is, it ain’t like she has an arsenal and lives behind a defensible perimeter. If the thugs of Tarrant County decide to “teach those brown people a lesson”, there’ll be nothing she can do about it.
So I’m torn on that.
[1] During covid she applied, and was rejected, so she was unable to vote in 2020.
Baud
@Chet Murthy: Proud mama.
TBone
Sally Field’s introduction of the movie The Times of Harvey Milk with Ben Mankiewicz was great, and she left no doubt who she will be voting for. Has Sally Field officially endorsed elsewhere? Because she just did on TCM! She was very entertaining and spunky!
Chet Murthy
@Baud: foolish mama. This is Tarrant County, where a high-ranking county official said that if TCFG loses the election, they’ll have to take matters into their own hands and there’ll be killing. He made a direct threat. And if the shit comes down, one of -us- will have to go there to pull her out.
She’s being a selfish asshole.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@TBone: Brave woman. She was the first female test pilot.
TBone
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: Sally Field the movie star (I had the spelling wrong).
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: That ad is a perfect lead-in for this:
Just wait; TCFG is going to demand the election be postponed.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@TBone: Here’s a photo of her in her flight suit (link)
Gretchen
@CaseyL: Someone said that singsong tone Trump uses is one that hypnotists use.
Jackie
OMG! This will definitely get TCFG the MAGA and confederate states vote and win the election!! 🙄
HumboldtBlue
@Jackie:
He’s gonna sue Mother Nature. Or the Jews. Madge Greene is blaming “them” for causing the hurricane to hit red states.
Here’s another excellent ad from the Harris campaign.
TBone
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: 😆 oh 🤦♀️
Suzanne
@BR: I was part of that huge turnout. So cool to see Future FGOTUS Doug, Even cooler to see Michael Stipe and Jason Isbell.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
Don’t forget, she was the Flying Nun! Not your standard sort of flight suit, but it counts, imho 😁
SomeRandomGuy
Meh. 9 years in jail isn’t throwing one’s life away – or if you think it *is*, GET YOUR FUCKING ASS ON TO WORKING AT SENTENCING REFORM NOW, JERKOFF!
Ahem. The “jerkoff” is merely the intellectual masturbation displayed in the referenced tweet. It’s okay to jerk off; do it in private, and don’t show off the results, okay?
(My point: if an 18 year old accidentally killed another in a fight, 9 years wouldn’t likely be called “throwing one’s life away”. But a white woman doing something deliberately, defiantly, stupidly, illegal, now it’s “throwing one’s life away.” I’d be down with something like:
“Imagine giving up everything, your honor, your integrity, and even your very freedom, in slavish devotion to a total assclown like TFG.”)
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: That’s another great ad! 👍🏻
topclimber
Did she go off into conspiracy land after her son in the military was killed (if I am remembering this correctly)?
Gretchen
@Starfish: Harris met with Arab-Americans in Dearborn, Michigan today. I hope it helps. Those who are mad that she wouldn’t let people who oppose her talk at the convention don’t understand what conventions are for.
Chet Murthy
@Gretchen: They didn’t let Black Lives Matter speak at the convention either, IIRC.
prostratedragon
@SomeRandomGuy: She’s 69 years old. Nine years will put a significant dent in the only life that matters — remaining life.
satby
@Nukular Biskits: never?
geg6
@BR:
Also Michael Stipe. In front of the Cathedral of Learning at my alma mater. Damn, I got an invite but couldn’t make it. No idea who this Isbell guy is (I am to a country artist but since I hate country, he will remain unknown to me), but I’ll bet it’s a party. And just as aside, Pitt plays the Tarheels tomorrow and I am sure there will be some fundraising and volunteer efforts promoted there. I got an email from the alumni association about donating.
Jackie
I can’t wait for DonOLD to hear about this! Hopefully, this is just the beginning of TCFG’s hemorrhaging of losing billionaires to Harris!
Gretchen
@Chet Murthy: Could she vote on the first day of early voting and then go immediately to California?
Chet Murthy
@SomeRandomGuy: If a 69-year-old killed another person in a bar fight and got 9yr, we wouldn’t call that throwing one’s life away either. We’d call it just punishment for a heinous crime. And this jamoke Peters committed a heinous crime, too. She’s getting away easy.
Chet Murthy
@Gretchen: Oh, ha, I don’t know what early voting is like in TX. I’m sure she does: she’s been a election judge several times there. But she refuses to leave at all, so it’s all moot.
Bill Arnold
@HumboldtBlue:
Red counties. We have standards.
(Fort Bend County Texas (Beryl) was a bit sloppy. Bad hurricane controller(s)!)
Gretchen
@Chet Murthy: Exactly. And Black voters aren’t voting for Trump because of that.
Suzanne
I mailed my ballot today. Feels fucken great.
Gretchen
@Chet Murthy: I looked at the Tarrant county website and it said early voting starts Oct. 21. I hope you can convince her to pay you a little visit in early November.
Chet Murthy
@Gretchen: and if a black vote or decided not to vote for Harris because she did not espouse ” defund the police” then I would be exactly as angry at that black voter. The only difference is that it’s much more likely a black voter is native born and soThey did not have to swear any oaths in order to be citizens. But like me There’s a good chance that Arab American votersAre naturalized And therefore did have to swear that oath. I still remember that oath of naturalization, I remember when we gave up our Indian passports so that we could get American ones.
TS
Then there is this one
https://apnews.com/article/michigan-election-fraud-charges-d274ed39e3f298f3e75a44dfb38be4c4
No indication of who they were voting for – but this comment was telling
I keep remembering the Texas woman jailed for 5 years because she thought she was eligible to vote – she didn’t get the benefit of “no malicious or criminal intent”
Sandia Blanca
@Chet Murthy: Hi Chet! Here’s a form from the Texas Democratic Party you or she can fill out to request a vote-by-mail ballot: txdem.co/vbmrequest (it’s a Google doc). Instructions are on the linked page. After you submit the form, a document will be created and mailed to your mother for her to sign and mail to the county (address provided). Please let me know if you have questions about this.
Chet Murthy
@TS: nor, IIRC those Florida ex-cons who were told by election officials that they could vote, only to find themselves in the crosshairs once they did so
and there’s a big goddamn difference between voting once when you’re ineligible, and voting twice! Anybody who votes twice, the presumption has to be malice. Nobody Innocently forgets that they voted just a couple of weeks before.
SomeRandomGuy
@prostratedragon: While what you say is true, it illustrates my point: she’s had 69 years to do what she wanted; she’s thrown away honor, integrity, honesty, any sense of justice, all for a total assclown.
But she’s alive. She can find friends to hang with. She can write letters and read books and take classes. She’s not going to come out of jail at the age of 27 with a felony record, and will never have to hunt for work with a felony record. Ergo, I argue, she hasn’t thrown her life away.
BR
@Suzanne:
That’s great! I couldn’t find any video of the event online.
What’s amazing is that Doug is getting this kind of turnout. I don’t remember Dr. Jill Biden drawing crowds like this before.
BR
@Gretchen:
They’ll never be satisfied — I already saw complaints that she met with one group of Arab-Americans but not the “right” group of Arab-Americans so She Sold Us Out.
TS
@CHETAN R MURTHY:
I found the video of her arrest amazing – without the privilege she may not have survived the arrest given her response.
ArchTeryx
@Ken: If she’s got a djinni, it’s probably Bartimaeus. And she just got punked.
Honus
@Lethe: “People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.” ― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
rikyrah
😂😂😂😂😂
Enjoy jail
Jackie
Good news for S. Carolina voters!
Jackie
@BR: And we all know about Melania’s crowd sizes…
Oh wait; never mind.
HumboldtBlue
@Sandia Blanca:
This is why we read this blog.
TS
@BR:
But the media – never report on the missing spouses from the GOP nominees, nor trump/Vance never seen together – and rarely give more than a couple of lines to democrats supporting spouses and supporting each other. I really want to know
are the scared of trump
do they really want him to win this election
Chet Murthy
@TS: Part of why I know I’m a bad person, was that I was just -rootin’- for ’em to taze the fuck out of her.
Chet Murthy
@TS: A couple of days ago there was a link to an article about Usha, describing how she’s intimately involved in Juicy’s speeches and messaging. I find it difficult to believe that such an article got written without the participation of the subject, but hey, I guess it’s possible. If she did participate, then ….. she’s all-in on Fascism.
stinger
@Suzanne:
Yay you! 🇺🇸
prostratedragon
@HumboldtBlue: A match made in heaven!
Gretchen
@Chet Murthy: I really don’t get Usha. Trump is stirring up hatred against her own kids! Does she think they’ll be spared somehow?
My son-in-law is Indian-American, and my grand babies look a lot her her children. I’m well aware that having an American birth certificate won’t protect them when they rile up the mob.
Sandia Blanca
@HumboldtBlue: I’m a volunteer for the Texas Dems’ Voter Assistance Hotline, and so possess a treasure trove of such arcane information. It’s always a good day when I can share it with someone who could use it.
Chet Murthy
@Gretchen: Maybe she thinks they can pass. And she wants the money and power. I mean, her career at that law firm has got to have given her a taste for the real thing, real power.
sdhays
@TS: The hack gap is a part of this. Democrats believe that if spouses don’t want to be part of the campaign, that’s their right. Republicans don’t respect that. They see it as an opportunity to insinuate things.
So, reporters can’t report “some say”. They would have to make the insinuations themselves, and they aren’t going to do that, especially for Democrats.
TS
@Chet Murthy:
I’m often late to threads – so missed a chance on the Liz Cheney discussion – but I can hold a grudge for forever – inherited that from my Dad.
My thoughts on the privilege of white folks when it comes to the law are not printable in any format. They think they are above the law, and the money and who they know often reinforces that thought.
Perhaps its a good thing that trump turns his back on them – might just win a few more votes for Kamala.
sdhays
Speaking of the hack gap, I wonder if it might be a good time for some “anonymous Democratic advisers” to whine to the media that the Harris campaign is making a “grave mistake” focusing too much on Donold since they “worry” that the Donvict is spiraling and “won’t make it to November” and JD might be the actual nominee by Election Day.
All nonsense, of course, but it might be an effective way to inject more stories of Donold’s descent into the media. Harris can’t directly say “Trump’s a wannabe Hitler and he’s losing his mind” since it muddies the message – is he a bad man or just not competent? But it’s something that can be used to rile him up and depress his fans.
prostratedragon
@Gretchen: And ironically, also people looking for a fight.
BR
@sdhays:
This is brilliant. Know any Dem insiders you can suggest this to? :)
Craig
@Chet Murthy: Me too, but I knew they wouldn’t. White lady in an expensive coat.
wjca
I think that’s conditional on “good behavior”. Is she capable of that? Does she even grasp what that might mean, here in the real world?
KSinMA
@Honus: Well said.
Chet Murthy
@wjca: She’s a soft-handed white collar criminal, and an -old- one at that. She’ll figure out quick.
wjca
Gonna be busy times for the Secret Service VP protection detail. (If, God forbid) TCFG wins.
wjca
She got arrested, tried, convicted, and senenced. All without figuring it out. So perhaps not.
Chet Murthy
@wjca: I don’t wanna say over-the-top cruel things that I don’t really mean, so I’ll stick with “I’m sure she’ll learn eventually.”
Two rabbits
@TS:
I read an article in the Detroit Freep about those double voters. Couldn’t really judge how much criminal intent there was. The Michigan voting laws have changed quite a bit in the last few years, so confusion. The early voting capability was mostly new this year. So there are three ways to vote: absentee, early and regular in-person on the big day.
I think there is a way to change your absentee after it is sent in (“spoil your ballot”)? Two of them said they never received the absentee ballot, So perhaps someone else intercepted it and forged it. At least two of them were elderly, so you have the whole MCI/dementia possibility. I guess it will be cleared up in trial.
More troubling is the poll workers. Two of them were charged for allowing/encouraging the duplicate voting. Plus it sounded like they also voted twice?
TS
@Two rabbits:
In Texas criminal intent doesn’t even get a mention – just guilty or innocent depending on your privilege.
Matt McIrvin
@Chet Murthy:
What if you believe incorrectly that your ballot was never processed? E.g. you check the website to see if it was accepted and it tells you it wasn’t, you wait long enough that you’re pretty sure it was lost in the mail, then you show up on Election Day but in the meantime the ballot actually was accepted.
One of the reasons I tend to vote early/by mail is that it gives me a second chance if something goes wrong–if the ballot was rejected somehow, I can still vote on Election Day. But that backup procedure raises the possibility of accidental double voting too.
I think that in Massachusetts, they say they’ll just throw out the second ballot in these situations, they don’t come down on you like a ton of bricks. Doing that in cases where there might be an inadvertent error just makes it more dangerous to vote, to my mind.
Barry
@RSA: “She’s 69 and can expect to live about another 20 years. She’s put herself in prison for half of her time left on Earth.”
If Trump loses, i would not be surprisedif she died much earlier.
AWOL
@PIGL: I’m weeping.
She tried to steal the will of her state’s nonpsychotic voters, as well as my own free will to exist outside her state in order to remain a free human.
I hope she rots, gnawed by vermin.
No One You Know
@Chet Murthy: Yeah. I think it’s hard for ordinary people to let go of old allegiances, and up to a point I understand it. When a Congresswoman did it–I think that was Ilhan Omar?–I was not so understanding.