2000 Mules and Refutations of The Left (VANITY)

5/8/2022 | rlmorel

[rlmorel]

Last night I watched the Dinesh D'Souza documentary 2000 Mules and was quite impressed with it.

From an integrity perspective, I think the True The Vote team did the right thing, setting the bar for judging movements of mules engaged in illegal actions very high (Criteria: A person had to have visited 10 ballot drop boxes as well as at least the location of a single non-profit stash house) and showing even that high bar would have changed the election. If they lowered the bar to say, fewer drop boxes visited, the election was a Trump rout of Biden.

I thought it was well produced. Of note to me was the attention to the production sinc conservatives have long come off as comparative amateurs when it comes to addressing people regarding issues from the media/entertainment space, which is no surprise to anyone who pays attention. And this was not only the exception, but hopefully a harbinger of things to come from conservative messaging.

For example, the intro to the documentary with the beat of the music (well chosen) and the CGI, showing a satellite streaking across space, and on the earth far below, appearing and disappearing red circles representing "geofencing" areas where data was purchased from legal commercial providers of cellular tracking information, was very well done.

It was as good as and worthy of any thriller movie produced at a higher budget that I have seen, and was impressive in that respect. (Unfortunately, this is necessary and not fluff. There are too many people who, if not hooked by a mechanism like that, don’t have the attention span to stay tuned, and will switch to something else. Sad but true.)

I also admired he logical presentation of the issue, followed by the various data elements used, layering and time synching the video evidence they obtained, how it affected the election, and ending with where they got the ballots from.

It was compelling to see the videoed reaction from the family of the elderly woman in the nursing home who has been in a mostly unresponsive state for years (according to the family sitting with her) to recount how astonished they were to find she had been voting in elections.

The led the observer along, deliberately explaining things (even some simple things they didn’t need to) which allows a wider distribution of the citizenry to follow along.

What I found in searching in Google, and visiting various links supplied there, is that the Google shaping of query results (Google was deliberately chosen, not some other engine which might return something less biased) to return to the user was very slanted. Google completely buried, obfuscated, and de-prioritized (placed on search result pages further back that might not be visited) results for me.

To anyone paying attention, this in not in the least surprising, though I suspect the vast majority of Google data consumers have no idea the returns on their queries are shaped to conform to Google's own ideological specifications.

What also was not surprising was the articles that came up at the top of the list, from Politifact, The Denver Post, The Mercury News and so on.

But what I was mildly unprepared for was the uniformity of the "rebuttals" in their language and approach, and the flat out boldfaced lies used to "debunk" Dinesh D'Souza's documentary.

In watching the documentary, one cannot deny this election fraud was widespread, targeted at key battleground states, and carried out in nearly the exact same fashion, in the same way, in the same time frame which indicates the efforts were coordinated at some level. (The pattern, repeated verbatim across the key battleground states and expressed the exact same way in the data (Non-Profit pickup points >> mules making rounds >> mules stuffing boxes with small numbers of ballots over time)

What surprised me was the uniformity of the rebuttals, all completely fallacious and having nothing to do with what was shown in the documentary, which is the surprising thing. In reading the rebuttals from various places, the similarity makes one think that not only did the source not view the documentary, but that they willfully ignored obvious and major parts of the documentary such as the key criteria they used to flag the cell phone in motion as being that of a "mule".

The Denver Post and The Mercury News: "Fact-checking “2000 Mules,” the movie alleging ballot fraud" (NOTE: both of these sites use the same AP output on this, but the key points of ignorance are):

• The group’s claims of a paid ballot harvesting scheme are supported in the film only by one unidentified whistleblower said to be from San Luis, Arizona, who said she saw people picking up what she “assumed” to be payments for ballot collection.

• “Ballot harvesting” is a pejorative term for dropping off completed ballots for people besides yourself. The practice is legal in several states but largely illegal in the states True the Vote focused on, with some exceptions for family, household members and people with disabilities.

• Alleged ballot harvesters were captured on surveillance video wearing gloves because they didn’t want to leave their fingerprints on the ballots. This is pure speculation. It ignores far more likely reasons for glove-wearing in the fall and winter of 2020 — cold weather or COVID-19.

• If it weren’t for this ballot collection scheme, former President Donald Trump would have had enough votes to win the 2020 election. This alleged scheme has not been proven, nor do these researchers have any way of knowing whether any ballots that were collected contained votes for Trump or for Biden.

PolitiFact: "The faulty premise of the ‘2,000 mules’ trailer about voting by mail in the 2020 election"

• This is their "Summary if your time is short":
  • The 2020 presidential election was secure and evidence from state and federal officials and courts shows no indication of widespread fraud. While authorities identified isolated cases of voter fraud, these instances were in such small numbers it would not have changed the election’s outcome.
    • A documentary by Dinesh D’Souza, a far-right commentator, furthers the myth that something sinister occurred with mail ballots during the 2020 election. D’Souza told Fox News that “mules” delivered 400,000 illegal votes. Experts say the evidence D’Souza points to is inherently flawed.
    • Many states have laws allowing people to return completed mail ballots on behalf of others, such as family members. Ballot drop boxes are more secure than standard mail boxes.

  • Here are some claims from the infamous "fact check" site: based on faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data, which is not precise enough to confirm that somebody deposited a ballot into a drop box, according to experts.
  • A video of a voter dropping off a stack of ballots at a drop box is not itself proof of any wrongdoing, since most states have legal exceptions that let people drop off ballots on behalf of family members and household members.
  • The movie is based on research by Texas-based True the Vote, a national conservative organization founded in 2010 that has spread misinformation in the past.
  • D’Souza’s argument ignores that in many states, it is legal to drop off a ballot on behalf of another voter, which is especially helpful for voters with disabilities or the elderly. Critics of this practice call it "ballot harvesting," while election administrators typically use other terms such as "ballot collection."
  • Such geospatial data is not precise enough to prove without uncertainty that a person submitted a ballot to a drop box, only that they came within a short distance of it, the Associated Press reported. There are many reasons why a person might repeatedly enter the zone where a drop box is stationed, as the boxes are often strategically placed in busy areas.

[Irish Eyes]

Bookmark

[Taxman]

Ping

[rlmorel]

In the documentary, they used two different bars that had to be crossed to determine if someone was a mule:

The highest, and most restrictive bar specified that a user had to pass the site of at least one Non-Profit, and pass up to 10 ballot drop boxes. In this scenario, assuming those ballots were for Leftist candidates and discounting those ballots (a valid assumption) resulted in a Trump win.

If they lowered the bar and specified that a user had to pass the site of at least one Non-Profit, and pass up to 3 ballot drop boxes, this scenario, (again, assuming those ballots were for Leftist candidates and discounting those ballots) resulted in a Trump landslide.

They make the point repeatedly that it doesn’t take a lot of votes to swing an election, it takes a smaller number of votes in the right places to do so.

[glimmerman70]

Yep. The excuses or reasons for the cheating is so ridiculous. They would be better off just saying the video is not true. It’s debunked and made up.

[rlmorel]

Of course they will. What is in question is, will their untruthful obstinance overpower our love of what this country has stood for and cause us to give up?

Personally, their bald-faced lying makes me less likely to get tired of their lies and more likely to keep pursuing a positive outcome for our country.

Indeed, nothing may come from it, but it won’t be because I gave up.

[beef]

They have all of this ping evidence, as well as videos. They need to produce air-tight evidence that the same person went from drop box to drop box, and that the pings correlate. If they can demonstrate this for just a few of the “mules”, it will blow the dam wide open. Otherwise, I wasted $20 watching this.

[rlmorel]

I agree that one can reach that logical conclusion, and it is disheartening.

But we already know that a huge number of Republicans just love their Chinese cash, or don’t want to be involved in the controversy wishing to sail along quietly, doing nothing and feeling important.

That is indeed disconcerting.

[Pete Dovgan]

Why are we having a discussion about illegal voting?

We are having this discussion because the data, drop boxes, illegal vote money by Zuckerberg, bribery, no signature verification, more ballots than people in counties, and 95% of Nursing home patients who voted in Wisconsin. Most importantly, and illegal in every state, was the Ballot Trafficking (taking the drop boxes to DNC headquarters/DNC persons) before going to be counted or like Milwaukee werein they just let the DNC operatives in with the voting boxes unsupervised.
THAT IS WHY!!

Bottom line, NOBODY with a brain believes we have secure elections. True to the Vote doesn’t have to demonstrate that the cheating mattered. They only needed to demonstrate, LIKE IN WISCONSIN, and IN GEORGIA, that there was obvious ‘irregularities’ and that those ‘irregularities’ are consistent over multiple States. That’s ORGANIZED CRIME. Bi-partisan or NOT.

While it’s a State’s right to run elections, it’s not a state right to cheat the public in an election. The SCOTUS denied a lawsuit between states about voter fraud, an ORIGINAL JURISDICTION case, because they don’t want to get involved politically. Having your vote counted, and matter, is the CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE OF OUR TIME.

[consult]

If we don’t see a massive sweep up of these felons (assuming this data is confirmed by law enforcement) in addition to massive changes in our “mail in ballot” handling we might as well not bother to ever vote again.

[icclearly]

“Indeed, nothing may come from it, but it won’t be because I gave up.”

Me, as well!

The absolute false information and lies are not targeted at people like you and me. It’s the other 60% to 90% of the people who buy the lies hook, line, and sinker.

Those people spend their time tuned into the echo chamber which is mass media and their brains become rewired. They believe the information they hear and see to be the only truth and the final word (CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, NYT, WAPO, etc). And then, they protest, vote, and act accordingly. That’s exactly how it works. It is not us — it’s those people who make up the majority of our population.

Anyone who disbelieves this should go out and proclaim to five random people why vaccines don’t work as we were told, why Trump was right about this country or that Russia has not destroyed our country — it is our so-called leaders.

The propagandist do all of this for one good reason. It works.

[Pocketdoor]

I haven’t seen it yet. By shining a spotlight on it I would think those that are guilty would be a little nervous. Maybe just enough that they will be afraid to do it again.

[nathanbedford]

My reaction is that Dinesh D’Souza has presented a very effective political argument. However, the so-called fact check from AP and other sources, although thoroughly biased and in some respects misleading, argue to the effect that the alleged deficiencies in the presentation are fatal in a legal sense.

Despite their biases, the fact checkers are correct but they are indicting the film for failing to prove a legally sufficient case when the film set out to make a compelling political and practical argument. One cannot look at the movie without drawing the conclusion that the shenanigans documented are so egregious that the vote count was unfair.

Rather than litigate every point it should be enough that every reasonable viewer would conclude that the election was stolen. For example, the fact checkers say that there is no evidence that the stuffed ballots were illegally dropped for Biden. Proving whom illegal ballots were cast for should not be required. It should be enough to know that improper ballots, even for unknown candidates, were counted in sufficient numbers to overturn the result. Therefore, the election should not stand because the process is so tainted that it loses legitimacy. The test is not whether the count is objectively reversed, the test is whether regular form was violated to an extent potentially sufficient to reverse the count.

Even if one accepts this contention, the problem of finding a court that would accept jurisdiction, that would acknowledge standing of the litigants, and one that would find that the remedy of setting aside the election is even available, is a very long shot.

Although it is unlikely that there will be any satisfactory legal ruling emerging nevertheless Dinesh D’Souza has rendered a very great service in pursuit of fair elections, voter motivation and fundraising.

This is a movie not a legal document and should be judged as such.

[red-dawg]

The "Fact-checkers" never address the first 20 seconds of the movie where he says
“We have put together I think the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”

[rlmorel]

They have already proven this, as a matter of fact, it is at the heart of their case.

Each phone has a unique identifier (I presume what is known as a MAC address for the phone or the network/cellular interface, and that is captured by legal, civilian organizations who sell the data to law enforcement.

So, using that, they can tell it is the same person. In summary, they can track an individual (not knowing who it is) over time, with location data. Here is a gif from the documentary that illustrates what they did tracking the movements of just one (ONE!) mule:

What makes this powerful are three things all on one unique cellphone:

1. The automobile course of the cellphone in one slice of time frame while that cell phone was making its rounds
   
   
2. The locations of the ballot drop boxes (red dots)
   
   
3. The locations of the Non-Profit "stash" houses (red circles)

Remarkable. And this is just ONE mule. They weren't going out at 2 AM for ice cream for their pregnant wife. They weren't going to work. They weren't going to a friend's house. They weren't on a joy ride. They were taking the most efficient route, probably with their GPS calculating it for them, and they went to places where the ONLY reason they would go there was to a ballot drop box.

[rlmorel]

Good to hear from you, nathanbedford!

It is clearly NOT a legal document. What it is...is a cudgel for the American citizenry who care to prod someone with a conscience or care to LOOK at the issue, which has NOT been done.

[rlmorel]

Someone took issue with the use of that, saying that it was taken out of context, blah blah blah which is exactly what the stupid PolitiFact people did deliberately to obfuscate:

"...The "2,000 mules" trailer begins with an out of context clip of Joe Biden talking before the election about pulling together "the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics." Biden was describing a project to help people learn where and how to vote legally, but the trailer falsely frames his quote as an admission to election fraud..."

Any thinking person (granted, there are many who are not including those at Politifact) would say "Oh sure. I know he was trying to say "...Voter Fraud Prevention organization in the history of American politics..." but I see the point of what he was doing as a documentary producer..."

D'Souza was (in my opinion) completely justified to use that verbal gaffe as a prop for his documentary.

[jdirt]

This is the rebuttal for cell phone pings data not accurate enough. We have to do our part. get as many people as possible to see the film and start calling fox and the people in georgia. https://www.flickr.com/photos/157925037@N03/52061762536/in/dateposted/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/157925037@N03/52061998614/in/dateposted/ I tried posting this with html. This is so frustrating. Honestly ive tried everything. I typed it in exactly how the sandbox shows. The first image is from the NY times pinpointing someone at mara lago using cell data and the other is a GA contact sheet.

[Jamestown1630]

That was one of the things I didn’t much like.

Most people realize, as you do, what he intended to say but messed-up in the usual Biden way.

But there are some - even here - who believe he meant and intended to say exactly what he did - that he admitted to fraud and flaunted it.

I think if they were going to use it, some statement of the irony of this gaffe would have been a good idea.

[rlmorel]

My belief is that it was one of those Freudian slips he is so famous for.

And boy, is he famous for those.

[beef]

I know how it friggen works. The evidence they have put forth so far is not irrefutable. LE is not going to take this ball and run with it. They have to prove the case beyond a shadow of a doubt before anyone will act on it. That is not fair, but it is the way things are right now. If they have the evidence they claim to have, let them document stop by stop video and pings correlated together. Otherwise it gets poo-pooed by the legacy media and it just fades into the mist.