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The Vast Anti-Trump ‘Conspiracy’ - Time magazine reports there was ‘practically a revolution’ in America’s voting process in 2020. Was it good for the country—or just for Biden?
Wall Street Journal Opinion ^ | Feburary 8, 2021 | James Freeman

Posted on 02/09/2021 4:42:05 AM PST by Yo-Yo

Changing the rules of a game right before it’s played normally inspires skepticism, if not cynicism. But a new Time magazine report celebrates a well-funded effort to change voting processes and the flow of political information before the 2020 elections.

Time’s Molly Ball happily describes a “conspiracy” among the progressive left, big labor, big business and the Washington establishment to counter Donald Trump and suppress unwanted elements of U.S. political conversation before and after Election Day.

Like the various actors she describes at the heart of this vast campaign, Ms. Ball presents it as a virtuous effort to protect democracy from Mr. Trump and Covid-19. The participants in the conspiracy alleged by Ms. Ball certainly seem to have influenced the outcome. She writes:

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.

She later adds that “the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”

Many voters are bound to disagree. And even those who don’t may still want a dispassionate review of the various changes to U.S. voting in 2020 and a consideration of their impact.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Conspiracy
KEYWORDS: conspiracy; dsj03; trump
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The opinion piece continues:

***

“The first task was overhauling America’s balky election infrastructure,” writes Ms. Ball. She then explains how Team Anti-Trump deployed vast sums of money from federal taxpayers as well as private sources including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a limited liability company created by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The result was a massive shift to mail-in voting, “practically a revolution in how people vote,” says Ms. Ball.

Along with changing the typical process of voting, the campaign also involved an effort to persuade the public not to expect a decision on Election Night. Yet a hallmark of respected elections is reliably prompt reporting of definitive results. If nothing else comes of this election, let’s hope that states learn to front-load their campaign calendars. Whatever time people need to vote—and states need to count—that time must be given before Election Day, not afterward. Material numbers of ballots outstanding and uncounted after Election Day is a menace to the objectives of certainty, public confidence, and reliability that everyone should want to achieve.

Perhaps the most disturbing portion of the Time report is the description of the alleged effort to counter false political claims. Much of the political left has decided that censorship by media companies is superior to free and open political discourse. Writes Ms. Ball:

Laura Quinn, a veteran progressive operative who co-founded Catalist, began studying this problem a few years ago. She piloted a nameless, secret project, which she has never before publicly discussed, that tracked disinformation online and tried to figure out how to combat it. One component was tracking dangerous lies that might otherwise spread unnoticed. Researchers then provided information to campaigners or the media to track down the sources and expose them.

The most important takeaway from Quinn’s research, however, was that engaging with toxic content only made it worse. “When you get attacked, the instinct is to push back, call it out, say, ‘This isn’t true,’” Quinn says. “But the more engagement something gets, the more the platforms boost it. The algorithm reads that as, ‘Oh, this is popular; people want more of it.’”

The solution, she concluded, was to pressure platforms to enforce their rules, both by removing content or accounts that spread disinformation and by more aggressively policing it in the first place.... Quinn’s research gave ammunition to advocates pushing social media platforms to take a harder line.

Clearly those advocates were highly successful. Yet Ms. Ball makes no mention of the fact that the most consequential use of this censorship tool in 2020 was an abusive blocking of true information. Accurate New York Post reporting on Biden family influence peddling was suppressed by Twitter and other media outlets. Even people tempted to endorse censorship as a tool to ensure reasonable political debate must acknowledge that it failed miserably in helping to inform the public in 2020. The Time article suggests that this lesson, too, is being suppressed.

***

1 posted on 02/09/2021 4:42:05 AM PST by Yo-Yo
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To: Yo-Yo
full article:

https://archive.vn/PCW5x

2 posted on 02/09/2021 4:44:04 AM PST by kiryandil (New Movie: The Assassination Of Ashli Babbitt By The Anonymous Coward)
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To: Yo-Yo
"They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”

It depends on the meaning of the word "is". Or something.

3 posted on 02/09/2021 4:46:29 AM PST by ClearCase_guy ("I see you did something -- why you so racist?")
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To: Yo-Yo
Welcome to Amerizuela.


4 posted on 02/09/2021 4:49:02 AM PST by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Yo-Yo

Did Suckerberg break the law by failing to report his contributions in kind to the Biden Dictatoriat?


5 posted on 02/09/2021 4:49:19 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Ashlii Babbitt, Kevin Clinesmith, Seth Rich, Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Strzok, Ruby Freeman, Jim Comey)
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To: Uncle Miltie

AFL-CIO feature prominently in the article.
note their President, Richard Trumka, in the following Axios clip - clearly not happy (or pretending to be unhappy) with Biden announcing on his first day as “President” that he was shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline, destroying thousands of jobs:

Tweet: Jack Posobiec
Look at all the physical cognitive dissonance tells the AFL-CIO president (Richard Trumka) gives in this clip
He knows how bad he screwed up backing Biden
AXIOS VIDEO: 2m44s
7 Feb 2020
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1358561503801147393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

then note how Axios report on an interview with Trumka!

7 Feb: Axios: AFL-CIO leader: Clinton, Obama let down unions
by Jonathan Swan
AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka told Jonathan Swan in an interview for “Axios on HBO” that former Presidents Clinton and Obama didn’t understand unions’ importance — and were disappointments to organized labor because of it.

What they’re saying: “Joe Biden has surrounded himself with people that are worker-friendly, so that in the multitude of decisions that are made every day without the president being involved, they’re going to think about the impact it has on workers,” Trumka said.
“That’s a significant difference and a beneficial one for workers in this country,” Trumka added. “And it’s one of our reasons for optimism and hope.”

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — the last two Democratic presidents — “didn’t understand the importance of labor and the importance of collective bargaining,” he said.
“Both of them surrounded themselves with Wall Street people. And so all of their advice was coming from a Wall Street lens.”

Biden “still identifies as a blue-collar guy. ... He doesn’t aspire to be accepted by Wall Street. He is what he is, and that is a genuinely good human being that cares about working people.”

Why it matters: Trumka knows many union members feel burned by Obama and Clinton — and the Democratic Party, by extension — because of trade deals and other legislation that overlooked or was antithetical to organized labor...
Then Obama tried to seal the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a trade deal many labor leaders believed would send American jobs offshore...

The big picture: The labor movement — which has suffered decades of declining power and membership — may never enjoy a more favorable climate in Washington than now.
Biden is vowing to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen,” coupled with Democratic control of the House and Senate...
https://www.axios.com/richard-trumka-clinton-obama-biden-unions-4de0d284-e399-4fbd-9b29-dbcbd6c8991d.html


6 posted on 02/09/2021 4:59:32 AM PST by MAGAthon
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To: All
REWRITE DESK Time’s Molly Ball sap-happily describes a virtuous effort to "protect democracy" from Trump.
A “well-funded conspiracy” of the progressive left, big labor, big business and DC insiders, those able to tear
themselves away from tallying their holdings skimmed from phony funding bills
:
<><> they suppressed unwanted elements of political conversation before and after Election Day......
<><> they got states to change voting systems and laws
<><> they helped secure $100's of millions in public(?) and private funding.
<><> they fended off voter-suppression lawsuits,
<><> recruited armies of poll workers.
<><> got millions to vote by mail for the first time.
<><> successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation,
<><> and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.

Hmmmmmm.....busy little beavers, weren't they?

And the whole time Biden was hunkered down in his basement eating pudding cups....and Pelosi was getting her hair streaked.

7 posted on 02/09/2021 5:01:14 AM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use. )
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To: Uncle Miltie

Even if he did, so what?!?!?!

There’s no one to enforce whatever laws TPTB choose to disregard.


8 posted on 02/09/2021 5:01:25 AM PST by Roccus (Prima di ogni altra cosa, siate armati!)
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To: Roccus

Under the corrupt, child-murdering Congress and SCOTUS,
who SUBMIT to CCP, Malta, EpteinIsland, and anyone
but Americans, in 2021 in the USA, INC.
Law died, accountability died, Truth by msm had long died,
and the only two honest FIB agents were taken out
by the corrupt agency that LIVES to destroy Pres. Trump
and absolutely, positively ignore REAL corruption.


9 posted on 02/09/2021 5:06:03 AM PST by Diogenesis (Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Campaign donations are laundered through PACS and “non-profits.” Politicians, especially Democrats, profess to claim that there is too much money in politics so they pass various forms of “campaign-finance reform” then they take hundreds of millions of in-kind donations. It’s all so corrupt.


10 posted on 02/09/2021 5:08:14 AM PST by Freee-dame
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To: Yo-Yo

They brag about rigging it. Yet, it isn’t revolutionary.

When I was a child people often said “If voting really mattered they wouldn’t let us do it”.

I watched kids,older than me, head of to Vietnam. Many had wished to vote against the war, and so had their parents. It was LBJ’s war. Perhaps I didn’t take to heart that it was all predetermined by those in Washington DC or a cabal of rich elite.

I think my current internal conflict comes from an understanding that everything I was taught, everything I learned, was basically non-sense. I was taught to believe in a Republic, in a Constitution, of God given rights and a government that respects them. The Republic doesn’t exist anymore, and probably hasn’t for a long time. A rich cabal of elitist combined with non-elected bureaucrats, decide the fate of us all now.

Yes, with the events ‘bragged about’ in Time magazine we are not a “Fortified Democracy” we are nothing but a Fascist state, on the same path as Germany in 1933. These people are so busy patting themselves on the back from saving ‘saving us’ from Trump they fail to realize whey he got elected in the first place. He got elected to represent us, and they resented it SO much they went complete Fascist.

The reality is that you don’t protect a Republic by destroying it, and subverting it’s laws. You only create a Fascist state. I wonder, which of the German people, that cheered on Hitler during the 1930’s were ‘good people’? Which of the people that cheer on the subversion they brag about, are good Americans?


11 posted on 02/09/2021 5:08:22 AM PST by Pete Dovgan
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To: All
The "Secret Cabal" even suppressed unwanted elements of political conversation before and after Election Day......

AFTERMATH---REALITY CHECK
THIS JUST IN CNN president Jeff Zucker, 55, announces he will step down at the end of 2021 after almost a decade in charge
UK Daily Mail ^ | February 4 2021 CNN president Jeff Zucker will leave the news organization at the end of 2021 after almost a decade in charge. Zucker 55, told staff: ‘I’m going to stay and finish my current contract, which, as I said, will keep me here until the end of this year. ‘At that point, I do expect to move on.’ (Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk …

BACKSTORY Zucker at CNN and the MSM and social media quashed the Hunter Biden laptop story with such force b/c it showed that the cunning Chinese have thoroughly compromised the Bidens (and so many of the US elite), that the story simply couldn’t be allowed to be heard .......

To me, the crucial point is that CNN itself decided to ditch Hunter’s laptop story to save Joe Biden’s *** because many Voters have since said they would not have voted for Biden if they had known of the laptop’s incendiary contents. CNN’s Zucker provided extremely valuable services to the Biden Campaign AND the Democratic Party far in excess of Federal election Law.

Ergo, Zucker has unwittingly opened up himself and CNN to criminal prosecution.

SALIENT POINTS
<>Project Veritas, monitored and recorded CNN’s morning editorial conference call for some two months….
<>CNN PTB are heard plotting the “news of the day”
<>CNN head Zucker dictates the network’s editorial slant.
<>Zucker and his henchmen are in lockstep
<>CNN was heard manipulating news items, hand-picking stories to be reported, and how they will be presented……
<>CNN itself decided Hunter’s laptop story should be ditched to save Joe Biden’s ***.
<>Many voters said they would not have voted Biden if they knew about the contents of Hunter’s laptop.
<>CNN made sure candidate Biden was protected at all costs.
<>CNN is a criminal accessory after the fact, aiding and abetting, colluding in the Democrats’ election steal.
<> We need to uncover when CNN knew about the election steal….and when did they know it?

12 posted on 02/09/2021 5:09:24 AM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use. )
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To: Yo-Yo
The really critical part of this well-funded and massive conspiracy is that "our" Department of Justice sat by and watched while the Leftists carried this out - and then failed to investigate allegations of fraud.

They have, however, been active and zealous in finding anyone who might have walked somewhere around the Capitol on January 6th.

13 posted on 02/09/2021 5:09:26 AM PST by Chainmail (Remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence)
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To: Diogenesis

the censorship, which is ongoing, is the worst of it.

there is almost no media now. it’s all propaganda.

note the date of the following. well worth remembering:

16 Feb 2017: Youtube: 4m38s: Lou Dobbs Show: Obama creating a ‘shadow government?’ - Paul Sperry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nnTzkjRKhE

could be the best piece on the fraudulent election so far:

Youtube: 16m20s: 6 Feb: Unmasked: Have we uncovered the truth about the 2020 election?
posted by Pure Data
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsOXMi1E0tQ&feature=emb_logo


14 posted on 02/09/2021 5:10:03 AM PST by MAGAthon
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To: Yo-Yo
Epoch Times - Time Magazine Details the ‘Shadow Campaign’ Against Trump “They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it," Time magazine says
Feb 7, 2021 - Jeff Carlson
https://archive.vn/o/PCW5x/https://www.theepochtimes.com/time-magazine-article-points-to-a-controlled-election_3688393.html
15 posted on 02/09/2021 5:16:21 AM PST by kiryandil (New Movie: The Assassination Of Ashli Babbitt By The Anonymous Coward)
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To: Uncle Miltie

As I understand, many of the election efforts his company made were a violation of state laws - either in that the money didn’t go into a general pool, or in unequal application boosting one area at the expense of another, depending upon the state.


16 posted on 02/09/2021 5:23:17 AM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Yo-Yo

Of course we all should be figuratively screaming at the Republican Reps & Senators about how they all just sat on their a$$e$ and let the fraud happen. Yes the FedGov cannot directly dictate how individual states conduct the state’s elections, but these folks can individually lean on the people who sit on the state election boards and tell them to clean up their act. All current election laws in each state need to be reviewed and much of it terminated.

Of course this all presumes that the R Congressional contingent actually wants these swiss-cheese laws tightened up. As I have told Cornyn on more than one occasion, it appears that Republicans would rather serve in he!! than rule in Heaven. Being the minority means one can b!tch and whine and moan to their heart’s content and not bear the responsibility for anything.


17 posted on 02/09/2021 5:30:54 AM PST by ByteMercenary (Healthcare Insurance is *NOT* a Constitutional right.)
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To: Yo-Yo

Leave it to the UniParty’s American Media Machine to try to rebrand a “coup” as a “revolution”

gotta hand it to them—takes stones to attempt


18 posted on 02/09/2021 5:32:31 AM PST by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
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To: Yo-Yo

Of course we all should be figuratively screaming at the Republican Reps & Senators about how they all just sat on their a$$e$ and let the fraud happen. Yes the FedGov cannot directly dictate how individual states conduct the state’s elections, but these folks can individually lean on the people who sit on the state election boards and tell them to clean up their act. All current election laws in each state need to be reviewed and much of it terminated.

Of course this all presumes that the R Congressional contingent actually wants these swiss-cheese laws tightened up. As I have told Cornyn on more than one occasion, it appears that Republicans would rather serve in he!! than rule in Heaven. Being the minority means one can b!tch and whine and moan to their heart’s content and not bear the responsibility for anything.


19 posted on 02/09/2021 5:35:18 AM PST by ByteMercenary (Healthcare Insurance is *NOT* a Constitutional right.)
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To: MAGAthon

Let this be a lesson to union members. Your leadership screwed you. They backed a guy who killed tens of thousands of Union jobs within days of taking office. They worked against a guy whose policies created those jobs and who killed sellout trade deals and who even forced past bad trade deals to be renegotiated on terms much more favorable to you.

Your leadership is not working in your interests. Throw the bums out.


20 posted on 02/09/2021 5:37:00 AM PST by FLT-bird
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