ELECTION INTEGRITY, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: Al Gore’s Revenge.

Now, let’s stipulate up-front that Gore’s arguments had some merit. The punch card system in use in Florida was, in fact, problematic. Hanging chads, and to a lesser extent, “pregnant” chads (dimpled, but not fully punched, ballot holes) could reasonably leave voter intent somewhat unclear.

However, the decision to decommission lever machines is another matter. According to an excellent 2012 article by Eliza Shapiro in The Daily Beast

The machine was developed in 1895 by Republic Steel of Ohio, says Ransom Shoup, a descendant of Samuel Shoup, the inventor of the lever voting machine, and the former president of Shoup Voting Solutions. “At one point,” says Shoup, “there were 8,000 machines in New York’s five boroughs. There were machines in 41 states.”

And the lever machines were, most importantly, mechanical. They relied on gears and sprockets to move, in essence, odometers on the back panel of the voting machines that corresponded to candidates’ names on the ballot. No amount of chicanery, short of reworking the entire guts of a machine, could cause the lever machines to generate false results. And, absent the ability of elections workers or other sinister political operatives to enter a machine and cast bogus votes (a near impossibility in a state like New York, which has long provided bipartisan supervision of all aspects of its voting process).

The lever machines did not do the math for you—elections workers (from both major parties) had to take the data off the “odometers” and hand-tabulate the numbers, and then telephone them in to their county’s Board of Elections. There was a slim possibility for mathematical errors, transposing numbers, or even, in those places with non-existent opposition party organizations, perhaps more sinister acts—but the machines were also exceedingly easily audited. And, with elections workers manually signing in voters (and comparing signatures to a published log) the number of votes cast needed to match the number of voters. It was not a fool-proof system, but it was pretty darn close.

Progress ain’t always better — and do read the whole thing.

HOW THAT BROWN DWARF GOT A RADIO TELESCOPE, WE’LL NEVER KNOW: Astronomers spot cold brown dwarf with a radio telescope, a first.

HOW ABOUT POLICE DEFUNDING, THEN? Austin homicides hit 20-year high; rise not linked to police funding, police say.

Earlier, From Bryan Preston: Austin Mayor Steve Adler Led Defunding the City’s Police Department. This Is What the Cuts Look Like.

PARTY OF DECENCY AND UNITY: NC first lady apologizes after admitting to ‘flipping off’ Trump supporters.

WELL:

Facebook and Twitter were squashing this news over the weekend when it concerned right-leaning statisticians.

DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Yale Faculty Political Contributions: 97% To Democrats, 3% To Republicans.

THE ERA OF BIG GOVERNMENT IS OVER BACK! Joe Biden’s ‘Transition Agenda’ is Full of Big Government Power Grabs.

MEDIA GOES FULL SERGEANT SCHULTZ: Fox News Cuts Off Kayleigh McEnany as She Details Alleged Voter Fraud.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Does He Think Trump Just Won? Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Leaving USA.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: What does it really take to get a rich and famous Democrat to flee the country after an election?

Answer: Make it look like the Democrat won.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Antifa goes after Democrats — again.
• YouTube assures you there’s no election fraud, comrades.
• Help Joy Reid count to 538!

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

COLD WAR II: China Works to Expand Influence in Caribbean.

Though Caribbean countries represent relatively smaller markets, they are of major strategic importance due to their close proximity to the United States. The Caribbean is also on China’s radar because many of the countries that recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty are located in the region.

“China’s objective is to gradually eliminate the recognition of Taiwan,” Richard Bernal, former Jamaican ambassador to the United States, told the New York Times.

Beijing also hopes for assistance from Caribbean countries in multilateral organizations. China has capitalized on influence gained through foreign investments, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, to gain control of United Nations agencies.

China’s efforts to make inroads in the Caribbean have already paid dividends. Beijing declared its intention in September to seek a “permanent friendship” with Cuba. This week, Cuba followed the lead of the Chinese mission to the United Nations in calling for an end to “white supremacy” and “institutional racism” in the United States, among other talking points often used by the American far left.

Including presumptive unverified president-elect Joe Biden.

INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM: ‘Ardently feminist’ Title IX offices promote hookup culture while presuming male guilt: report.

COMMUNIST FRONT CORPORATION: Zoom Settles With FTC for Allegedly Lying to Everyone About Encryption.

As Zoom’s stock price plunged amid promising news of a covid-19 vaccine development on Monday morning, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with the video conferencing company over a “series of deceptive and unfair practices that undermined the security of its users.” The FTC hopes the settlement will send a warning to any companies making unfounded claims about user privacy and security.

The FTC said in a press release on Monday that since 2016, Zoom misled customers by falsely claiming it provided “end-to-end, 256-bit encryption” for its users’ video conferences. Instead, the FTC said, “it provided a lower level of security” that was not end-to-end encrypted at all. The company also “secretly” installed software on Mac users’, and made false claims about the security of video recordings stored in Zoom’s cloud, the FTC said.

Don’t trust CCP-approved software.

12 LANDMINES TRUMPERS SHOULD LEAVE BEHIND: Joy Pullman has a dozen landmines Trump administration loyalists should embed in the government before their departure, assuming legal challenges do not reverse His Fraudulency’s claimed victory.

DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Student calls out bias against conservatives on campus. The response proves her point.

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KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: McConnell Reminds Dems About the 4-Year Election Tantrum They Just Finished. “After listening to the Democrats scream ‘RUSSIA!’ and ‘NOT MY PRESIDENT!’ since 2016 I’m kind of hoping this gets dragged out a little longer just to annoy them. They deserve much worse as payback for their unconscionable behavior of the last four years. Much, much, worse. If all the retribution they have to deal with is a few days of being aggravated on social media because Trump doesn’t concede when they want him to then they’ve gotten off lightly.”

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Shot: ‘Who the Hell do you think you are?!’ Jake Tapper learns the hard way why threatening Trump supporters is never a good idea:

● Chaser: CNN’s Jake Tapper Wrote Book Claiming Bush, Gore Plotted to ‘Steal the Presidency’ in 2000.

IF YOU STRIKE HIM DOWN… 5 Reasons Conservatives Should Have Hope For The Future.

I remember hearing the smart set tell us how a Herman Cain would be an abject failure as a candidate or president, so we’d better go with a traditional politician, such as John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Jeb Bush.

Then came Trump, dismantling the entire paradigm. One of the most beloved politicians in our history, he showed us how a successful American with a love for his country can do great things, things politicians have been promising for years, such as lowering unemployment for minorities, increasing wages for the working class, sticking it to communist China, creating peace in the Middle East, giving us energy independence, restructuring bad trade deals, withdrawing from foreign entanglements, and revolutionizing the federal judiciary.

Meanwhile, the Democrats get to watch a doddering hack grapple with the wily Sen. Mitch McConnell for four years, while trying to pick up the pieces of an economy they tanked to get Biden elected president and nothing else. Or maybe they’re looking forward to a President Kamala Harris doing her “Excuse me! Excuse me!” routine like that vice principal you mocked in high school.

You almost have to laugh. While they’re locked into “establishment mode” for four years, pantomiming gravitas with their whole “adults in the room” schtick to impress the seven remaining people watching CNN, the right will be having a blast retaking the House, nurturing a new generation of Trump-like candidates, and choosing another unconventional leader for president in 2024 that we actually like and don’t have to hold our noses to select. We’re done with the establishment, and it feels so liberating.

Read the whole thing.

I’d rather keep the White House and continue the revolt, but if it turns out over the next few weeks we only get to keep one, the movement is more important than any single election.

HAHA: Liberal Media Scream: After 4 years of Trump hating, CNN’s Stelter urges ‘cooler heads’.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Democrats have zero excuses for complaining about Trump contesting vote counts.

The core principle here is not complicated. In the United States of America, all legal ballots must be counted; any illegal ballots must not be; the process should be transparent or observable by all sides, and the courts are here to work through concerns.

Our institutions are built for this. We have the system in place to consider concerns. And President Trump is 100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options.

Twenty years ago, when Florida came down to a very thin margin, we saw Vice President Al Gore exhaust the legal system and wait to concede until December.

And if Trump had been declared a narrow victor, you can bet Democrats would be filing lawsuits everywhere, with the press on their side, as it always is.

Plus: “More broadly, let’s have no lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election. And who insinuated this one would be illegitimate, too, if they lost again.”

BIG IF TRUE: Mick Jagger Says He’s ‘Looking Forward to an America Free of Harsh Words and Name Calling’ Following Biden’s Win.

Given the exceedingly “harsh words” contained in the lyrics of Rolling Stones songs such as “Brown Sugar,” “Star Star” and “Some Girls,” Jagger apparently announcing that the Stones will never tour America again is big news indeed.

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NEEDS TO IMMEDIATELY INVESTIGATE THIS CESSPIT OF RACISM: 57% Of Haverford Students Boycott Classes; President Says She Will Resign If ‘Adequate Progress’ Is Not Made On Racial Justice Demands.

SAD: NASA Chief Plans To Step Aside Under Biden.