A few notes...

One of the most infuriating parts of working through a pandemic is not being able to inform students that they were sitting in the same room as someone who had been exposed to covid. As far as I can tell, we have not had a major outbreak on campus, however, on Friday afternoon, I received four messages from the Dean of Students that a student is unable to attend classes. These are typically students who have been exposed to or have confirmed covid. Here are yesterday's numbers for covid on campus: 

I'm on the Galloway campus, and if the numbers the school gives at the end of the day corresponds to reality, one of my students is in there. They were responsible and attended online on Wednesday and Friday. I have one who was exposed, has no symptoms, and is in 10-day quarantine. The others are unknown to me. 

I am having surgery at the end of February. I really would like to not be sick before that happens. I suspect it would invalidate all of the testing that I went through before I postponed it in early January. Sigh. 

B

University to Employees and Students: "You're on your own, fuckers."

I've spent the last few years trying very hard not to think about what is going on outside the walls of my house. We start up in-person classes again next Tuesday at the worst point in the pandemic, and the administration at my school seems like it is dead-set on opening as if it were last semester, with covid under control locally because everyone has shots. And I think my misgivings about opening in the fall were ultimately unfounded. We were masked and vaxxed. Cloth masks, but that seemed to do the trick. Yeah, I avoided big crowds and met students outside of class online whenever possible, but there was little disease on campus. I know one person who was sick, and those she was in close proximity to did not contract the bug. I don't think that we could expect that to happen with omicron. 

A week ago we received an email from our Provost:

Dear Colleagues,

Happy New Year! We are excited to start the Spring 2022 semester.

As we embrace the excitement of returning to campus and engaging with our students, we acknowledge the accompanying concern of how to manage classrooms during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, we plan to start the Spring 2022 semester as per the planned calendar and course modalities.  However, please prepare accordingly, should we need to shift to an online modality due to concerns for health and safety related to the pandemic. We are closely monitoring the situation and our policies to maintain the health and safety of our campus community.

A detailed FAQ outlining campus operations is updated regularly to provide the campus community with timely information. We encourage flexibility, as we all navigate this uncertain time, and we remain sensitive to students, faculty and staff who may become ill due to COVID.

We recognize that you likely have more questions but wanted to provide an update and a summary of existing procedures and practices. Please see below.

 

Thank you,

D. Womblebritches

Provost  

This was followed by a handy list:

PLEASE FIND REFERENCE INFORMATION BELOW

As a friendly reminder, current policies provide guidance to manage the classroom. Adherence to State and Federal accreditation standards, and Middle States Commission on Higher Education, as outlined below, ensure [we] can continue to provide students Federal Financial Aid and maintain our accreditation to deliver higher education in the state of New Jersey (see below and references).

CURRENT COURSE MANAGEMENT POLICIES

[...] Procedure 2030: Course Attendance outlines expectations for course attendance, including what to do if a student becomes ill. In the case of contracting COVID, a student or employee should update the COVID-19 Reporting form in the [online] portal. The student would choose the “Student Life” tab, click red "COVID-19 Reporting” button and complete the form. If a student becomes ill and cannot complete the semester, and it is past the drop/add period, the University has a detailed website that outlines the Late or Medical Withdrawal process.

During the semester, if only a few students are absent due to illness or quarantine, a faculty member should continue to offer instruction in the face-to-face modality. However, if the number of absent students becomes significant, the faculty member can choose to temporarily switch to an online modality. Faculty MUST provide an updated course calendar to their Dean’s office to ensure that courses are compliant with applicable standards and to allow the University to track students for health and safety reasons in case of emergency.

If a faculty member/instructor becomes ill or needs to quarantine, they should follow existing practices for course coverage, for example:

·         Should the faculty member be quarantined and feel well enough to conduct class, they may temporarily provide online activities.

·         Should a faculty member be quarantined and not feel well enough to conduct class, they could use current school guidelines to create alternate course activities or arrange for a guest instructor.

·         In either case, faculty MUST provide an updated course calendar to their Dean’s office to ensure that courses are compliant with applicable standards and to allow the University to track students for health and safety reasons in case of emergency.

·         The Center for Teaching and Learning Design (CTLD) has some valuable resources and examples of online pedagogy that may be useful should a faculty member/instructor need to transition.

INSTITUTIONAL COMPLIANCE

While we fully support faculty discretion in pedagogy and course instruction, we are required to adhere to the State, accreditation, and Federal statutes.

·         [We are]  registered in the State of New Jersey and Middle States as a residential campus, which requires that students have 50% of their coursework Face-to-Face (see references provided below).

·         Thus, faculty are not able to shift their course modality for the entire semester. [We are] relegated to the internal modality definitions provided to Middle States and for Title IV designation.

·         The University is temporarily modifying its definition of a Face-to-Face class to 70% of class sessions held in-person (30% may be online), rather than 100% in-person (our current definition). This will give faculty the flexibility they need to ensure continuity of instruction. Meanwhile, the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Media Services revisits our internal definitions.

·         If a faculty member needs to temporarily provide online activities due to instructor illness, quarantine, or caring for those who are ill or are in quarantine OR due to a significant number of students being absent due to illness or quarantine, two-thirds of class sessions MUST be held face-to-face.

·         In addition to the attached Classroom Management Reference Materials, we also wanted to provide you with additional resources that could be used in the case of a faculty member’s absence from class. For additional ideas during faculty or student absence, view this resource on alternate course delivery on the Center for Teaching & Learning Design (CTLD) webpage and explore creative pedagogy ideas.

 

OK, so accreditation is important; we don't want to become the University of Austin, after all. I would note, however, that Middle States, our accrediting agency, which does not, to my knowledge, cram hundreds of people into residential lazarettos, has had its annual meeting remotely in both 2020 and 2021 (last month), whereas it had previous held the conference in-person in 2018 and 2019. If it is too risky for the accrediting agency to meet in-person, what's the justification for not suspending in-person requirements for the institutions it accredits?  

I thought it was perhaps promising that the Provost left open that little "prepare accordingly, should we need to shift to an online modality," which suggested, yeah, things might be bad.  The faculty and staff union clearly has been hearing from concerned faculty. We've looked at sister schools in the state and see that many of them are delaying in-person classes for a week or two while the curve is vertical.

That's not happening at my school. According to an email that I have gotten from my union:

Thus far, the university has failed to implement the following changes to ensure your health and safety in the workplace: 

1. Updating Our Masking Policy and Procedures to Reflect Current Data (i.e., recommend and/or distribute higher-grade masks such as KN95 or equivalents)

2. Updating all university vaccination requirements to align with new CDC recommendations for students and employees to “stay up to date” on their COVID-19 vaccines, which includes booster(s). 

3. Permitting faculty to teach remote for the first 1-3 weeks of the semester for any reason. We initially requested that the university permit online instruction for any reason for the first 1-3 weeks of the semester (similar to other New Jersey institutions), and later countered with a request to go virtual for the 1st week (through the end of drop/add week) ending on January 25th.  Management declined to adopt either of these recommendations, nor did they offer any alternative suggestions that would respond to these concerns.

All of these changes would have been welcomed. However, given that the university is committed to begin in-person classes on January 18th, they should do everything in their power to implement additional mitigation strategies of a) updating mask requirements and b) adding boosters (when people are eligible) to the vaccine requirement. 

The university is not only being obtuse and inflexible, but opaque; I have seen no attempt to explain the decision to "let 'er rip." This is the best I can come up with:

I like my job. It's literally the best job when there is not a pandemic. It is absolutely unconscionable to bring students onto campus when the pandemic is at an all-time high. 

So, what can I, a lowly peon do? I introduced myself to my students via email, letting them know who I am and what I'd like to accomplish this semester. (I do this every semester anyway.) I also was upfront with them my concerns about safety and asked them for their suggestions about how to make sure my classroom is as safe as possible. I floated some ideas to them, and having heard back from them I've gone forward and ordered over 300 N95s for my students. That's 3 per student, one for each day of the week we meet. We will be reusing them (yeah, I bought brown paper bags for them to store them in), and I'll have KN95s for students who forget or ruin their high-quality masks.

Someone has to do something. And I swear to fuck if I get sick, I'm going to convalesce in the waiting room of the President's office. 

B

Ray Epps--International Man of Mystery

I continue my series discussing claims related to election fraud and the riot at the Capitol last year, which is part of a discussion I am having with an old friend via text. In the most recent exchange, my pal brought up a person I had not heard of before, but who seems to be figuring large in the right wing media-o-sphere at the moment: Ray Epps.

one question. answer why ray epps was never investigated by the fbi in spite of being caught on camera instigating the run on the capitol. most people said get lost.

I looked up Ray Epps on Snopes, and sent that to my friend. The Snopes article is only two days old, so this really is a very recent story that's going around. Snopes concludes:

Ray Epps is a retired Marine with connections to a far-right anti-government militia group who traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally in support of Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election had been stolen. While in D.C., Epps was filmed telling other Trump supporters to go “into” the U.S. Capitol “peacefully.” In another video, Epps is seen de-escalating a fight between police and protesters. 

There’s no evidence to indicate that Epps went into the Capitol himself or that he committed other criminal offenses. As of this writing, Epps has not been charged with any crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack.

My friend continued:

Inciting an insurrection is illegal. Just because the guy didn’t go into the capitol, allegedly, doesn’t preclude him from having broken other laws. I would say a more legitimate analysis would look at what the many other protesters were charged with. There are likely plenty of people charged that did less than what epps did. 

Being a member of Oathkeepers doesn’t preclude him from being a fed agent. The government likely has planted agents in militia-type group before 

Alright, a big issue here is that we are now talking about legally charging people with a crime, and I know from any number of cases that the legal meaning of a word may be different from its colloquial use. 

According to Suzanne Spalding (a lawyer) and Devi Nair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the law states that seditious conspiracy is to:

conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof. 

Notice, however, that the crime is "seditious conspiracy." Conspiracy is defined as:

An agreement between two or more people to commit an illegal act, along with an intent to achieve the agreement's goal.  

Would you say that shouting in a room full of Trumpist yobbos is an agreement? I think it's a hard case to make, especially if, as my friend says, people mostly told him to pound sand. And the language of the law seems to be designed this way for a reason, to protect First Amendment activity. According to CSIS:

It is important to consider that federal law refers to “seditious conspiracy” as opposed to just “sedition.” There is the added burden of proof that an individual must actively be conspiring and taking steps toward a violent action against the government, not just making comments that seem to merely reflect that desire. This is to ensure that First Amendment activity is protected under the Constitution, and only actions that overtly demonstrate individuals’ plans to take dangerous steps toward overthrowing the United States’ constitutional government are charged.

Given that Epps seems to encourage people to go into the Capitol "peacefully," and since he is seen deescalating a confrontation between cops and protesters, it's perhaps not surprising that he has not been charged. Until there is evidence that he was in the Capitol, he deserves to live his life unmolested. It certainly doesn't mean that the FBI is "protecting" him any more than the FBI is "protecting" my friend. 

One further note before I go on: if Epps "incited an insurrection" and deserves to be arrested then Trump certainly does.  

Back to my discussion with my friend. He says:

the reality is it may or may not have been encouraged by feds. 

This is a weak version of the appeal to ignorance, in essence saying, "We don't know, but in the absence of evidence we assume it's true." But that's now how coming to conclusions works. My pal points out that the FBI has infiltrated white supremacist and militia groups before, and this is true, but unless the vast majority of the members of the Oath Keepers are known to be FBI, it makes no sense to assume that any individual is a fed. 

definitely lack of clear ROA (rules of engagement) by capitol police leadership, and a few knuckleheads that got caught up in the mania in the crowd. by and far 99.99% of the people there said fuck this and left. 

It looks like about an upper limit of 40,000 people showed up for the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, based in part on the 25,000 people who passed through Secret Service screening to attend. the low estimate of the number of people on the Capitol grounds illegally, who got there by beating their way past a police line, is about 2000. Suggesting that at least 1 in 20 participants ended up committing a crime that day, 3 orders of magnitude bigger than my friend seems to think. Some 700 hundred have been charged. 

you likely took the 1st article from a google search that placated what cognitive dissonance you have momentarily felt. Conveniently google placed that article at the top for you.

The first Google result I found was for a Ray Epps who was a former basketball player. I was pretty damned confused for a minute there. I teach about the Google algorithm (and other algorithms) in my first year seminar classes. I talk about the dangers of using services that feed you things that it thinks you want to over things that you need to hear. I know Google-Fu. My buddy then sent me a screenshot of his search from another website: 

This is the front page of [the] Quant search engine search of ray epps. Much different results. There are facts and views in those article that the snopes article naturally leaves out.

In fact, the first page of the Quant search first throws up a number of unintentionally hilarious, auto-generated T-shirt ideas based on my search:

After that, however, I do get the same list of articles/sources that my pal does. But--and this is important--I've literally never heard of almost any them. They have, from my perspective, no reputation, no authority. What are their standards of evidence? Do they have editors? What are their newsroom practices like? And when they are making an extraordinary claim, why should I take it seriously? From my POV, there seems to be no inherent reason to trust them.

So, let's click on a few links to see where my friend is getting his information from.

The first article I see is from the World Tribune and attributes unhelpfully to "Staff" "Who is Ray Epps and why has the FBI protected him?". No bias there. No siree.

And the basis for the conclusion that they've reached by the end of their headline, and I'm not making this up, is that some Republican badgered the Attorney General about him during a hearing, knowing full well that the AG can't comment on individual cases. That silence is not coverup; even if they weren't covering something up, he still wouldn't say anything about it. Also, the congresscritter seems to be concerned that the picture of Epps that was on a Most Wanted page had disappeared. But it's not like he's considered a top 10 criminal: his anonymous photo appears among hundreds of other anonymous people there at the Capitol. It would take Rain Man to notice that his photo had been taken down. This is an example of "anomaly hunting," which is common in conspiracy theories, paranormal investigations and other forms pseudo-research. The form is very similar to the argument from ignorance: "I don't understand something, therefore I understand that something nefarious is happening." No, you don't understand something so you don't understand something; you just can't insert a conclusion of the basis of nothing. 

Here's another poser that nobody seems to be asking: How could a group like the FBI be so adept at masterminding a coup but so inept that they'd post an image (and video) of one of their agents committing a crime? It's a classic, "They're omnipotent and also foolish" gambit that we see in conspiracy theories.

What about the next article in the Quant search results, Revolver? Welp, this is at the top
of their page:

Ah, a conspiracy theory site. The Deep State is not a thing. It's a phrase that started in Turkey to describe an entrenched military that actively slowed down reforms. It's now used to mean "any career employee of the government who does not instantly bend to the will of the executive." So it's a conspiracy theory site. Dismissed.

So, if a Quant web search is turning up crummy results, maybe we should go over and click the News tab... Oh dear:

To my good friend who said that Google "conveniently" put the Snopes article at the top for me, I say:

For Whom the Falun Gong Tolls

One of the things I have thought about as I plan my new course, American Conspiracy Theories, is whether or not I should announce on the first day that people who think that the 2020 presidential election was stolen are going to have a hard semester. The whole class is prompted by--in fact it's my response-- to the violence that took place a year ago. It's a question that is inextricable from the course's existence. I suspect that I will, because everyone needs a fair warning: I have standards.

Part of my preparation for what is sure to follow from that announcement is this short series about claims that the election was stolen. It's prompted by a conversation with a friend who has doubts and, when asked for evidence, kindly provided me with that evidence. I shall now, not knowing what exactly to expect, shall look at the second source on his list. 

This is a story from The Epoch Times called, "Undeliverable Mail-in Ballots in Georgia Were Double the Official Margin of Victory, Report Says." Because context matters, it is proper to evaluate the source because insight about their perspective may help you understand why the article was written. The Epoch Times is affiliated with the Falun Gong movement, a New Age movement that appeared in China in the 1990s and has been the target of the Chinese government's religious repression, which I agree is very naughty of China. That said, this paper is a consistently anti-Chinese government paper. As evidence of this, I refer you to when, in 2006, a reporter from the paper interrupted a White House event with the visiting Chinese president by shouting: "Evil people will die early." Fair and balanced? You decide. 

They are also a steadfast supporter and exponent of far-right politics, and they have grown popular in Trump world for their support of the Spygate conspiracy theory (which was debunked by the DoJ in 2019, i.e., under Trump). They also seem to have an obsession with communist subversion a la the 1950s, though they have every reason to not like communism, as mentioned above. The non-partisan News Literacy Project notes that the Epoch Times has run some questionable election stories. So, with their right-wing perspective in mind, let's look at the story. 

And the paywall is in the way. So I look up the first line and find where it has been posted elsewhere and land on a page that is trying to sell me a lot of bullets. The story is based on a report from a group I have never heard of, the Public Interest Legal Foundation. So, following the trail, I'm gonna leave the Epoch Times and look at PILF, which sounds more dirty than it in fact is. 

So, who is this group? Well, Politifact has only covered them once, and found that their 2017 press release claiming that Bryan County, GA voter rolls were "corrupted" was false, specifically:

The Public Interest Legal Foundation said Bryan County had corrupted voter rolls because it had more voters registered than the eligible population in the county. The foundation relied on the number of voters listed as inactive to reach that conclusion. 

That is a worst-case approach that does not account for the reality of voter roll maintenance in Georgia. Based on all the data, there’s no evidence that the Bryan County rolls are corrupted. The group took a number that reflected an effort to keep the voter rolls current and used it to cast the county in a bad light.

Not an auspicious start. So, let's go to the report... hang on, it's...literally 2 pages long.  It's main argument is 27,287 ballots were reported as "undeliverable" and that that number is larger than the margin by which Biden defeated Trump. The question that naturally follows is: 

SO? 

It was a tight race. Having a small margin of victory is the definition of a tight race. This is not a news story; it's not even slightly suspicious given the vast expansion of mail-in voting during the pandemic. You expect the number of undeliverable ballots to go up too, don't you? This simply is not an argument for doubting the veracity of the totals in Georgia. Furthermore, it's not especially surprising that the winning presidential candidate belonged to the party that also took two Georgia's two Senate seats. 

I wonder what it would take to convince someone to accept that the election was not tampered with? I mean, I guess you might if you literally called the Secretary of State of each state and got them to affirm on the record the integrity of their state election outcome, that would work. It just so happens that is precisely what the New York Times did. 

Since the report the news coverage relies on does not make a case for the unreliability of the election results, I simply can't conclude the election was fixed or fraudulent based on it. Sites and reporters who do should have to sit at the kids' table at the next White House Correspondents' Dinner.   

B

"Ghost Votes" in Arizona

I've recently been discussing election matters with a friend of mine who has doubts about the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. I asked for his evidence (as is my wont), and he took the time to send me a number of bits of evidence. For this reason, I'm taking each claim seriously and one at a time.

The first example was from The New American, who claimed:

A Grassroots Canvass Report of the 2020 election proves what we have been saying all along. The election was stolen and Biden is illegitimate. This is massive evidence of voter fraud.

They also claim:

TNA is not responsible for, and does not verify the accuracy of, any information presented.

This disclaimer makes sense since Dominion, the much maligned outfit that provided voting systems for the election, is suing large corporations for billions in damages and seems to have a good chance at winning. Smartmatic already has made Lou Dobbs grovel like a little bitch. 

I looked up “96,389 GHOST VOTES” and found a number of references to a report that was generated by what was described as a “grassroots” organization, the Voter Integrity Project. This group was founded by Liz Harris, a realtor who says she conducted a house to house survey. I can’t find a webpage for them. I found her realtor page, which she uses to promote her survey. So, yeah, it’s her. And I found the original report she submitted.

The expert commentary on the report uniformly says that her methodology is poor. She talked to 964 registered voters who did not cast ballots in the 2020 election. When asked if they voted, 330 claimed they did. So on the basis of that, she takes the number of registered voters who did not cast ballots and claims that ⅓ of all of their ballots were lost.

Some problems pointed out by election officials and outside experts:

• The sample was not a random sample of the population (notice it focuses on a subgroup).
• The study does not acknowledge that the fraction of people who are willing to talk to a canvasser is likely different from the fraction of people who aren’t.
• Lastly, some areas are oversampled. To get a sense of what this meant, I went to find a map of the Maricopa County precincts.

All of those little tiny subdivisions are voting precincts. After a frustrating game of Where’s Waldo, I found all 4 that were canvassed: Waggoner, Rittenhouse, Dunbar, Warner. The canvassers visited every house in Warner. Then there is a category called “Countywide,” which I guess is distributed throughout the district (in the words of the study: “A partial canvass was also conducted in precincts throughout the county”). Suddenly, what “oversampled” means is much clearer. Assuming (a big assumption) that “County Wide” represents a random sample of the whole district, these 4 districts hold their thumb on the scale. Not stating criteria for why you decide to survey certain districts is not the same as having a random sample. Different parts of town may be different or unique among the city. Are these affluent areas? Are these more walkable for some reason? Are there more houses? Who knows? That sort of thing would be in a professional report, but there is no guidance in the 11-page document Harris authored.

One other huge problem is that there is no accounting for the perceived social pressure placed on registered voters to affirm that they voted when they are asked about their voting habits. Polling is fricken hard.

Harris repeatedly says, “The canvass team can make sworn affidavits supporting these findings readily available.” Ok. Affidavits are nice, I guess. So I reached out to Harris to look at them. I have not yet heard back but will update this post if I hear back from her.

Those who would investigate any allegations of fraud have apparently asked Harris for this promised evidence, but she has not provided it. According to AZ Central:

AFP also reported this:

The Maricopa County Recorder's Office and the Maricopa County Assessor's Office also took aim at the report. The offices "have repeatedly asked Ms Harris to provide details that support the findings of her report. While we investigate any and all allegations of wrongdoing made, we cannot do so without credible evidence being provided," they said in a joint statement.

What are these two specific pieces of evidence? Two examples that showed up in the report itself were reported by AZ Central. The first was an address of a vacant lot that appeared on the cover of the original report, where supposedly unexplainable two votes had come from:

But an aerial map of the property, available online at the Maricopa County Assessor’s website, shows a house with a pool on the 4.3-acre property. Looks like a pretty nice house, too. According to realtor.com, it has five bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and upgraded maple cabinets in the kitchen. It was last sold in 2010. 

It also has two registered voters, according to county records.

Yikes! So, Harris updated the image to another vacant lot. This also did not go well:

But that property was a mobile home park in December 2019 and a person was properly registered to vote at that address. The voter requested that his ballot be sent to a temporary address within the county, which can be done legally for a year, according to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Assessor Eddie Cook.

Those are the only two actual examples of “fraud” offered in the report.

On the basis of this truly shoddy data, the guy currently running for the office responsible for Arizona state elections called for the slate of Arizona’s electors to be recalled and the election to be invalidated. Because of a skewed, nonrepresentative map of those little specks on the electoral map of a single county in the State of Arizona. I genuinely have questions about these people’s judgment. In the absence of proportionately extraordinary evidence, or really any evidence, to substantiate Harris’ extraordinary claim, I must conclude that this report is unproved and should be dismissed until better evidence appears.

What about the litigation over Maricopa County’s election results? Well, the Office of Elections has a list of the legal cases that were filed disputing the election. It’s devastating:

• Aguilera v. Fontes: voluntarily dismissed (7 Nov 2020)

• Donald J. Trump v. Hobbs: dismissed with prejudice following an evidentiary hearing (13 Nov 2020)

• Arizona Republican Party v. Fontes: dismissed with prejudice, and the Secretary of State was given permission to file for fees on the basis it being a frivolous lawsuit (18 Nov 2020)

• Aguilera v. Fontes II: dismissed with prejudice after an evidentiary hearing “for failing to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; or alternatively, denying the relief sought by Plaintiffs given their failure to produce evidence demonstrating entitlement to same.” (29 Nov 2020)

• Kelli Ward v. Jackson: dismissed with prejudice following an evidentiary hearing, in which the judge found “the evidence did not show fraud, misconduct, illegal votes, or an erroneous vote count.” The appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed this decision, “conclude[ing], unanimously, that . . . . the challenge fails to present any evidence of ‘misconduct,’ ‘illegal votes’ or that the Biden Electors ‘did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office.’” (9 Dec 2020)

• Bowyer, et al., v. Ducey, et al.: This sought to decertify the election and to give Arizona’s votes to Trump. After hearing the case the Court ruled to “dismiss this matter in its entirety”, because “[p]laintiffs failed to provide the Court with factual support for their extraordinary claims[.]” Additionally, the court noted that “[a]llegations that find favor in the public sphere of gossip and innuendo cannot be a substitute for earnest pleadings and procedure in federal court[,]” and, “cannot be the basis for upending Arizona’s 2020 General Election.” SCOTUS denied cert and the matter was closed. (13 April 2021)

• Burk v. Ducey: Made the same case as Bowyer, et al., v. Ducey, et al., which made dismissing it very easy. Also, the plaintiff didn’t have standing, it seems. (15 Dec 2020)

The person who denies the outcome of the election not only needs to make their own argument, but also needs to explain how all of these cases were roundly rejected. They are setting a very high bar for themselves.

Just for Shits and Giggles:

As one does, I was browsing the Liz Harris' campaign website, you know, just to see. And if you will indulge me, I came across the following nugget:

As someone who teaches a seminar on the history of alternative medicine at a Middle States accredited university, I found the Doctorate of Integrative Medicine fascinating. Washington, D.C. is in the Middle States region too. So I went to the Middle States website, if you’ll indulge me, and I looked up “Capital”. There are 2 results: 

Capital University of Integrative Medicine (or CUIM--teehee) is a former candidate for accreditation. Not formerly accredited, mind you. Former candidate. And gave up. It closed in 2006, after 10 years of … whatever the hell they did there. It says it was a “licensed graduate professional university,” but a google search of that phrase suggests that it is the only site in the history of the internet to have ever used it and that it is not a legally protected or especially meaningful term. But what about the campus of this august and storied institution of higher learning? Google Maps is revealing: 

It reminds me of the used book store in Philly that was the first place I visited after I was fully vaccinated. And I’m willing to bet that any degree granted by the bookstore is as meaningful as the one from CUIM. It now houses a handwriting camp, which is at least a useful skill. 

B