Very Little of the Election Went as I Wanted or Expected

The Transition Integrity Project's plans are coming to fruition.  Today's situation matches the scenario they called Game One, a contested election.  So far, at least, the details of how the scenario played out isn't matching what's going on in the various states.  For any value on tracking events versus how TIP modeled them, I present the first week here, from their document:  https://paxsims.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/preventing-a-disrupted-presidential-election-and-transition-8-3-20.pdf  

Turn One (November 3 – November 10)

The Trump Campaign began the game by calling on Biden to concede based on the election night in-person voting returns, which skewed toward President Trump and the GOP. The Trump Campaign also used the “bully pulpit” of the Presidency and its influence with right wing media to lock in the election night returns, call into question mail-in ballots or the legitimacy of post-election day vote counts, and enlist the support of Republican officials in several states to immediately halt further vote counting.

The Trump Campaign team asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) to deploy federal agents across the nation to “secure” voting sites and prepare the National Guard for possible deployment to maintain order against potential protests. Attorney General Barr instructed the DoJ to support litigation that would prevent further counting of mail-in ballots.

On election night, the Biden Campaign declared that victory was imminent and called for every vote to be counted. The team mobilized a network of influential bipartisan elites, elected officials, and retired military officers to speak to the press and denounce any effort to suppress counting the vote. The Biden Campaign also called for peaceful rallies, echoing a call to count every vote.

GOP Elected Officials publicly supported Trump’s victory and claims of voter fraud but stopped short of supporting the deployment of military forces. Democratic Elected Officials were proactive in the states where they held offices to ensure votes would be counted and to build bipartisan coalitions to oversee and protect the count.

I see none of these things happening, but it's a prediction for this week, not today.  Unlike the TIP, the ham-handed idiocy of the vote counters has been obvious and caught national attention.  Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man notes just a few of these idiocies.

"Voter Fraud in Wisconsin – Massive Dump of Over 100,000 Ballots for Biden All the Sudden Appear Overnight".

"Voter Fraud in Michigan – Massive Dump of Over 200,000 Ballots for Biden All the Sudden Appear Overnight". Note that "Biden got a 138,339 tranche of votes in Michigan without a single vote for Trump, in case you were wondering what is happening". That's flat-out statistically impossible.

"TENS OF THOUSANDS OF BALLOTS Dropped Off in USPS Boxes at Detroit Absentee Ballot Processing Center at 3:30 AM After Election". Draw your own conclusions. Money quote: "According to Michigan election law, all of these mail-in and absentee ballots had to be submitted before 8pm on Tuesday night in order to be lawfully accepted and counted for the election. This means the city of Detroit potentially sat on these ballots for hours."

Leaving the National scene for Florida, the very first thing I posted on in this election cycle, the constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage passed - barely - statewide.  "Passing" for amendments requires a 60% vote and the last number I saw was 60.8%.  We can confidently predict this is going to hurt the people it claims to want to help because laws like this virtually always do.  Likewise, we can confidently predict that Florida cost of living will be undergoing inflation from this law in perpetuity.  Exactly how much is the part that's hard to calculate. 

Over at Confessions of a Street Pharmacist, Divemedic points out one of the effects of laws like this: he's going to have to raise the rent at a few places he rents out. His costs have gone up already and this will raise them more.  That money has to come from somewhere, and since every penny a business has comes from its customers, the customers will have to make up that shortfall.  I'll take odds that chances are renters aren't far from a min wage job, if they're not at min wage itself.  Their cost of living will go up as their income does.  All of their costs. 

This is the big lie behind the "tax the rich" mantra we've been hearing from Biden. The commercials say, "your taxes will NOT be going up unless you make more than $430,000." Maybe, maybe not, but one thing is clear: if you buy anything that a business sells and they tax businesses, your costs are going up. Technically, it's not your taxes going up, your expenses are going up to pay their taxes.