D'Souza's 2000 Mules

[ZiprHead]

‘2000 Mules’ offers the least convincing election-fraud theory yet

“2000 Mules” can be broken out into three basic components. There’s the geolocation-based material that’s the heart of D’Souza’s assertions about the election. The second half of the movie is a broader effort to undergird the geolocation claims, an attempt to build a foundation of how and why a rampant ballot collection scheme might have been undertaken. And then there’s the third part, a sort of cable-news-style panel conversation with D’Souza and several other conservative and right-wing pundits. (All of those pundits, incidentally, have shows with Salem Media Group, which served as executive producer of the film.) By the end, the pundits have been convinced that rampant fraud occurred, with former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka outlining all of the evidence that had been presented “empirically” in support of the claim.

There is no such empirical evidence, by a long shot. That geolocation data from Phillips and Engelbrecht’s group, True the Vote, which also has executive-producer credits on the film, is used as a purportedly data-driven latticework on which everything else hangs. But beyond lots of harrumphing about how revealing this data is, we see very little of it.
The theory that Phillips and Engelbrecht present is that nonprofit organizations employed people to collect ballots and then drop them into drop boxes in various cities. They call this “ballot trafficking,” a term meant to connote illegality akin to the transport of narcotics. The people carrying the ballots, then, become “mules” and the nonprofit groups “stash houses.” To test this theory, they obtained a large amount of anonymized cellphone geolocation data and tried to figure out how often individual phones appeared near drop box sites or near those nonprofit groups.
By itself, this is a dubious approach. As the Associated Press pointed out in a fact check of the film, there’s no way by just using cellphone data to know whether someone visited a ballot drop box, particularly since those boxes were installed in high-traffic areas. Last month, I spoke with an expert on geolocation who made clear that the imprecision of phone geolocation would make specifying that a phone was actually near a drop box (and not, say, 10 feet from it) nearly impossible. The film makes repeated comparisons to federal law enforcement’s ability to identify people who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, but even if the phone’s location is off by 20 feet, it’s still obvious when you’re inside a large building. (In one shot, the film shows geolocated data inside the Capitol — with positions surrounded by large circles of uncertainty that make this point clearly.)


In essence, we're just asked to trust that True the Vote found what it says it found. That by itself is probably not wise.

Who does D'Souza thinks he kidding?

 

[prideandfall]

Who does D'Souza thinks he kidding?

kidding? nobody - this isn't a movie to kid anyone, or convince anyone of anything.
this, like his other 3 or 4 movies, is part of the huge machinery of rightwing self-delusional justification.

for some reason, the right feels an unstoppable compulsion to circle-jerk themselves over the blatant bullshit that they peddle in.
they can't just be content to go "yes, we're authoritarian racists who wants all the power and money in the hands of a few old white men, and we'll do anything we feel we can get away with to enact that ideology" - they HAVE to wrap it up in this elaborate fiction about how reality operates in a way that it clearly doesn't in order to pretend that they're... victims? protagonists? i don't get what the fuck their deal is.

d'souza, like that project veritas dipshit, are just sadsacks who tripped over their own dick and fell into the lap of some obscenely, inhumanly wealthy piece of shit who wants to blow a thimble of their fortune on slapping together some pretext for the shared delusion that they're the 'good guys' ... or at the least, that everyone who isn't explicitly them (ie, regressive white men) are the 'bad guys'

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, he is only kidding those that are vested in this lie. What they all seem to gloss over is that Trump didn't take these specific claims to court. A minor indicator that this is one of the most bald faced political lies in our nation's history.

 

[ZiprHead]

The book does, however, regurgitate the content of the film "2,000 Mules" including misleading claims, which have been thoroughly debunked by fact-checkers and critics across the political spectrum. Former Attorney General Bill Barr called the film's underlying premise "indefensible."

Despite those flaws, "2,000 Mules" has emerged as a leading theory for supporters of Trump's baseless claim that he actually won the 2020 election. For Trump and some of his most diehard fans - among them candidates for public office - the project has served as "proof" of the stolen election.

The film's allegations were often vague, and largely based on data that have not been made public. As a result, some elements of the film were difficult, if not impossible, to fully fact-check. The book adds new details, however, which NPR has been able to scrutinize.

NPR contacted organizations named in the book for comment about some of D'Souza's written claims. They referred to passages in the book as "malarkey," "inaccurate," and "trash."

One group, whose data are cited in the book, said it would request a correction. Another raised the possibility of legal action.

 

[laughing dog]

D'Souza is a grifter who preys on gullible conservatives.

 

[Bronzeage]

D'Souza is a grifter who preys on gullible conservatives.

That is a growth industry.

 

[bilby]

D'Souza is a grifter who preys on gullible conservatives.

That is a growth industry.

And a tautology.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Election officials confront a new problem: Whether they can trust their own poll workers

Several incidents in Michigan have raised wider fears about whether poll workers could use their position to sow doubt in the 2022 midterms.

www.politico.com

 

[ZiprHead]

Election officials confront a new problem: Whether they can trust their own poll workers

Several incidents in Michigan have raised wider fears about whether poll workers could use their position to sow doubt in the 2022 midterms.

www.politico.com

Our ballots just arrived today.

 

[ZiprHead]

Here's what changed in Dinesh D'Souza's '2,000 Mules' book after it was recalled

In August, the conservative publisher Regnery abruptly recalled Dinesh D'Souza's election denial book "2,000 Mules." NPR compared the recalled version with the version that Regnery released today.

www.npr.org

After an abrupt recall and a two-month delay - along with the threat of possible legal action - the election denial book 2,000 Mules has reached bookstores, though with a few significant changes.

Most notably, a passage in the recalled version of the book that accused specific, named nonprofit organizations of involvement in illegal "ballot trafficking" has been rewritten, softening certain claims and outright removing the names of the groups. Separately, sections of the book that purported to link election fraud to antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement have also been deleted.

"I am going to reveal the names of several of these nonprofit stash houses in my book '2000 Mules,'" D'Souza tweeted in July.

The initial version of the book set to be published in August did just that. D'Souza accused five nonprofit groups of acting as illegal ballot "stash houses."

Copies of the book had already reached bookstores, when, just before the release date, the publisher Regnery issued a recall, though they did not catch every copy. NPR managed to find the book on the shelf at a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

The film and the recalled version of the book said that True the Vote used a database from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to make this connection.

ACLED objected to that characterization, and requested a correction from D'Souza.

"This is not the type of analysis you can use ACLED data for, and it is highly unlikely that these conclusions have any basis in fact," a spokesperson for ACLED previously told NPR. The spokesperson said every reference to ACLED in the recalled version of the book was "incorrect or misleading."

Now, ACLED does not appear anywhere in the book. Several paragraphs that attempted to rebut NPR's earlier fact-check about the ACLED data have been removed. And claims that the "mules" had connections to antifa or BLM are gone, too.

"ACLED requested a correction from the publisher based on the incorrect references included in the recalled version of 2,000 Mules, and we are happy to see that these references have ultimately been removed from the final copy of the book," said Sam Jones, ACLED's head of communications. "Our data do not support any of the claims or conclusions that were previously linked to ACLED."

 

[blastula]

Probably going to need to do a lot more retracting.

Georgia voter sues over false election fraud accusation in ‘2000 Mules’

An auditor from Gwinnett County who was falsely accused of election fraud in the film “2000 Mules” is suing the movie’s makers, Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote, alleging they lied to advance a phony narrative at his expense.

www.ajc.com

 

[Patooka]

Being convicted of fraud doesn't make one an expert on voter fraud.

 

[ZiprHead]

Donald Trump Makes Perhaps His Wildest Claim Yet About 2020 Election

Yep, the former president's still at it — and he got an enabling boost from the director of the "endlessly debunkable" film "2000 Mules."

www.yahoo.com

“Yeah, ‘2,000 Mules’ was one way,” Trump replied. “That was a very conclusive way because you were taking government tapes. ... And then, of course, they voted six, seven, eight times. As much as they could in the local area. Some of the people went back, I guess they said 28 times in one day, to vote at different places.”

Trump did not say where he got the figure. An executive producer of “2,000 Mules” claimed on Fox News earlier this year that the average amount of visits by said mules was 38.

Trump alleged the ballot stuffers didn’t overdo it because that would have been detectable. “They’re very smart,” Trump said.

Obviously a lot of Republicans that will believe this swill have no idea how elections are run.

 

[Elixir]

Obviously a lot of Republicans that will believe this swill have no idea how elections are run.

Ignorant morons are the strength of the GQP of course. They are undaunted by the fact that they cannot identify ONE fucking ballot placed by “mules”; they’re conditioned to believe in magic mules by the Orange Oracle.

“Of course there’s no evidence; that‘s how magic mules get away with stealing elections - they’re fucking MAGIC!”

Americans are so stupid, they totally deserve what they’re about to get.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Being convicted of fraud doesn't make one an expert on voter fraud.

An expert won’t get caught and convicted. ;P

 

[ZiprHead]

Election officials sue conservative voting group over refusal to produce ballot-harvesting evidence

The Georgia State Election Board is asking a judge to order a conservative voting organization to produce information to help investigate its claims of ballot trafficking in the state.

apnews.com

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia State Election Board is asking a judge to order a conservative voting organization to produce information to help investigate its claims of ballot trafficking in the state.

The Texas-based True the Vote group filed complaints with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in November 2021, including one saying it had received “a detailed account of coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” during the 2020 general election and in a runoff election in January 2021.

True the Vote’s assertions were relied upon heavily for the film “2000 Mules,” a widely debunked film by conservative pundit and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. The film featured surveillance video from drop boxes in Atlanta’s suburbs showing people depositing multiple ballots. A State Election Board investigation found that those people were submitting ballots for themselves and family members who lived with them, which is allowed under Georgia law.

After receiving the group’s complaints two months later, Raffensperger’s office opened an investigation. Investigators in April 2022 issued subpoenas to True the Vote for relevant documents and information, including the identity and contact information for people who True the Vote said provided details about the alleged ballot trafficking.

A lawyer for True the Vote in May 2023 wrote a letter to a state attorney saying that a complete response to the subpoenas would require the organization to identify people to whom it had promised confidentiality and that it could not do that. The lawyer wrote that True the Vote was withdrawing its complaints.

State Election Board Chair William Duffey responded in a letter two weeks later, saying that the board’s investigation into True the Vote’s “serious allegations” was ongoing. Therefore, he wrote, he would not allow the complaints to be withdrawn and asked the state attorney general’s office to seek enforcement of the subpoenas.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Trump and his Willard Hotel Gang....
>summoned swing state electors to the WH to try to get them to change their states' electoral votes from Biden to Trump
>called Arizona and Georgia's secys. of state to "find more Trump votes"
>wanted whole urban area vote totals thrown out
>sent phony electors to state houses to try to steal the electoral vote (is this a brand-new crime in our history?)
>wanted Pence to refuse to certify the election
>when all else failed, gleefully sent a mob to break into the Capitol (furnishing Trump with 187 minutes of televised entertainment)

But it's the Dems who did the fraud...except...no one can name a hotel or other HQ for their gang and no one has successfully convinced a judge that there is a case. Swear to God, or Zeus, this country is chock full of insanely ignorant (and sometimes insane) right wingers. These crimes played out right in public, but they have contracted Trump's mental illness and can't tell a lie from a fact.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Trump and his Willard Hotel Gang....
>summoned swing state electors to the WH to try to get them to change their states' electoral votes from Biden to Trump
>called Arizona and Georgia's secys. of state to "find more Trump votes"
>wanted whole urban area vote totals thrown out
>sent phony electors to state houses to try to steal the electoral vote (is this a brand-new crime in our history?)
>wanted Pence to refuse to certify the election
>when all else failed, gleefully sent a mob to break into the Capitol (furnishing Trump with 187 minutes of televised entertainment)

But it's the Dems who did the fraud...except...no one can name a hotel or other HQ for their gang and no one has successfully convinced a judge that there is a case. Swear to God, or Zeus, this country is chock full of insanely ignorant (and sometimes insane) right wingers. These crimes played out right in public, but they have contracted Trump's mental illness and can't tell a lie from a fact.

Obviously what's really going on is the Democrats are much better at election fraud than the Republicans and the Republicans are jealous because they can't catch them in the act!