Never be the first to stop clapping. 

This was the unwritten but well-known rule in Stalinist Russia.  If one was at a formal function and an important dignitary walked in, everyone in attendance was obligated to applaud until the dignitary took his seat.  This awkward clapping might go on for ten or more minutes, with nervous desperate glances to one's left or right, while the object of adulation would just stand there, coolly appraising his admirers, waiting for someone to break ranks.

Why not be the first one to stop clapping?  Because that's how the regime would identify those who weren't loyal and would promptly ship them off to the Gulag. 

Never one to be accused of being the first to stop cheerleading for the DNC, Andy Kroll of Rolling Stone Magazine recently published a piece titled "Wisconsin Is Ground Zero for the MAGA Effort to Steal the Next Election."

Pieces like this are always written the same familiar format.  Republicans = bad.  Democrats = good.  Democrats who say or do something that supports Republicans are treated as DNC turncoats (see how they treated senators Manchin and Sinema for not supporting the Democrats' latest voting legislation).  Republican turncoats get the "good guy" treatment: they're "heroes," "mavericks," "independent," "brave," "reaching across the aisle," etc.  (See how they treat Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their work on the J6 committee.) 

The most important player on the stage is the "nonpartisan" because such people are free from bias, which is the space the media would have us believe they occupy.  The nonpartisan is never to be questioned.  His motives are beyond reproach.  Most important, the nonpartisan always, without fail, will support the Democrats' argument.  Because if he doesn't, then he is obviously a covert Republican, and, in that case, he just gets treated like every other Republican. 

Mr. Kroll treats the "nonpartisan" Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) official Meagan Wolfe this way by saying she has spent her entire career in election integrity.  In relaying a conversation he had with a Republican attorney named Richard Heuer, he says Heuer "called its nonpartisan administrator, Meagan Wolfe, a 'very dangerous person.'"  Heuer didn't say Wolfe is "nonpartisan" — that is Mr. Kroll telling his audience that, so they know that Wolfe is beyond question.  Heuer is a Republican and therefore not to be trusted.  And since Heuer can't be trusted, the "nonpartisan" election official can't be "dangerous."

Kroll goes on to glow: "In person, [Wolfe] comes across as a pure elections nerd, her laptop festooned with voting-themed stickers, her expression brightening when she talks about voter databases or the auditing of voting machines.  As the nonpartisan chief of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Wolfe implements the guidance of six board members and ensures the agency runs smoothly. She is a public servant, not a partisan operative, and she says that makes her a convenient target."  Translation: Anyone who says otherwise will get the media attack dogs.

Does Mr. Kroll do any further digging to see why Ms. Wolfe may in fact warrant Mr. Heuer's criticism?  No. 

According to the Wisconsin Election Manual, the municipal clerk's duties include, but are not limited to, "supervision of elections and voter registration in the municipality, equipping polling places, purchasing and maintaining election equipment, preparing ballots and notices, and conducting and tracking the training of other election officials."  Is that what Ms. Wolfe and her staff did during the 2020 election?  Not according to the OSC Second Interim Report filed by Justice Gableman.

In it, he states that in order to get the $10M of Zuckerbucks, via the CTCL, the stated and implied conditions led to the Zuckerberg 5's municipal clerks and other staff sometimes eagerly stepping aside, and other times being pushed aside, "to let CTCL and its private corporate partners engage in aspects of election administration — including exclusive free access to WisVote data not available to the public and not for free (e.g. $12,500 for a copy of statewide WisVote data). ... CTCL and the private corporations, as revealed by the documents, had an ulterior motive in the WSVP to facilitate increased in-person and absentee voting in the Zuckerberg 5 and among their preferred racial groups."

If Ms. Wolfe is a "nonpartisan" and can't have any political motives or bias, then why did she and her staff step aside to abdicate the role for which they were hired and allow this outside non-governmental corporate entity to step in and do their job in these certain crucial areas?  Probably because those outside corporate entities gave them $10M (that we know about).  But that's not mentioned by the "deep diving" investigative journalist Mr. Kroll.

CTCL also gets the "nonpartisan" treatment.  "Tiana Epps-Johnson, the founder and executive director of CTCL, tells Rolling Stone that her organization is nonpartisan and 'backed by Republicans, Democrats, and nonpartisan officials.'"  So we can't question anything they do, either — even though they were created by Mark Zuckerberg and David Plouffe, the author of A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump.  And how could something supported by Republicans and Democrats alike be "partisan"?  (Ever heard of a Never Trump Republican?  Paul Ryan?  The Lincoln Project?  There are lots of establishment Republicans who detest Trump.  Having "bipartisan" support doesn't mean something is "nonpartisan.")

But these are more unimportant facts that are just glossed over.  Mark Zuckerberg donated more money than anyone in U.S. history to sway a presidential election for the DNC.  Gableman pointed out Zuckerberg's ties to Plouffe and his anti-Trump book in the report and his testimony.  But Mr. Kroll failed to mention these as well.  Seems relevant to the CTCL founder's claim of nonpartisan status.

Mr. Kroll's piece says the state Assembly's campaigns and elections committee invited attorney Erick Kaardel to testify at a March 2021 hearing and gave him a microphone "to spread his baseless theories without the committee even hearing from the subjects of Kaardel's allegations."  What are Mr. Kaardel's theories, and are they "baseless," as Rolling Stone claims?

Well, his theories are that:

• Zuckerberg's financing of partisan voter targeting and turnout efforts violated Wisconsin law.
• Partisan dark money groups had access to a ballot-tracking and harvesting application allowing direct, real-time access to WisVote and Badger Books.
• Numerous instances of nursing home voter fraud and forgeries were revealed
• Zuckerberg is financing the legal defense of Wisconsin election officials who colluded to turn over election operations to partisan groups in five key Biden cities

His report to the Wisconsin Legislature last month called to eliminate the Wisconsin Election Commission and decertify Wisconsin's election results for the 2020 election.  Unfortunately, there are precious few journalists who are willing to report honestly about the findings, so the public must read it for themselves if they wish to know what it actually says. 

As Mr. Gableman points out in the report (linked above), "a January 2022 ABC/Ipsos poll revealed that only 20% of the public is very confident about the integrity of our national election system."  That means in a country of 330 million people, if only 20% of them are very confident about the integrity of our national elections, then approximately 264 million of us are somewhat less than confident about the integrity of our national elections.  Does that then mean that all 264 million of us are "wrongly believing" that the last election may have been stolen?  Apparently.  According to people like Scott Bauer, the Associated Press, Andy Kroll, and the rest of the DNC stenographers in the "mainstream" "free" press, anyway. 

One wonders whether people like Mr. Kroll would continue to have jobs like "Washington Bureau Chief" of Rolling Stone Magazine if one of his "investigative" journalistic pieces ever found any wrongdoing by a Democrat.  I'm sure we'll never know because there's zero chance of that ever happening.  George Orwell said, "If you want to know who rules over you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize."  Seems as though there are more and more such people emerging every day — and they all seem to support the Democrats.  I for one stopped cheering for them a long time ago.

Mr. Higby is a Navy veteran, a patriot, and a lifelong Republican.  He’s an 11th-generation American and 5th-generation citizen of the People’s Republic of California.  He is a licensed private investigator, certified fraud examiner, and certified project management professional.  He has a Juris Doctorate and a Master's degree in criminal justice administration.  He is a modern conservative, meaning he is classically liberal.

Image: tom.arthur via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.