Juneteenth is repeatedly called a celebration of freedom, which is the "longest-running African-American holiday".

Juneteenth is a fake Black National Socialist holiday, no different from the completely made-up racialist holiday of Kwanza. It is not real, and it does not exist. The traditions are not real (because they didn't happen), the celebrations are intentionally designed to subvert the standing holiday that already exists and balkanize black into a Race-Socialist block supported by a completely fictional narrative about the actual holiday in question.

First, what it supposed to mark.

It is supposed to mark the order that Major General Gordon Granger set forward on June 18th 1865. The Civil War was effectively over at this point; and federal armies/militias were mostly marching unimpeded through the former Confederate States of America. The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse took place in April and saw the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the cessation of the Army of Northern Virginia, effectively ending the Eastern front. The capital of the CSA (Richmond, VA) was captured in March already. Jefferson Davis (President of the CSA) was already captured in May. The Confederate government was also dissolved in May, and Lincoln was assassinated in April. Juneteenth takes place almost entirely after the Civil War nearly entirely ends, and the madness of "Reconstruction" slowly begins.

The only thing that hasn't happened is the passage of the 13th Amendment which abolishes slavery. This will be important.

Granger's order is simple. The city of Galveston, Texas had been in a condition of rebellion and insurrection upon his arrival. Hence, in compliance with the Emancipation Proclamation (which took effect on January 1st, 1863) slaves in territories which were in a condition of rebellion or insurrection were now no longer considered the property of their masters.

That's basically it. Most sources that are pretending to be honest will tell you that this didn't fully end slavery (because 13th Amendment hasn't been passed), nor did it end slavery in all of Texas, let alone Maryland (which wasn't officially in rebellion after Lincoln abolished most civil liberties in the state and conducted mass arrests of members of the state legislature.) This is important for later.

While it's entirely reasonable that former slaves in Galveston, TX would have celebrated the abolition of slavery (as they nearly riotously celebrated Lincoln's arrival in Richmond as if he were the 2nd coming of Christ); the question is whether or not this whole "continuously celebrated" concept is true.

We would assume that "Emancipation Day" (rather than Juneteenth), would have at least been celebrated by the residents of Galveston. If it were a normal holiday, we should expect to see many very old traditions that emerge naturally over the past 157 years, as we see with any other holiday. Easter may be about the resurrection of Christ, but the Americans created an "Easter Bunny" icon for the event that naturally emerged. This is because over time, populations will simply invent new traditions as they add to the ones they already engage in. A yearly celebration will change a bit over time with the passing generation; and the population will demark the annual celebration.

Unless, of course, the population didn't mark this yearly passage of time and didn't celebrate it because they didn't even know a holiday existed.

Certainly, we should expect the generation of slaves to celebrate the ending of their slavery; and as they moved away from former plantations (assuming they didn't become share-croppers) that they may return to see family and friends still living in Galveston. But, there would have to be a very strong cultural force to keep the celebrations going every year for the next 157, through multiple generations of non-slaves and immigrants that happened post-slavery. There should be regular and consistent cultural artifacts related to Juneteenth, Emancipation Day, or Jubilee Day through history.

But we don't really see much in the way of evidence of this:

• Here are the mentions of "Emancipation Day", "Jubilee Day", and "Juneteenth" in literature
• Here are the internet searches of "Juneteenth" in Google going back to 2004

"Emancipation Day" and "Jubilee Day" are archaic terms by 2004, so it's not relevant to search for them in internet searches, as Juneteenth is clearly more popular.

What we see from the literature search is that Juneteenth is briefly mentioned from the period of 1866 to 1880. Emancipation Day is a more popular term, most likely because it is a formal term that actually explains what it's referencing, rather than the vernacular Galveston term of "Juneteenth". Jubilee Day gives some very large results, but these are almost entirely from Queen Victoria's Grand Jubilee & Diamond Jubilee in 1887 and 1897. To be clear, these references dwarf mentions of Juneteenth, and these are mentions of a foreign monarch that is outside of the US. Compared to other Holidays, even other artificially constructed ones like Father's Day, Juneteenth is simply barely heard of.

If these celebrations were so continual and important, surely there would be pictures, video, audio, transcripts, or even drawings of Juneteenth celebrations across the US... but of course, there isn't. I see many mentions of the 1866 Juneteenth Galveston celebration having 10,000 people attend; but I can find little actual evidence of the event. For our purposes, as I mentioned before, it is reasonable to assume that slaves celebrated their emancipation as a local holiday. But I see precocious little evidence for other Juneteenth events. I see no photographs of the 1896 Tulsa, Oklahoma Juneteenth celebration. I see no evidence of the of the 1924 Richmond, VA celebration. But perhaps that is the fault of Jim Crow preventing such celebrations. But that doesn't explain the lack of pictures from the 1934 Harlem, NY celebration; the 1958 Chicago, IL celebration; or the 2003 Oakland, CA celebration. Just in the same way you will find zero celebrations of Kwanza in Africa at any time.

This is because: it didn't happen. You are being gaslit.

You don't remember your black friends talking about their annual Juneteenth celebration that they need to schedule PTO for because they didn't, because they don't know what a "Juneteenth" is. Almost nobody did.

Where this changes is when Black Nationalist Socialist Revolutionaries of the 1960's and 1970's begin bringing the holiday out from the past and demanding it be celebrated as an inherent racial holiday, like Kwanza. This includes entire cultural traditions manufactured from whole cloth that don't exist naturally even within black culture. Don't you think you might have heard about Malcolm X's 1958 Juneteenth speech? Don't you think you would have heard about W.E.B. DuBouis's 1924 commemoration? Don't you think you would have enjoyed Muddy Watters' Juneteenth Blues music? Wouldn't Thomas Sowell have mentioned his yearly Juneteenth celebration with his family growing up in the deep south? Don't you think Historically Black Colleges around the US would have regular Juneteenth celebrations if it fucking existed?

As we can see from the Communist fist, and Pan-Africanist flag of the current Galveston celebration: it's clear that the purpose of this holiday is to demark Leftism and re-write history to pretend the Black National Socialists are the vanguard of "Black Culture".

Going back to that whole, 13th Amendment thing. Part of the reason for the 13th Amendment was to end the political controversy that Lincoln had engaged in regarding slavery. The Federal armies had been "freeing" slaves as early as 1861 by simply seizing them as property, by declaring them "contraband"... which was rather illegal. The government can't literally steal "property". Nor can it simply draft slaves into the army as slaves, while claiming to free them, and to not pay them. The Emancipation Proclamation was an attempt to back-rationalize that as a war measure. However, the Emancipation Proclamation still doesn't exactly hold up under federal or constitutional law, which is what you need the 13th amendment for. If slaves don't exist, then you didn't seize property, and the whole thing is moot.

Why would a Race Communist / National Socialist like this idea? Well, this is a military governor occupying a town and abolishing property at the point of a gun without judicial overview. They like it, because they want to replicate that action to everything you own, including your car. They're not good people; do not mistake them as such. These Black National Socialists would have no problem killing slaves, freeing slaves, or taking slaves; as long as they can set an emotional precedent around their fundamental premise that stripping property at the point of a gun is absolutely moral. Claiming to vanguard black culture, is just an aesthetic.

Additionally, this is the Black National Socialists attempt to craft a separate Volkish racial history within the United States that parallels it. As you can see from this 2011 Smithsonian Artilce, Juneteenth is an attempt to replace July 4th as Independence Day. Juneteenth is the affirmative vision of the Black National Socialists imposing a "new" Independence Day that "represents black people"; while there were a plethora of articles condemning Independence Day as inherently racist & white supremacist. In fact, they are normally quite up front about this.

And, I do believe this effort will backfire, and Juneteenth will have to be forgot again because the primary way of commemorating Juneteenth, at this point, is a mass shooting.

The original site contains a PDF of the decision: https://archive.vn/9heOD

Kari Lake lost her election contest and she will appeal.

This doesn't really surprise me, but I do like how this seems to have turned out here. I actually think there's a lot of good news here because the judgement basically ignored the defense's [Maricopa's] claims (except for one or two times). The rest of the judgement is not filled with exaggerated hyperbole about how Kari Lake is a terrorist trying to undermine democracy. Instead it's basically just saying: "Hey, you didn't meet the burden of proof". To be honest, given this decision, the entirety of the Maricopa's case seems to be based around actually trying to cover thier own ass in the public sphere, and failing to do it properly. I think this case has actually hurt their credibility much more than it would have if the case hadn't been televised. Thank fucking Christ for that!

Here's the burden that she had to get through:

The burden of proof in an election contest is on the challenger. Findley v. Sorenson, 35 Ariz. 265, 271-72 (1929). “The duty of specifying and pointing out the alleged illegal irregularities and insufficiencies is a task that should be undertaken by litigants and their counsel.” Grounds v. Lawe, 67 Ariz. 176, 189 (1948).

The election is basically valid until explicitly proven to be false by the challenger.

As for the actions of elections officials themselves, this Court must presume the good faith of their official conduct as a matter of law. Hunt, 19 Ariz. at 268. “[A]ll reasonable presumptions must favor the validity of an election.” Moore v. City of Page, 148 Ariz. 151, 155 (App. 1986). Election challengers must prove the elements of their claim by clear and convincing evidence. Cf. McClung v. Bennett, 225 Ariz. 154, 156, ¶ 7 (2010).

This is a big deal. ALL election officials are ASSUMED to be operating in good faith until explicitly proven otherwise. That's a crazy legal standard in any normal environment, but this is how bias the law is in favor in assuming the legitimacy of an election. Imagine a police corruption case where every police officer's testimony is assumed to be true until explicitly proven by the plaintiff to be false. If it's false, then you are legally required to assume it's an honest-to-goodness whoopsie-doodle until you prove malice and intent.

Uh, bit of a high burden there.

Here's the specific issues with the plaintif's arguments:

In his closing, counsel for Plaintiff argues that it “does not make sense” that Maricopa County did not know how many ballots Maricopa County had received on election night. But, at Trial, it was not Maricopa County’s burden to establish that its process or procedure was reasonable, or that it had an accurate unofficial count on Election Night. Even if the County did bear that burden, failing to carry it would not be enough to set aside election returns.

Basically acquiescing that it's not even enough for Maricopa County to even know how many votes it had at the time, or even that their Change of Custody processes were reasonable, just that they followed them.

The Court notes that Mr. Parikh also acknowledged a fact admitted by several of Plaintiff’s witnesses: that any ballot that could not be read due to BOD printer or tabulator failure could be submitted for ballot duplication and adjudication through Door 3 on the tabulators. Plaintiff’s own expert acknowledged that a ballot that was unable to be read at the vote center could be deposited by a voter, duplicated by a bipartisan board onto a readable ballot, and – in the final analysis – counted. Thus, Plaintiff’s expert on this point admitted that the voters who suffered from tabulator rejections would nevertheless have their votes counted. This, at a minimum, means that the actual impact element of Count II could not be proven. The BOD printer failures did not actually affect the results of the election.

This one was something the defense team harped on: if the ballots were put into unsecure boxes and counted by people at a different polling station, it means that the judge has to assume that the ballots were counted. Basically, Kari Lake's team would have to explicitly prove that ballots were lost before counting, or that they were counted incorrectly (which is impossible because Maricopa destroyed most of the original votes). Even given the destruction of evidence, even given the lack of secure procedures, even given the unreasonable procedures, until Kari's team can prove that a persona acted with malice, we must assume that they acted entirely in good faith. So, no dice.

Further, Mr. Baris admitted at Trial that “nobody can give a specific number” of voters who were put off from voting on Election Day. Thus, even if Plaintiff proved elements 1-3 of Count II by clear and convincing evidence, the truth of this statement alone dooms element 4. No election in Arizona has ever been set aside, no result modified, because of a statistical estimate. ... Indeed, to the extent that a range of outcomes was suggested by Mr. Baris, he suggested that – with his expected turnout increase on Election Day of 25,000-40,000 votes the outcome could be between a 2,000-vote margin for Hobbs to a 4,000-vote margin for Plaintiff. Taking Mr. Baris’s claims at face value, this does not nearly approach the degree of precision that would provide clear and convincing evidence that the result did change as a result of BOD printer failures. ... While this Court (in the absence of controlling authority) is reticent to state that statistical evidence is always insufficient as a matter of law to demonstrate a direct effect on the outcome of an election, a statistical analysis that shows that the current winner had a good chance of winning anyway is decidedly insufficient...

Again, the height of the bar is effectively insurmountable. Convincing statistical evidence is not enough, either Mr. Baris knew that exactly greater than 17,117 voters were unable to vote for Kari Lake specifically, or he did not. And since he didn't have the names and addresses of those +17,117 voters, and their corresponding testimony, then no dice.

The closest Plaintiff came to making an argument for quantifiable changes resulting from misconduct, was Ms. Marie’s Affidavit as discussed by Ms. Honey. Again, she states that Runbeck Election Services employees were permitted to introduce about 50 ballots of family members into the stream. But even this is not sufficient. Such a claim – if the Court accepted the Affidavit at face value – would constitute misconduct but would not come close to clear and convincing evidence that the election outcome was affected

So, this is a kind of horrific bit of evidence that the court is actually willing to entertain at face value by saying that 50 ballots were manually injected into Chain of Custody. Even in this case, this witness needed 17,067 additional ballots to be identified as being inappropriately added to the pile, it's not enough to beat the burden of proof required.

Okay, so yeah: "Didn't meet the burden of proof".

However, this is a burden of proof so fucking high that no normal human would honestly hold as a standard, even to your own family. This standard actually seems more strict than most criminal trials. Frankly, with a burden of proof this high, the cops who shot Daniel Shaver would have gotten off. The media was wrong when they said "Kari Lake has to identify a specific person who acted maliciously", because they actually kind of undersold the burden. She had to find dozens of specific people that explicitly fucked up the vote of at least 17,117 that would have voted for her. That is why Maricopa county thinks they can get away with both voter fraud and rampaging incompetence. However, in doing so, they've actually kind of exposed themselves (again) as being violently incompetent if not outright fraudulent. The judge isn't actually trying to act and sound like a hyper-partisan Neo-Con, possibly because of how closely surveilled the trail was, and so we don't see the partisan screeching that we saw from the PA SC in Giuliani's lawsuit, or the breathless condemnation and demands for disbarment that we saw directed at Sidney Powell.

If I were Kari Lake, I'd totally appeal this case, but not on the grounds that the burden of proof could have been met if they had a re-trail. Instead: focus on getting a retrail on different issues, the ones that were dismissed earlier. Drag this back into televised court again, and drag an entirely different set of problems, witnesses, and evidence to the forefront. Keep hammering on the suspicious behavior of the Maricopa BoE, and drive home the point of their utter incompetence as the most charitable interpretation.

It's not a legal win, but I think it's a big gain publicly against the Uniparty in the arena of public trust and confidence.

I've said it before, the correct plan here is to actually start bussing Republicans to Democratic polling stations to prevent pre-planned fraud. I don't like Ballot Harvesting, but until you make it illegal, you will probably have to do it. And (to AoV's credit), you may need to get some republicans to vote early to throw off the planned fraud.