Worry about AI (so you don't worry about state sponsored
We're supposed to get whipped up about AI ads and memes, rather than state sponsored and coerced news manipulation, suppression of negative Biden stories? Riiiiight.
Mick Baccio, global security advisor at Splunk, has watched the evolution of election security threats in real time. While working for the Obama Administration, Baccio led the threat intelligence team for the 2016 presidential election, and later served as campaign CISO for US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for his …
"his policy achievements"
Mainly cos his achievements have been so awful.
Record time on holiday
Record illegal immigration
Record crime, despite the best efforts to not record it
Record and sticky inflation
Record low on the strategic petroleum reserve
The nice thing about statistics is that it's so easy to cherry pick them.
F'instance...
A record percentage of Americans now have healthcare insurance
More jobs created than during the reign of any other president
Salary rises are outpacing inflation
Green energy spend at record levels
Households are wealthier than ever
Wage inequalities have narrowed
Violent crimes have fallen
The stock market is doing well
This is all from Bloomberg, and while they do note some caveats on several of the above items, there's still clearly been a lot of positives during Biden's time in office.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-opinion-biden-accomplishment-data/
"More jobs created than during the reign of any other president"
You are aware most of the jobs regained under Biden are not full time positions?
"Green energy spend at record levels"
Very little of that money is going to help normal Americans. This is lining the pocket of the political donor class.
"Households are wealthier than ever"
No-one I know in the US is better off.
"Wage inequalities have narrowed"
If you ignore those without jobs, part time workers, gig workers etc.
"Violent crimes have fallen"
In reality this has not happened due to under reporting.
"The stock market is doing well"
Under Trump the Dems said a good stock market was not an indicator of a good economy.
The US economy is doing well if you are upper middle class or higher, everyone else is suffering.
Firstly, all the evidence says you’re wrong (evidence coming from actual factual facts - rather than the ‘alternative’ facts that the Trump Whitehouse was so fond of)
Secondly, doesn’t it seem suspicious to you that the factchecking sites and services largely seem to come down on the side of Biden, whilst Trump draws his support from QAnon and other conspiracy theorists?
I get it that Trump was volatile and exciting and made politics something akin to watching a soap opera - but that’s not actually a good thing. Running a country is a serious business, it’s not entertainment, and the world is a better place if that job is left to the technocrats. However dull that might be.
I also understand that a tiny bit of your brain is making you feel sad and uncomfortable. It’s making you realise that you’ve been played and you want to bury it. Hide it under simplistic slogans and petty racism and hope that the orange man will make it all better. The problem is that that niggling doubt is what you need to be listened to. You’re the mark. Time to wake up.
The actual facts say I am right and you are wrong. The alternative facts provided by the fact checking sites and the mainstream news are incorrect. As you are a good party member you reject what you see with your own eyes and only accept what you are told. The reason the fact checkers mostly side with Biden is that they are owned by Biden donors such as Zuckerbucks.
They do occasionally have to actually fact check Biden when he makes some claim that is too preposterous to simply gloss over.
As for the petty racism... breakfast tacos anyone? Or how about black kids in the bronx don't know what a computer is? Or maybe black and minorities can't find the DMV?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-poor-kids-white-kids/
Now you will tell me that Snopes is simping for the GOP or something.
Heck even Eric Swalwell, one of the most die hard dems, has noticed that there is a violent crime problem as a post carrier gets robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight
https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1788945467868635556
"People of the East Bay have never felt as unsafe as they do today and are leaving our community in droves. We need a rule of law."
A contrast to the claims you believe of low crime.
Use your own info. An good economic marker for me is the gas pump. Don't look at the price of the gas, look at how much is being purchased. Can people afford to fill up? It is really sad when 5 out of the 10 pumps have $10 or less on them.
What scares me is that in this administration has the US is in so many wars and they appear to be trying to increase the conflict. I was watching the news the other day and one of the congressional leaders was touting on how much the massive funding of the war machine is so good for us and creating jobs. I think he needed his ass kicked and I don't care which side of the isle he was on. Killing people is not an acceptable way to make money.
Will Trump win? I and a whole lot of others have doubts that there will be a fair election. I think this view has been promoted by the lack of the judicial system not even looking at all the cases brought before them before and after the election. One party has been fighting to prevent identity verification when you vote. Unless you are here illegally, you need some form of ID to do anything with the government. I don't understand unless it is intentional create doubt about the results.
Yeah. Biden mucked up. Snopes isn’t shilling for anyone. But here’s the thing - he corrected himself immediately. Not something that Trump is known for. And if comes to crapping on the environment, abusing minorities (and anyone else he thinks he can abuse), taking backhanders, dishonesty, ruining the economy, nepotism etc. Trump really is in a league of his own. Don’t feel too badly about it - we’ve got Farage, Truss, Johnson etc. America isn’t alone in having gullible voters.
Do I think Biden is too old? Yup. It would be great to have a younger candidate. Do I think that’s he’s mentally unable to do the job? Nope - well, not compared to his main opposition anyway.
Sleepy Joe can't even read a teleprompter any more :)
"and if comes to crapping on the environment, abusing minorities (and anyone else he thinks he can abuse), taking backhanders, dishonesty, ruining the economy, nepotism etc. "
You described pretty much every mainstream politician in the US, especially the Dem leadership.
Yes, I'm sure Trump fondled Ivanka plenty when she was a kid. He still clearly wishes he could have sex with her as he talks about it all the time. I didn't know about the hair sniffing, though it frankly doesn't really surprise me. Still not sure what that has to do with anything though.
.....is, obviously, the US Presidential election. Well, it is important if you live here because the people behind DJT have got some economic and social surprises for us all if their "2025" document is to be believed (and there's no reason not to). But in terms of shock value moving the electoral needle after four years of DJT there's not a whole lot that could shock us so pouring resources into that campaign is probably a waste of time......there's no middle ground in that race. But there's a whole lot of other races in the US and there's there's this place called "The Rest of The World". I like to think that people aren't that gullible (although my late mother used to tell us "The Electorate Have Short Memories" -- this was in regard to UK politics and she seems to have been right on the the money) but I'm not betting the farm on anything.
So, its going to be fun, fun, fun. Just don't expect me to contribute any money towards any campaigns. Its just throwing it down the drain for the most part and there's plenty of money from billionaires and corporate sources feeding the machine through dark money in the US, they don't need my spare change.
You've got the sides the wrong way around. In 2021 the US political elite openly admitted to manipulating the outcome of the 2020 election. What has happened is that the general public have awakened to the fact this has been happening and are now thinking it is fair game for everyone to do it.
now that the hard core supporters on the right think manipulating democracy is justified
They've been doing that for decades. Gerrymandering and voter suppression is rife, right down to those vicious laws in some of the southern states that no-one can provide water to anyone standing in line to vote. Of course someone's going to say that it's purely coincidence that voting stations have been closed primarily in African-American areas, so that people have to face queuing at the remaining ones for up to eight hours.
And when that doesn't work, the right lie about election integrity, and when that doesn't work, the orange shitgibbon incites a riot at the Capitol.
Lot of short memories on the right. Or just more lies.
"those vicious laws in some of the southern states that no-one can provide water to anyone standing in line to vote"
Do you even realise how wrong you are? The people handing out the water were busy campaigning to the people in the queue. That is illegal in most states.
If it had been a blue district and Trump brand water was being handed out while they were asking 'hey, why don't you vote for Trump?' you'd be frothing at the mouth about how utterly unacceptable this is.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/29/josh-holmes/facts-about-georgias-ban-food-water-giveaways-vote/
Just before the 2020 election several prominent democrats highlighted the potential for security issues with computerised voting machines. It was a threat to 'our democracy'. But suddenly after the election any talk of voting machine security was election denial.
And lets not forget the riots after Trump was elected. All egged on by the dems.
"Lot of short memories on the left. Or just more lies."
FIFY.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now tell me why people needed to stand in a queue for eight hours. And since you bring up voting machine security, where's your evidence that there were problems capable of swinging the election? Plenty of self-serving claims were made by the losing narcissist whose favourite perjorative was 'loser', yet none of them stood up to scrutiny -- look at who among his adulatory supporters ended up paying damages for defamation.
There were indeed riots in Oakland and Oregon in 2016, when Trump was handed the presidency thanks to electoral college rules, even though he'd not won the popular vote. It's a fucked-up system, but it doesn't justify violence. Now what would you like to tell me about the justification for the Capitol riot, something you skipped over in your response?
How about the riots in DC on inauguration day 2017? Police were injured as the rioters tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. You skipped over that. The MAGA patriots did nothing that hadn't been done before in the previous 4 years.
The huge queues are because you have stupid voting. You have too many things to vote for, too many silly boxes to fill in, then scan the ballot, check its scanned, faff about. Here in normal world you walk in, show ID, get handed maybe 2 or 3 bits of paper, you put a cross in a box on each bit of paper, put the bits of paper in the correct ballot box and walk out. It took me barely 90 seconds to vote last week. We don't need to setup computers, printers, scanners etc. so we can have polling stations all over the place. By making the voting system so complex it has to be centralised.
Again you would have been perfectly fine with Killary willing the electoral collage without getting the popular vote. Its just you have been brainwashed to believe that only the dems can help but the reality is that you will be a perpetual serf to them.
Elizabeth Warren thinks, or at least thought, that the computer voting was insecure as she wanted the whole system replaced with paper ballots. There have been plenty of demonstrations on voting computers where you can alter the count without it leaving a trace. El Reg has run stories on this previously.
How about the riots in DC on inauguration day 2017?
For everyone's benefit, here's the Wikipedia article on that:
Protests occurred during the inauguration ceremonies in Washington, D.C. The vast majority of protesters, several thousand in all, were peaceful.[169][170][171] DisruptJ20 protesters linked arms at security checkpoints and attempted to shut them down.[172] Some elements of the protesters were black bloc groups and self described anarchists, and engaged in sporadic acts of vandalism, rioting, and violence.[171][173][174] Six police officers sustained minor injuries, and at least one other person was injured.[170][171][175]A total of 234 people were arrested and charged with rioting, launching controversial trials that gave rise to allegations that the government was overreaching.[176] Ultimately, 21 defendants pleaded guilty, and all other defendants were either acquitted or had charges dropped by prosecutors; the government failed to obtain a guilty verdict at any trial.[176] In December 2017, the first six people to be tried in connection with the events of January 20 were acquitted by a jury of all charges.[177] Twenty other defendants pleaded guilty and prosecutors dropped cases against 20 others.[177] In January 2018, prosecutors dropped charges against 129 other defendants.[178] In May 2018, prosecutors dropped charges against seven more defendants, after the court found that prosecution had intentionally made misrepresentations to the court and hidden exculpatory evidence from defendants in violation of the Brady rule,[179] and prosecutors also reduced charges against others.[180] Finally, in July 2018, the government dropped charges against all remaining defendants.[176]
The MAGA patriots did nothing that hadn't been done before in the previous 4 years.
Patriots? Fucking hell. Lets remind ourselves of what these 'patriots' did:
On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob[34][35][36] of supporters of then-U.S. president Donald Trump, two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. They sought to keep Trump in power by occupying the Capitol and preventing a joint session of Congress counting the Electoral College votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. The attack was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the certification of the election results. According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a seven-part plan by Trump to overturn the election.[37][38] Within 36 hours, five people died: one was shot by Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose, and three died of natural causes, including a police officer.[c][29][39] Many people were injured, including 174 police officers. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months.[30] Damages caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million.[40]More than 1,200 people have been charged with federal crimes relating to the attack. As of December 2023, 728 defendants had pleaded guilty, while another 166 defendants were convicted at trial; a total of 745 defendants have been sentenced.[83][33][e] Many participants in the attack were linked to far-right extremist groups or conspiratorial movements, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters.[84][85] Numerous plotters were convicted of seditious conspiracy, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys members;[83] the longest sentence to date was given to then-Proud Boy chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison.[86]
Nothing that hadn't been done before, eh? Building a gallows for the Vice President must be regular experience in your world.
The huge queues are because you have stupid voting.
Yes, but that doesn't address why some districts, disproportionally African-American in the southern states, have seen their polling stations drastically reduced in number. Way to miss the point.
And you have some bizarre views on what I must think. I've got no time at all for Clinton, nor for antiquated electoral systems designed to keep 18th century landowners in power, like the US Electoral College or the UK's FPTP. Is there any more mind-reading that you'd like to do?
Here is a question for you, likely unable to answer, but who built the gallows and why have they not been arrested?
The gallows were built on the capitol grounds at about 6am that morning. The process and all the people is on video, the van they used, the taxi some of they took, the coffee shop they visited for a drink, its all there. No-one else was around so it should have been a doddle to find them. Also the structure was ignored for the rest of the day by the capitol police. There is a law prohibiting structures in that area. Why didn't they take it away? Again video shows it unguarded and totally ignored during the day.
You have to admit that for a supposedly quickly erected structure it framed the capitol building really nicely and made for some beautiful front page pics and backgrounds to the Jan 6th sham hearings. It was almost too perfect. If it was really built in the heat of the moment would the builders have been worried about getting the aesthetics just right? If we angle it just so then the media can get some great shots!
And the same goes for the supposed pipe bombs. The video shows that after it was discovered by a passer buy the capitol police who had been told sat in their car for 15-20 minutes before they did anything. There didn't seem to be any rush or concern about the bomb.
But back to the original topic, the major difference between the antifa rioters who tried to stop Trump in 2017 is that they are mostly paid goons. Same with BLM and the current anti Israel protests. A good portion and likely all the organisers are paid. They are supplied with their gear which is why it is all identical. On numerous occasions trucks have been seen delivering the placards, shields and even bricks to these protests.
The MAGA patriot 1st amendment protest on Jan 6th was organic and didn't have dark money funding it and pulling the strings.
"There were indeed riots in Oakland and Oregon in 2016, when Trump was handed the presidency thanks to electoral college rules, even though he'd not won the popular vote."
If you look at a topographic map of where each candidate won, you would see that by land area Mr Trump did win. Hillary took the largest cities. Mr Trump admitted that if the race was won on a popular vote, he would have campaigned much differently. Neither side would have paid any attention anywhere but the largest couple of dozen cities. On the upside, nobody in middle America would have seen an ad on TV for either candidate, or heard a radio spiel, seen a campaign billboard, etc. Their votes wouldn't have mattered which would lead to cries of not being represented.
Until there is something devised that takes into account both the wishes of those in large cities and those in state with much lower populations, nothing is going to replace the electoral system. I'd be interested in seeing a debate on a ranked ballot which could mean a larger field of candidates being considered rather than just two. It would mean that somebody on one side or the other isn't competing with the principal "liberal" or "conservative" candidate for a dark horse bid.
Rich,
The electoral college is how we elect a president. We are a group of states, As far as voting security, I had to wait in line for the election people to get past the update that was pushed that morning on the the IPAD they were using to verify voters. Odd thing, my IPAD did not need the update.
I know that the electoral college is how you elect a president. My point is that when it transforms a win by a simple count of votes for a named individual across the country into a loss for that named individual, then there's something deeply wrong with it. The 18th century solution to the problem of choosing a a leader, that of sending electors across the country to vote a second time, sometimes by block vote for a state and other times in proportion to the state's simple count, will inevitably leave some people feeling that their vote doesn't count. We have a very similar problem with the way Parliamentary elections work in the UK, in that the first-past-the-post system benefits the two largest parties disproportionally, leaving many voters for the smaller parties feeling unrepresented.
Many other countries use less archaic systems that fix these problems, demonstrably improving voter satisfaction and encouraging a high turnout because people don't feel left out and disenfranchised. No system is ever going to be perfect but some are clearly better than others -- assuming the principle of democracy matters, that is, rather than simply holding on to power.
"My point is that when it transforms a win by a simple count of votes for a named individual across the country into a loss for that named individual, then there's something deeply wrong with it. "
The US is a really big country and the population is not homogeneous so it's not impossible to see a Presidency based on a popular vote be entirely decided by the Eastern 1/3 of the country or by only a handful of the largest cites. States like California already have that problem. State wide races are decided by voters in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco which are primarily the feeding trough of the Democratic party while the vast majority of the state by land mass, and much more rural, tends to register for the Republican party or are more conservative voters. Georgia is controlled by the voters in Atlanta. Other states have the same issue with state wide offices going to those that can win over the voters in one or a few large cities.
Getting deeper into population analysis also shows that the areas where food is grown wind up with less of a voice in government than somebody on public benefits living in a big city. Policitians are some of the biggest self-serving lot that humans have come up with so they'll use their limited funds and time to cater to the areas that give them the best return and that ain't where corn is grown.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now tell me why people needed to stand in a queue for eight hours. And since you bring up voting machine security, where's your evidence that there were problems capable of swinging the election?
OK, how about Gwinnette County, Ga. Candidate running for office casts her vote alongside her family. That night 100% of districts are in. She lost, with 0 votes in her precinct. Only 4 precincts had votes for her. Demanded a recount and audit. She ended up with more than 5000 votes after the recount and audit. She got 43% of the primary vote, she had more votes than anyone else, and would be in the runoff. The democrat led election board blamed it on computer error.
That same primary, Ga Secretary of State announced that so far 1000 voters cast votes TWICE. Don't have the figures of the final count, but I imagine it was a not insubstantial number.
Abrams and Warnocks group New Georgia project, was found to be sending Georgia voter registration forms to people living out of state, including New York. They were also found to be forging forms for voters. It was claimed in one county that some of their registrars were seen going through cemeteries writing down names. The solution given by the New Georgia Project? We'll fire those that did this and hire new ones and do a better job in training.
A different group, America Votes, were registering people for absentee ballots that moved from the address the group registered them in for as many as 8 years. Some had moved across country.
People stand in a que because they somehow got to the polling location when a large number of others had come to vote. I've been in one for early voting on a Saturday and spent hours in line.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now tell me why people needed to stand in a queue for eight hours. "
That's never happened to me. Where I live, I've never seen a queue to vote. We have enough volunteers and a big enough space that I can be in and out in minutes limited by how fast the workers can look me up on the roles and hand me a ballot and pen. I go to a booth and transfer my choices from my notes to the ballot and I'm out of there. (yes, I return the pen).
Ex-White House election threat hunter weighs in on what to expect in November
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Rich 11
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now that the hard core supporters on the right think manipulating democracy is justified
They've been doing that for decades. Gerrymandering and voter suppression is rife, right down to those vicious laws in some of the southern states that no-one can provide water to anyone standing in line to vote. Of course someone's going to say that it's purely coincidence that voting stations have been closed primarily in African-American areas, so that people have to face queuing at the remaining ones for up to eight hours.
And when that doesn't work, the right lie about election integrity, and when that doesn't work, the orange shitgibbon incites a riot at the Capitol.
Lot of short memories on the right. Or just more lies.
Oh wow! Another person making claims about the new voting laws, but again, failed to read the paperwork. So many reactions about that from folks that should know how to read and comprehend what they are reading.
My grandma don't got an ID, how she supposed to vote? Does your sainted grandmother have a Social Security Card? That's an approved ID for voting.
People passing out needing water in line, and the law say they can't have water. Nope, groups can pass out water, can even sell it. Just can't campaign or have be campaign materials. (I'd love to have a coffee/hot chocolate stand next to a line in November)
Don't have an ID, water bill, electric bill, rent stub, nothing to show who you are? You can still vote-just have to bring one of the items in for verification within 48 hours so your ballot can be counted.
They voted away the drop off ballot boxes. Not really. The ballot drop offs were an expedient during COVID, and, there is still at least one drop off box in each county. They are just where they can be
monitored.
Brilliant idiots who kneejerked about the law included the Commissioner of Baseball who decided that Atlanta didn't need the All Star Game because of the new law that he never read. Several CEOs got together and tried to get national boycotts on Georgia products. One was the CEO of Coca-Cola. Guess he forgot that Coke has it's international headquarters in Atlanta. Several others from GA got fired due to cutbacks from lost sales.
So, before you start accusing, read what's going on rather than depend on your controller for your propaganda.
"but if you are an American citizen voting in America then you normally only vote "against" one party."
The choices for many political offices don't engender much excitement. You just have to hold your nose and say while I don't like this person, the other one is worse. In all likelihood, they are both equally as bad, just in different ways.