Trump Fires Election Security Director Who Corrected Voter Fraud Disinformation (npr.org) 587
phalse phace shares a report from NPR: Christopher Krebs, the Department of Homeland Security director who had spearheaded a campaign to counter rumors about voter fraud, has been fired, President Trump tweeted on Tuesday. Trump, in two misleading tweets about the security of the U.S. election, said Krebs' termination was "effective immediately."
The CISA campaign, led by Krebs, was originally intended to target foreign interference. However, as the president continued to repeat dangerously misleading information about the security of the election, the agency's focus turned to rebutting many of the rumors and baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud that Trump had promoted from the White House. In response, Krebs tweeted, "Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure [Tomorrow]." As NPR points out, Krebs' firing came after his agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), last week released a statement calling the 2020 election "the most secure in American history."
Trump's full tweet reads: "The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud -- including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, 'glitches' in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency."
The CISA campaign, led by Krebs, was originally intended to target foreign interference. However, as the president continued to repeat dangerously misleading information about the security of the election, the agency's focus turned to rebutting many of the rumors and baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud that Trump had promoted from the White House. In response, Krebs tweeted, "Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure [Tomorrow]." As NPR points out, Krebs' firing came after his agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), last week released a statement calling the 2020 election "the most secure in American history."
Trump's full tweet reads: "The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud -- including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, 'glitches' in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency."
Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and he will use it to fight those that expose him. Really not surprising. That is one reason why in a sane system, the person at the top cannot fire people that serve as control instances. That a president can fire an election security director is badly messed up. That Trump did it is not a surprise though. Trump has no honor, integrity or decency and nothing but himself has any value in his world.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
It also outs him as fucking incompetent.
He hired these people.
They weren't Obama loyalists, they were his appointees. That's how the government works. Civil servants who work their way up and aren't appointed are hard to fire. The people you personally put in (or allow to stay from the last administration) are the ones you can hire and fire at will.
The fact that Trump is booting piles of people he personally chose for positions makes him look ridiculously incompetent. Either he doesn't know how to hire, or he doesn't know how to do a job evaluation. Or he's a fucking child who throws tantrums all the time.
He can't realistically say, "I hired dozens of people but they turned out to be terrible and none of that was my fault." His entire fucking brand is being a savvy business man. Not being able to hire competent people undermines that completely.
But on the plus side, he does have a lot of practice saying, "You're fired!"
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Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
And an even more significant (though possibly not more numerous) portion of the Christians don't believe that everyone is their neighbor.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Informative)
Is it nice in your fantasy world? So far most of the republican law suits have been dismissed by courts because the republicans don't dare to perjure themselves and risk prison unlike on the news where they are happy to make baseless accusations.
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:5, Informative)
You could try a little harder next time. People in American Samoa aren't allowed to vote in federal elections.
Source: https://www.doi.gov/oia/island... [doi.gov]
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Informative)
You could try a little harder next time. People in American Samoa aren't allowed to vote in federal elections. ...
How about this report [abc13.com] about newly re-elected U.S. Senator John Cornyn tweeting [twitter.com]:
Another example of why it is prudent to let the process run its course: Thousands of Uncounted Votes Found a Week After Election in Puerto Rico. — Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn)
Puerto Ricans don't get to vote for president, and the territory doesn't send members to Congress.
To be fair, Cornyn later tweeted a clarification, "Neither the story or my comments are limited to presidential elections," but didn't explain what he meant.
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Informative)
Once you’re a citizen, natural or otherwise, it all just comes down to residency. Voting is generally managed by the states in the US, not by the federal government. That’s why you can be an American citizen yet not allowed to vote in the Presidential election, depending on where you have your residency. As you mentioned, the US uses the electoral college: if you aren’t a resident of any state, your vote wouldn’t affect any state’s electoral votes, hence why you can’t vote for President.
But yes, if they moved to a US state, they would be able to vote. They’re full American citizens in every sense, just not afforded the rights of being residents of the 50 states, of which voting for President is one. Oddly, however, if they move to a US state and then move to an entirely different country, they can still vote as if they were a resident of that state, meaning that, yes, US citizens living overseas have more rights afforded them than residents of Puerto Rico.
Re:A few of the 10000+ dead Michigan voters (Score:5, Interesting)
And you think, that putting names on 10,000 of them proves anything?
Re:A few of the 10000+ dead Michigan voters (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't think it proves anything. They hope it throws a little shit around and puts doubt into the minds of the stupid. There was a serious attempt by the Republicans to steal Michigan [theguardian.com] by refusing to certify the vote so that the legislature could be asked to send their own slate of electors. This kind of lies a) provides a bit of cover for such people who can pretend they believe this stuff and b) spreads doubt so that stealing next time is easier and so that America's enemies can claim the process was rigged. It's all conscious disinformation.
Re:A few of the 10000+ dead Michigan voters (Score:5, Insightful)
The 10,000 name list was a lie anyway, most the people weren't from Michigan they were elsewhere, and half of them weren't even dead. It's literally 100% FUD to try and steal the election, kill democracy, and install Trump as a literal dictator.
Anyone supporting that should be treated with the contempt they deserve, the fact there's a significant number of Americans trying to turn the US into a Trump led dictatorship shows how dangerous far right populism is. Anyone living through this now who couldn't understand how Hitler got into power and World War II happened should fully understand it now, because there's an attempt to achieve exactly that right now in the US being backed by significant proportions of the electorate and also key names in the Republican party.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Funny)
Have you been looking at any of the court cases? They turn up with "hunreds and thousunds" of people's testimony. Their "hard" evidence. Then the judge asks them to detail the testimony. "he brushed his teef in da middul" - "what's wrong with that?" - "nuttin. I dunno, I tought it migth be an electun steelin thingy not a toof brush". - "excluded!".
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand: most if not all of these appointees are going to be sent packing in January anyway.
On the gripping hand: all he's accomplishing is causing more and more damage to the country and everyone around him, during one of the worst years in U.S. history.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the gripping hand: all he's accomplishing is causing more and more damage to the country and everyone around him, during one of the worst years in U.S. history.
It is almost if he, like a truly dysfunctional person, prefers to get negative recognition to no recognition. Oh, wait, Trump _is_ a truly dysfunctional person....
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Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump probably thinks all his appointees were seduced into joining the deep state. Which is another word for showing backbone and doing the right thing instead of being cowardly toadies. Stating the truth is apparently a disloyal act. We're in some strange form of 1984 where truth is an enemy of the people, and the people being Trump and no one else.
I know people who are gullible, some are family, some are friends, and they believe everything if it's on the internet, and they refuse to listen to people they actually know. No amount of logic or reason will convince them otherwise. The only thing that does work is emotion. If you try to make someone look foolish they will just dig in their heels and become stubborn. Very frustrating. And Trump seems to be in that category, except that he's also a narcissist.
So you've got someone who late at night keeps looking at web pages and youtube videos about how crystals will cure all your disease, and magnets in your shoe soles makes the arthritis go away, and crap like that. Only with Trump the goofball scams are political. He heads over to Newsmax or OANN and they're all gushing how great Trump is (the narcissist pull) and how all the elections are amazing frauds because the propaganda machine is going crazy churning out the stories.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
> Trump probably thinks all his appointees were seduced into joining the deep state.
No, if you look at what's happening - withdrawing troops now from Iraq/Afghanistan, beheading the Pentagon, beheading CISA, it's pretty clear he's had his final orders from Putin to gut US security apparatus globally before he leaves.
At this point generals and officials at the Pentagon should be defying him as he's a clear enemy of the state. As they're sworn to protect against enemies foreign and domestic then following his orders at this point when he's out to cripple American security across the globe is a betrayal of that oath.
There's literally no reason for him to behead the entirety of US security apparatus other than to help a hostile foreign state, and it's pretty obviously going to be the very state that helped put him in power. He did the same on a smaller scale pulling out of Syria to hand absolute influence over to Putin by forcing the Kurds a choice between being ethnically cleansed or allying with Russia.
Amazed there are still enough useful idiots in the country to support this clown in crippling the US on behalf of a hostile foreign state, yet apparently there's 70 million of them.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Interesting)
On the one hand: 'personal loyalty' is the only coin he values.
What I don't understand is why people keep accepting his appointments. The chances of them ending up either fired and disowned or in jail are pretty high, but they seem willing to take that risk.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bygones be bygones, maybe? Start over? Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?
Time to start building consensus instead of sowing divisiveness, stet? Maybe that starts with two disparate persons shaking hands.
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:5, Funny)
You two stop being so damn wholesome in a Trump thread. It's out of place.
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Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its OK, the electorate has fired Trump so this farce can only go on for a short while longer.
The voters that voted him into power are still there, unfortunately. They may vote him into power again or find somebody even worse.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Informative)
It also outs him as fucking incompetent.
He hired these people.
Indeed. But now look at the people that voted form him and would vote for him again. Do you think they can supply the two brain cells needed to understand this? Available evidence seems to indicate the contrary.
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
But how can there be 70 million of them? This is a developed nation with (basic) education for all. What went wrong that that many people look at Trump and think, Yep ... This moron represents us?
They're thinking more about who Trump doesn't represent -- forgetting that The President is suppose to represent everyone, not just those he likes or that agree with and/or flatter him. He's selfish, they're selfish ...
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
But how can there be 70 million of them? This is a developed nation with (basic) education for all. What went wrong that that many people look at Trump and think, Yep ... This moron represents us?
That is an excellent question. I really do not have an answer, but it seems to me that a nation is pretty much screwed in such a situation.
because they are not voting a person (Score:5, Insightful)
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When all you're fed is a endless torrent of lies you do eventually break. I know actual intelligent people, with masters degrees in engineering who legitimately believe shit such as that they will have their guns taken off them in the next 4 years, or that yeah the USA mishandled COVID but it's all China's fault,
These are people who say: Yeah Trump is bad, but can you imagine how much worse Hillary would have been because (insert completely baseless claim here)
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of what went wrong was Republicans ran tons of ads calling Biden a "socialist" (which means the same as communist to most Americans). And Biden didn't push back on this because his strategy was to be as bland as possible to keep the focus on Trump's destructive behavior. This strategy worked in the end, so it's hard to argue with it. But it allowed a lot of Republicans to keep voting Republican thinking that they were keeping the US from turning into Cuba.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Interesting)
He hired someone with integrity that did his job well? That doesn't sound like the Trump I know.
Yes, he's having a big problem with this. It turns out that not everyone who's willing to do petty theft from taxpayers and who supports bits of light racism is willing to destroy their own country by destroying it's electoral and judicial system. To be honest, I think that's what lots of this is about. Identifying the true patriots left in the Republican party and trying to eliminate as many of them as possible. Sure, Trump wants to steal the election if he can, but if he can't getting rid of honest people is a big benefit in the meantime and might be useful next time this problem comes up.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
[...] His entire fucking brand is being a savvy business man. Not being able to hire competent people undermines that completely.
To be fair, he hasn't been a very good businessman either. A bit below average... he just happened to start with a lot of money. His fortune [yahoo.com] would be bigger [fortune.com] if he had invested in an index fund [vox.com] rather than doing business himself. He's certainly not in the league of Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates - just to name a few.
More Frightening Than That (Score:5, Informative)
Back at the end of October, President Trump signed an Executive Order, granting himself the power to fire those career civil servants, if the President deems them to be in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions”.
Which basically means that if you are a career civil servant with enough seniority to be relied upon by the political appointees, you can be deemed to be in such policy-impactful roles and therefore within range of the President's "You're Fired!" Tweet-Cannon.
And it gets even worse than that: having made the determination that a civil servant falls within the above, ill-defined category and dismissed them, the President is then effectively giving himself the ability to hire a loyalist in to a top civil-service position, because of course the most senior civil servant appoints would not be possible without at least some input from the political appointees.
It isn't clear to me whether this is the last, desperate act of a madman who is determined to make it as difficult as possible for his successor to actually succeed, so as to give him the ability to say, "Look! I did better!" [i.e. as purely an ego-stroking exercise] in an attempt to preserve some shred of credibility for his legacy, or whether it's actually part of a rearguard action designed specifically to make it next to impossible for any subsequent Inspectors General, appointed by the incoming Biden administration, to investigate and prosecute [or at least reverse] some of the more questionable/illegal acts performed by this administration.
At minimum, it's suspect: how can the administration have performed such an incompetent recruitment/selection process that it feels the need to be terminating people with ~ 60 days on the clock? At worse its a malicious attempt to hobble the incoming administration, or, agent-provocateur-style, destroy it from within.
And the worse part about this is that if Biden takes a pragmatic approach and purges all of these appointments from departments, he's likely confirming a precedent that will follow each time an administration changes hands or changes between parties. All that does is increase the amount of headcount-change that will occur, increasing the disruption and making it that much harder for future administrations to take up their office.
This is a dangerous move that weakens the nation.
Re:Why not? That's what his predecessors did to hi (Score:4, Informative)
No it's not - this is an new, dangerous expansion of the powers of the president.
This is not about political positions appointed in accordance with law. This is about giving the president the power to fire and hire lower echelon career governmental employees that, for good reason, are not supposed to be subject to political hiring and firing, but are supposed to be professionals in their field.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a dangerously small step from a president firing an election security director to a president appointing election officials who will work to undermine future elections. You are right the US system is badly messed up. There are not enough checks on presidential power.
This is how democracy fell in other countries.
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Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Informative)
I've always wanted Pence to take over. And considering Pence is 10x less in line with my politics than Trump says a lot.
I know lots of liberals who would rather happily take right wing religious zealot who at least adheres to democracy over a baby dictator.
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always wanted Pence to take over.
As a gay man, no, no, and fuck no.
Did you even watch the VP debate? The man is so full of shit he literally attracts flies. Even if he retired from politics and took a ride on Elon's rocket to Mars, I'd still be worried about what kind of evil schemes Pence could be cooking up while he's off-world.
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But Pence wouldn't be able to do anything, or he'd do is slowly. Sure, he wants to write that executive order, but he'd be sure to pray over it first. That'll soak up a lot of the remaining two months. Trump will tweet it first then sign it and get it over with and move on to the next crazy thing.
Re: Give a liar power... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I hate to say it, but one good thing about Trump is that he is dumb. He cannot get real evil going. Even the numerous deaths he shares responsibility for (all those extra Covid-19 deaths), he could only do because they came to him by accident.
Now, a fundamentally evil religious fanatic is something else. Also answers the question what could be worse than Trump.
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Pence instead of Trump? Sure, I'd go for that.
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Any way I can think of that you could use to force Trump out right now would mean Pence gets to be POTUS until January. I don't think anyone but Pence wants that.
Sadly, this is true. Trump is a liar; the problem with Pence is the opposite - I believe he believes the stuff he says, and that is the stuff of nightmares and "re-education" camps.
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The federal election security director sets a floor of best-practices. The president cannot stop states from going to more secure system.
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Sadly, this election was full of examples of what not to do.
Over 71 million of them. [nytimes.com]
Democracy, still better than the alternatives.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Interesting)
How many were found in the trash around the country?
Not that many - a few thousand at most - but the exact point is that they were found. There are physical bits of paper that people can look at and understand. Things that match their own experience in life. If you try to destroy them then that leaves physical evidence around - e.g. ash if you burn them - which can then be investigated. If you start altering ballots you will leave your own genetic material on them and so on.
These glitchy Dominion vote counting systems are not more secure than paper ballots.
That's not true either. The machines provide a simple count them in / count them out process. If the machines are very wrong then that's easy to catch by just comparing with random paper ballot audits. If the machines are slightly wrong then they do the job of ensuring that all the votes are in the right place in the right numbers and giving a preliminary estimate so that others can come in and recount being sure that they have the right number of papers.
Therein lies the problem. These glitchy Dominion vote counting systems are not more secure than paper ballots. Worse is this notion that mail in ballots are secure. How many were found in the trash around the country? I am all for best practices... when they are, in fact, best practices. Sadly, this election was full of examples of what not to do.
Are you actually an American? I wonder. Still, lets assume you are. You seem to have got motivated about and worried about elections. How about next time round you volunteer to spend polling day as an independent poll worker in your area so that you learn how the system works and all of the different checks and balances around it? I think that would really help you to feel much more secure about the process.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Insightful)
This time we have our choice, stop those who would profit from our division and work as one nation again, or get looted and fall apart as many have before us.
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a dangerously small step from a president firing an election security director to a president appointing election officials who will work to undermine future elections. You are right the US system is badly messed up. There are not enough checks on presidential power.
This is how democracy fell in other countries.
A similar example is the two Georgia Republican US Senate candidates facing runoff elections in January demanding the Georgia Secretary of State, also a Republican, resign [politico.com] because of his handling of the election -- demanding the removal of the person overseeing their elections because it hasn't gone their way. (He told them to get lost, BTW.)
Or US Senator Lindsey Graham -- who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee-- (allegedly) trying to get that GA Secretary of State to throw away some ballots [cnn.com] -- which would benefit Trump.
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Well, there are checks though. While I like the parliamentary system in some ways (more likely to have proportional representation), it screws up by usually having the executive and the legislature from the same party. Who keeps the PM in check, except for a few in the party who want the job for themselves.
The US has a problem in that congress has ceded too much power to the president. The constitution is intentionally vague on what the presidential duties are. But when you get a congress and a presiden
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Informative)
While I like the parliamentary system in some ways (more likely to have proportional representation), it screws up by usually having the executive and the legislature from the same party. Who keeps the PM in check, except for a few in the party who want the job for themselves.
The advantage of a parliamentary system is that it's not a single person you need to hold in check. PMs have relatively little power compared to presidents. The Dutch PM for instance is little more than the guy who happens to chair the cabinet; much of his power doesn't come from his position as PM but from the fact that he's the leader of the largest coalition party. In fact in the old days, cabinet ministers took turns filling the role of PM.
That still means you effectively end up with parliament overseeing a cabinet consisting of the same majority parties. But it's not about a single person anymore; you're checking a group of people or perhaps even better: a group of parties. Much less chance of a single person going off the rails unchecked. No guarantees though: you-know-who was democratically elected as well...
The constitution is intentionally vague on what the presidential duties are.
Why intentionally? It seems a rather important point.
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In a normal universe another branch of government would impeach a President for abuse of power in these situations. In the past, impeachments have occurred over controversial firings of bureaucrats. .
The Senate gave Trump a free pass to do whatever he wants. He's immune from impeachment at this point. Anything he does for the new several weeks is 100% allowed. That's the system we have. We may find it disagreeable, but we would have to formally change the rules before any consequences are possible for Presi
Re:Give a liar power... (Score:4, Insightful)
Until January, there really isn't a hell of a lot the Democrats CAN do.
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The senate however still had a simple majority. Even if you got a constitutional amendment to allow a simple majority to uphold the impeachment, it still would have lost. And you can't lower the bar further than a simple majority. The vote was 98% along party lines. There's really not a lot that can be done without a completely new system, and that is next to impossibly even if congress acts.
Trump is sinister. (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it amazing the Trump has been able to sell this election fraud myth so effectively without being able to provide hard evidence... What is it about humans that a good measure of the population will so willingly fall under the spell of an authoritarian leader and deny reality?
Re:Trump is sinister. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not that the other moderate folks that agree with Trump are stupid, their information world is just completely different.
If one listens to Hannity and OAN as your only source of information, you'd think that what Trump was doing was sane.
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Maybe the problem is the collapse of traditional moderate news, Walter Cronkite, Edward R Murrow, David Brinkley, etc. Everyone listened to them because they told what happened, and the editorials were put at the end of the half hour, so even if you didn't like the bias of the editorial you still knew that rest of the show was pretty much on the up and up. And if there was too much obvious bias in the editorials then you'd lose viewership and it would correct itself.
Now news is 24 hours a day, it's big busi
Re:Trump is sinister. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Because half the country hates the other half more than they hate lying autocrats. And as long as the lying autocrat speaks out against the other half, that's fine with them.
Re:Trump is sinister. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because half the country hates the other half more than they hate lying autocrats.
Uh huh. And guess who it is that whipped everyone up into being more divided as a nation than we've ever been?
..and THAT is why he had to go, needs to go.
The enemies of America must be partying nonstop because of that, Trump has done at least half their work for them.
Re:Trump is awesome! (Score:5, Informative)
So far, Russia-gate has not been debunked, whereas the election fraud has. All the intelligence agencies agreed that the Russia-gate was a real thing. This is not like WMDs in Iraq where the intelligence leadership was ignoring the reports they were getting from below, the rank and file and the leadership were all saying Russia-gate was real. And Trump dismisses the advice from the top intelligence on the planet merely because it's bad for his ego.
It most definitely is not because Trump is secretly a super genius who only pretends to be stupid to entrap his enemies, it's because Trump really is stupid and is pretending to be a stable genius.
Re:It is Abraham Lincoln's fault (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the war was not actually about slavery, and slavery would have died anyway if the yokels were unable to corrupt the parliament -- too much pressure from the North and Europe.)
You're right that the war wasn't initially about slavery but without it slavery itself would have lived on, might still be living on, in a very slow retreat in the face of increased mechanisation. At the outbreak of the war, the total market value of all the slaves was more than EVERYTHING else in the US put together: all the banks, railroads, factories, ships, newspapers. Everything. And basically all of it in the South.
That would have taken a very long time to unwind; at least a century of human misery, inefficiency, and moral bankruptcy that would have hindered the whole nation from developing.
Re:Trump is sinister. (Score:5, Informative)
I find it amazing the Trump has been able to sell this election fraud myth so effectively without being able to provide hard evidence
Not just without evidence...at least twice now (that I'm aware of, maybe more) he has explicitly set people off to find the evidence of voting fraud, and they came up with nothing***. Having no evidence says a decent amount. Going looking for the evidence and coming up with nothing says a whole lot more.
***Likewise, he sent people off to find proof that Obama isn't American, and they came up with nothing. But I'm totally sure the Ukraine investigation would've turned up something if he had actually managed to get that ball rolling /s.
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If a free market capitalist society, teaching the populace critical thinking skills is counter-productive to the hegemony in power.
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the populace is blocked from free speech, murdered for questiong the state, and the products of their labor confiscated
Hey, that's what goes on in the countries run by some of Trump's best buddies.
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The inference from there is that humans aren't machines driven by logic and rational thought. Emotions are what matters the most.
Some might say that this is the education systems failing to convey what intellectuals in the Western society have learned during the Age of Reason/Enlightenment, which started near the end of the 17th century, over 300 years ago
Re:Trump is sinister. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that trump is just a symptom. He knows how to defraud people. He would have made a find used-car salesman, right until he went to jail. No, the real thing that is broken here is those that vote for somebody like Trump. And they are not going away early next year. These people will stay around and continue to fuck things up.
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I find it amazing the Trump has been able to sell this election fraud myth so effectively without being able to provide hard evidence...
If you ever saw Jordan Klepper interview people at MAGA rallies for The Daily Show, you'd, sadly, be very less amazed.
Re:Trump is sinister. (Score:4, Insightful)
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We've never had all the departments and agencies run where they have to pass everything past the president first in case he might disapprove. These are heads of departments, they give out sane and logical statements, and get fired for it.
Look, if they are told the only two choices are "shut up" versus "lie out your ass", some of them are going to go for the third option of "tell the truth". After all the job is vanishing in two months, if you can't grow a backbone in a lame duck period then you need more
Re: Trump is sinister. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that a major factor in the mail-ins being overwhelmingly for Biden is that Trump told his supporters not to use mail-in, as "it leads to fraud".
Do you really think they hadn't thought that through? Of course Trump's people knew this would happen. He's known he was going to lose any fair election for months - he's been laying the groundwork for this situation, all that time, precisely because he knew this "election is rigged" dog and pony show was the only possible way he had even a modicum of chance to stay in office.
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I think what you are missing is that he assumed that the counting of postal votes would take ages and would start after the counting of physical votes took place. They had actual experience that by sending a violent mob they could stop the counting of votes for long enough to then get it legally blocked and he was hoping to follow up on that. This is really his backup plan.
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If they were at all competent, I'd value his opinion more. Can anyone name a single successful defense against cybercrime or a single for cybercrime led by this agency, one where another local agency did not do all the work and this agency did not ruin the prosecution or did not try to take all the credit?
The 2020 US election for the President of the United States of America. That 2020 presidential election was a successful defense run directly from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
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How the hell is something like that even quantified?
By counting instances of voter fraud and comparing to other election yearss. There are always instances of people voting multiple times, voting for a dead relative, etc. Count and compare.
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In other words, you answered the parents question with a "yes". You disbelieve Fauci because Trump disbelieves Fauci. It must be nice being told how to think all the time, it saves so much wear and tear on the brain.
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If you disbelieve the common media outlets ("MSM" is too loaded a political bullshit word to use) then solution is not to seek out even more lies from obviously dubious sources like OANN or Newsmax or what your crazy Uncle Ralph heard at the bar. And yet, we've got a huge fraction of the population who think "The MSM is lying to us, but I finally found the real goods here in this shady side of the internet, they tell you all sorts of stuff the MSM is too scared to talk about". It's one step from there to
Re: (Score:3)
They're not bent on ousting Trump, they're just reporting the election results based upon the actual official reports coming out of the states. Just because the election didn't going the way you wanted doesn't mean it's fiction.
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The entire MSM seems bent on ousting Trump as president, so yes, the MSM does seem to be centralized and unified! Can you not see this?!?
I think you mean that they mostly contain American citizens following the laws and constitution of the USA? I mean, I can see, from the outside, or from the point of view of an enemy of that country, how it could all look like a centralised, unified group of people. All believing that if someone loses the presidential election then that person should not be president of the USA. God it's terrible. Why oh why will they not just recognise that the nice Mr Putin should really be their president?
Krebs finds the right words (Score:5, Interesting)
"in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent"
Is there a better term for Orange Fizz and his crew than "technically incoherent"? I don't think so.
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I'm really not sure many Trump voters would understand the words "unsubstantiated" or "technically incoherent".
"There is no evidence of voter fraud" might be a better statement.
Re: Krebs finds the right words (Score:3)
Looking over at the other timeline... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Looking over at the other timeline... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or we're heading towards the on-ramp of 2024. If Orange Fizz goes ahead with his plans for Trump TV then it's going to more of the same, with the saving grace being of course that we can mostly ignore him since he's not the President. Still, if he firms as a legitimate candidate for the Republicans in 2024 then he'll start being relevant again and his fan base will only have been energised by the 4 years of complete and utter trash that comes out of his mouth. I expect the actual content to be worse, basically a non-stop rally where he doesn't even have to stop to pretend to be the President. Imagine if Fox News just threw out their remaining threads of journalistic integrity, loaded themselves up as being 100% partisan, not only do they not care if you know whose side they are on, they will rub it in your face if you even ask. Trump TV won't even bother to verify stories or give credibility to rumours, it will just run with the narrative and the suckers won't just love it, they will actually PAY for it.
The problem the GOP has now is that Trump has stolen a huge chunk of their own base and he's not going to give it back. He's going to throw everything he's got at retaining their attention with no distractions to keep his attention elsewhere. Republican voters have shown that they are mostly prepared to accept him, while the hard-core Trump supporter will accept no one except Mr Pumpkin Face.
So while I do share that sense of relief, I still have a lump in my throat thinking about the future of the GOP, because if they don't come up with someone pretty incredible it's going to be this same shit show in 2024.
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At the rate he's going, he'll be drooling applesauce by 2024. Of course, given how much Trump supporters love Rudy "I was tucking my shirt in" Giuliani, they might see drooling applesauce as a plus.
Re:Looking over at the other timeline... (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's the latter, then we have some hope. The party will split and have to soul-search to form a coherent whole, hopefully breaking Trump's spell. If it's the former, I agree we're in for a rough ride in 2024.
Re:Looking over at the other timeline... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the deal with News Corp is that the Murdoch's still like making money. Associating with Trump made business sense but they do not have hard political allegiances. There is a unique opportunity now in the mainstream media space for someone to break out of the partisan games and just be a source of news. Fox News is cruddy but if it pulled back on the more extreme garbage it will win over plenty of viewers. Let's not forget how many people didn't vote at all in this election. I think there is an audience out there who still want a hectic and mostly inane 24 hours news cycle but are perhaps a bit sick of all the politics. I wouldn't be surprised to see the left vs right / progressive vs conservative rhetoric get massively dialled down on Fox News for a while. Not out of any sense of being for the greater good, but just because it will win back some viewers.
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Except that Fox audience is not 100% radical nut cases. There are plenty of right-of-center moderates who watch Fox and ignore the editorials and the Trump call-ins. Following the fringe further right will lose too much money. And there's no way they can play the crazy game as well as OANN can.
Re:Looking over at the other timeline... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't expect Trump to have the physical strength, let alone cognitive function to run in 2024. I'd give him 50% of even being above ground.
That said, I'm perfectly happy to let him suck all of the air out of the Republican party until them. He'll be a spoiler for the Republicans who've been waiting for their shot. I suspect Nikki Haley will be particularly impacted, as I suspect 2024 was seen as "her year" by a lot of Republicans who would love to put a woman into the Presidency ahead of the Democrats. They won't actually pass any legislation that would benefit women, but they'd like nothing more than to be able to claim that they were the true female-friendly party. (They would appreciate it very much if you would ignore the fact that they put a man in office who has been charged with sexual assault 20+ times with victims as young as 13, and who bragged about being able to grab women inappropriately without consequences because of his fame.)
I am shocked. SHOCKED! (Score:3)
Well, not that shocked.
Re:I am shocked. SHOCKED! (Score:5)
You should be. That Trump did it isn't surprising. That he is legally allowed to is. That he doesn't even have the basic moral sense to refrain from doing it is appalling for someone in his position.
it's not Trump's fault that 71mil voted for him (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop blaming Trump. He is where America put him in. Maybe not majority, but the system did. And he is just what he is, Trump. What's worse is that after 4 years of this still he got so many votes. Sad, vary sad, and I am afraid not fraudulent.
Re:it's not Trump's fault that 71mil voted for him (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop blaming Trump. He is where America put him in.
This really cannot be over emphasized.
2016 should have convinced all but the most jingoistic idiot that the idea of "American exceptionalism" was no longer applicable (skipping the argument as to whether it even was).
2020 has completely confirmed it.
We are no better than Poland, Hungary or any other country with a Autocratic wannabe that uses democracy to subvert democracy.
You don't need 1/2 the country to think it's OK for it to happen, 1/3 is plenty. And yet America has 1/2 of the voters stark-raving idiots who are in a gasoline soaked room and are happy to light the match.
Trump is the symptom , not the problem. When a _smart_ fascist wins the election in 2024, what's going to happen ? What wars will be started for political purposes ? Who will be jailed for their opinion ? This is not just a dangerous time for the US, it's a dangerous time for the planet.
Re:it's not Trump's fault that 71mil voted for him (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop blaming Trump. He is where America put him in.
False. Trump is largely to blame. He runs on a platforms of lies and rhetoric to get into a position of power, a position that comes with some privilege of speaking with authority. When you use that position to spread further lies then it's YOUR fault. The buck stops with the president. The President of the United States of America, the world's greatest democracy was telling people that the other side is going to fraudulently take the election, then take people's guns, and rights, and healthcare, and and and.
You don't get to make the claim that 71million people are at fault when one of the highest authorities in the land have been sending them a clear and consistent message. Your post: "It was their fault for believing" - Congratulations, you managed to simultaneously victim blame 71million people.
Very Sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Christopher Krebs, the Department of Homeland Security director who had spearheaded a campaign to counter rumors about voter fraud, has been fired, President Trump tweeted on Tuesday. Trump, in two misleading tweets about the security of the U.S. election, said Krebs' termination was "effective immediately."
The CISA campaign, led by Krebs, was originally intended to target foreign interference. However, as the president continued to repeat dangerously misleading information about the security of the election, the agency's focus turned to rebutting many of the rumors and baseless allegations of widespread (non-defined escape term) voter fraud that Trump had promoted from the White House.
In response, Krebs tweeted, "Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure [Tomorrow]." As NPR points out, Krebs' firing came after his agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), last week released a statement calling the 2020 election "the most secure in American history."
Trump's full tweet reads: "The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud -- including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, 'glitches' in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency."
I don't have a dog in this fight and am not joining one tribe or the other.
What should make us all sad, however, are the words bolded above. Journalism standards were completely eradicated.Prior to 4 years ago, you would not find these words in a news report, only op-ed pieces. At least, that was the case for "legitimate" news sources.
Now, we see it in the most established newspapers in the country.
All of you who have taken Journalism in college are no-doubt aware that such words/terms are completely forbidden, regardless of how true/untrue everyone thinks they are. Prior to very recently, such judgements did not have a place in the 4th Estate's coverage of what we all considered "news".
The problem is, those who agree with the opinions cheer them on, apparently unaware that it's only a matter of time until their chose person is on the receiving end of this. Then, they will be screaming bloody murder, but it will be too late. This is how standards change. People support them initially because it suits their purposes, then eventually, it no longer does. Then they're stuck with it.
What has become of journalism should make us all weep. Democrat, Republican, whatever. Our media has thrown away even the pretenses of non-biased coverage, and we've all accepted it. It's not going to go away. It's only going to get worse. And we will have ourselves to blame. This happened during our lifetimes. We watched it happen. We screamed encouragement because it agreed with us, not unlike a group of 6 year-olds. Then again, what do you expect from people who label sincere dissenting opinions "trolls" or "flamebait". I truly believe we're witnessing America's worst generations. Yes, including my own. Between Gen X - Millenials, we destroyed a nation in a couple of decades. Trump and Hillary were just symptoms.
Remember, this was NPR, not the National Enquirer. No matter how much you think this is noble, no matter how much you think you want this ... you don't. Nothing is ever restricted to just what we want.
What has been seen cannot be unseen. I'm not sure how anyone could ever again even pretend that the news is not completely biased. The media did this for 4 straight years, and it changed very few people's minds. Like most, I assumed the Biden was going run the tables given the constant media barrage Trump took. It was far closer than I had anticipated, which means that half of the country has already stopped listening to what we used to call "the news". This is unprecedented in US History.
Journalists burned it down. They de-legitimized their own profession.
Another American Institution bites the dust.
Re:Very Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have a dog in this fight
Yes you do. You're here working the refs, promoting the right-wing idea that journalism should just be stenography, repeating words without any context.
Trump's tweets weren't just misleading, they were complete lies, insane, dangerous, conspiracy theories, and basically unhinged. Everything he was promoting was indeed baseless, since he was just pulling stuff out of thin air. The widespread qualifier is necessary because voter fraud was trivial and insignificant, but it was not completely non-existent; if they'd said there was none, you'd be here pointing out that one Republican in Pennsylvania who tried to vote twice. The terms were accurate, even if you don't like them.
given the constant media barrage Trump took
Another right-wing trope. Accurate reporting that makes Trump look bad is not an attack or a 'barrage'. But as the founder of Newsbusters noted, right-wing media consumers view it that way: https://twitter.com/mattsheffi... [twitter.com]
The more interesting future story about journalism in the US is going to be Fox. Right now, part of their audience is mad at them because they reported the election results accurately. Will they continue to do that, or will they need to go even further into nut-job land to find people willing to watch ads for gold bullion?
Re:Very Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Straight out of the Trumpette Fascist catechism... Act like facts aren't.
Also straight out of the Trumpette Fascist catechism... Using scare quotes to cast doubt on journalism that reports facts.
Practically word-for-word from the Trumpette Fascist catechism... Facts are now bias.
Yeah, you are. When you're taking the media to task for reporting facts, you're very plainly joining the Trumpette Fascist tribe.
Re:Very Sad (Score:5, Informative)
No, there's not. The Trump campaign has had at least 25 chances to present any evidence in court; they've failed to do so.
Journalists who do not repeat your favorite rumors are not engaged in a 'cover up'. They are, in fact, doing their job well.
As an example, there was some excellent reporting around the story of the USPS worker in Erie, Pennsylvania. Rather than just repeating what he said, they investigated his claims:
https://www.factcheck.org/2020... [factcheck.org]
Turns out, there were on only two ballots that could have been affected by the supposed fraud scheme that he says he overheard.
You Americans ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... are going to have to drag him out of the Whitehouse. You do know that right? Just consider.
He deals with Poo Bear in China, leader for life. He looks at Putin in Russia, with nobody to contest his authority. And then there's his mate in North Korea, with an entire country grovelling at his feet. There are others too.
Trump wants the same. You can tell by the fact that he is doing whatever he can to stay in power. He can't call on the military to arrest his opponents as America works differently to that, at least for now. But he wants it, and so he is doing the only thing he can by trying to undermine the authority of the peoples vote. He is, at his core, like Littlefinger from Game of Thrones. He would happily see the country burn, just so he can preside over the ashes.
He does know he is going, even if you have to carry him out. You can tell by the fact that he is pulling American troops out of foreign countries. He's in need of another core promise to chalk up as a win for his legacy. He did promise that if you remember. And if he does that then he creates a headache for the incoming administration where he potentially gets to label Biden in the future as a Warmonger. Which along with the firings and the appointments put's everything in perspective.
He knows he is going, you are going to have to carry him out, but he is not done yet. Roll on 2024. If not him, then is daughter. He knows Biden is fragile. The early signs of dementia (I hope I'm wrong on that one) are there. This is the view from outside of America, looking in.
Trump did him a favor (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just waiting.. (Score:5, Funny)
Orange fan sad. Low energy.
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