Political Irony

The New Yorker is starting a new series of articles all about “Trump and the Truth“:

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, does not so much struggle with the truth as strangle it altogether. He lies to avoid. He lies to inflame. He lies to promote and to preen. Sometimes he seems to lie just for the hell of it. He traffics in conspiracy theories that he cannot possibly believe and in grotesque promises that he cannot possibly fulfill. When found out, he changes the subject—or lies larger.

Trump lies to an extent that goes far beyond what we have ever seen in a president, or as they put it “in the scale and in the depth of his lying, Donald Trump is in another category”.

Indeed, a series of articles are required in order to cover and fact check all the lies. The first article in the series deals with Trump and immigration.

I must admit that I was reluctant to read the first article, as I have already heard so much about Trump and immigration (and written about it here). But I learned much by reading it, as it is carefully researched and crafted, in order to cut the heart out of not just Trump’s statements, but his entire appeal. No other issue has given Trump so much milage as immigration, as he stokes the fires of fear of the “rapists and criminals” who are supposedly flooding into our country from Mexico and other places.

But there is no actual basis for this fear. Immigrants (including the illegal ones) commit far less crime than ordinary (and legal) citizens. “If you live in a city that has become less dangerous in recent decades, a growing body of evidence suggests that you actually have immigrants to thank.”

I won’t go through all the evidence — the article does that beautifully. Go read it.

There will be a new article every week. I look forward to them.

The website ProCon.org is a goldmine of information about the presidential candidates and how they stand on the major issues of the day. The best part is that every position is backed up by the candidate’s own words using extensive quotes.

For example, if you want to know how the candidates feel about abortion rights, you might be surprised to find that all four candidates support abortion. Well, except for the fact that Trump seems to have changed his position several times. Most recently he said he would support changing the Republican platform to allow abortion in case of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. But before that he has expressed both CON and PRO opinions (and also a “NOT CLEARLY PRO OR CON” opinion), which they list.

The site lists over 70 issues, including on fracking, government surveillance, gun control, private prisons, immigration, minimum wage, climate change, gay marriage, torture, Obamacare, and so forth.

It is a great site to wander around. See if you can guess a candidate’s position on a topic before you click through to see the answer. Or if you are in a hurry, a single page summary. They even provide a quiz you can take to see which candidate matches your beliefs. You might be surprised by the results.

Don’t think election fraud is a real problem? Well, not in the way the Republicans claim it is (people voting without government ID). The real potential problem is the insecurity of the computers that the government uses to count votes.

Monday, the FBI issued a warning that foreign hackers have gained access to election databases in two states, reported to be Arizona and Illinois. In the Illinois case, officials were forced to shut down the state’s voter registration system for 10 days in July. The hackers downloaded personal data on as many as 200,000 voters. In Arizona, malicious software was placed into its voter registration system.

Even worse, an IP address used in the attacks matches one used by Russian hackers, and the hacking methods used resemble methods used in other suspected Russian state-sponsored cyberattacks (including one carried out just a month ago).

Hacking a voter registration system would make it possible to throw an election, by removing the names of voters likely to vote for a single candidate, making it much more difficult for those people to actually vote.

And these are just the hacks that we know about.

I am a computer scientist, and so is the founder of Electoral Vote, and I completely agree with Electoral Vote’s warning:

The problem with hacking is that a foreign power could interfere with an election and there is a decent chance it would go undetected. The best way to protect against hacking is to avoid using computers in the voting process altogether, and to make sure the voter registration systems are not connected to the Internet in any way.

I believe that it is not only possible, but likely that people (including foreign governments) could throw a US election without detection. In fact, I would not be surprised if it has already been done on a small scale. Or worse, I would be surprised if it hasn’t already been done.

This is a serious threat to our country, our democracy, and our way of life. And little is being done to combat it.