Political Irony

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.

Maybe I’m missing something. Yes, I know that there is a narrative that Hillary Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy. There’s even the alt-right version where she is a criminal who should be locked up (for, among other things, assassinating 40 people).

To me, it just seems like people are taking any story about her and viewing it through that lens. This is not a question of me drinking kool-aid for Clinton (or even carrying water for her). I have been critical of both Clintons many times in the past. When they deserved it.

The scandal du jour is that, OMG, she had meetings while she was secretary of state with people who donated money to the Clinton foundation. A foundation that nobody disputes has done lots of good things around the world, including saving millions of lives.

First of all, the fact that a small percentage of the people who met with Clinton while she was Secretary of State also happened to be donors to the Clinton Foundation is not at all suspicious. Correlation does not imply causation. Is there any evidence that donating money to the foundation got those people access? No. Even if it did, would anyone be the least bit surprised that money drives our politics? Even the Supreme Court says that money is free speech, and is protected.

The important question is, is there any evidence that donating money to the foundation got the donors special favors from Clinton? And the answer here is a resounding no. Some of the donors asked for favors. Most of the time they did not get them. And the few favors that were done appear to be things that likely would have been granted even if the person had never donated to the foundation.

I’ve also heard people complain that Clinton should release the schedule of all her meetings as secretary of state. Uh, she already did that. You can read them yourself online. But you don’t have to, because one reporter read all 3,721 pages and gives you a an overview of the “surprisingly intimate portrait of the life of the Democratic nominee for president” revealed by her schedule. Conclusion? Hillary Clinton works very hard and meets with a lot of people.

The bottom line is that scandals sell newspapers, and the media is only too happy to play along with the Clinton narrative created through endless Benghazi hearings. In particular, the original AP story about the Clinton Foundation “scandal” was very sloppy reporting. And adding insult to injury, the AP promoted the story widely with tweets that were downright inaccurate and misleading.

I’ve condemned Obama when he has done bad things, and that’s about someone I’m happy to admit that I really like and think has been one of our best presidents ever. I’m not afraid to condemn Clinton, but seriously, this is a scandal? It’s almost enough to convince me that sexism is alive and well in the US.

We reported recently that Donald Trump had pretty much only appeared on Fox News after a disastrous interview on CNN after the conventions. Well, I guess Trump is reading this blog (hah!) because he actually (finally) gave an interview to CNN.

It did not go well. In fact, it went really badly.

Maybe he should just stick to being interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News, where they won’t ask him any difficult questions.

Frank Luntz gained fame as the conservative “public opinion guru” who created many of the GOP talking points though the use of “focus groups”. So it is extremely interesting that Luntz put together a focus group of Trump supporters in Pennsylvania — a state that Trump claims he will win unless Clinton somehow cheats — to see how they are feeling:

Can Trump regain their vote? Or is Clinton cheating by merely letting Trump be Trump?

Donald Trump used to appear on any TV program that would have him, garnering him billions in free publicity. But those days seem to be (mostly) over. In fact, Trump is now appearing only on Fox News. What happened?

The last time Trump appeared on any network other than Fox News was July 31, when Trump was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC. That was the time he questioned whether the Gold Star mother of the killed Muslim army officer was not allowed to speak because of her religion, starting his very public argument with the soldier’s family. Oops. He hasn’t appeared on ABC since.

His last appearance on NBC News was July 24 (and not on MSNBC since May 20), on CBS was July 17, and the last time on CNN was June 13.

Trump has completely retreated into the echo chamber of Fox News. Since his appearance with Stephanopoulos he has appeared 11 times on Fox News. His favorite interviewer? Sean Hannity, who also advises Trump.

How much of an echo chamber? One where the echoes are softer than softballs. On Sean Hannity’s show, Trump was asked “You’re doing events starting early in the morning. Wednesday night, we didn’t finish dinner until well after midnight. And I’ve watched you through this process. Where do you get that stamina to do this?”

Then five days later, on a town hall, Fox News asked “How do you have the stamina to keep going and going and going? You’ve only taken two days off this month, Hillary’s taken seven days off.”

Just a few days later yet another interview began with “You have had a banner week. I don’t know how you do it. But you have given at least four or five major speeches, you have been to Louisiana, you just gave a speech this afternoon.”

Trump’s desire to talk to only people who fawn over him means that he is singing to the choir and won’t be able to reach out to voters beyond his core constituency (which is angry blue-color men who watch Fox News). That’s a good way to lose an election (assuming you are trying to win it).