Charlie Pierce introduced this topic better than I can:
There is simply no way to argue that the 2016 presidential election was a legitimate exercise in democratic self-government. There are too many bread crumbs leading in the same direction, somewhere north of the Vodootvodny Canal. If it wasn’t rigged, and I am entirely agnostic on that point, it was certainly vandalized to the point of uselessness, and all the vandalism was directed at one specific end: to make sure Donald J. Trump was elected President of the United States. And we are now coming up on another presidential election with the 2016 election still lying on the slab, its autopsy unfinished and its cause of death not entirely determined.
Against that backdrop, Pierce directs us to an article from last year, showing that Russian oligarch, Vladimir Potanin, owns AltPoint Capital and they have a financial interest in ByteGrid, a vendor which handles the State of Maryland voter registration database and candidate management operations. Maryland’s two Democratic senators got right on it. Roll Call:
“As the Rules Committee prepares to mark up the Secure Elections Act, we respectfully request that you sponsor an amendment requiring that an election infrastructure vendor submit a report to the Chair of the [Election Assistance Commission] and the Secretary of [the Department of Homeland Security] identifying any foreign national that directly or indirectly owns or controls the vendor, as well as any material change in ownership resulting in ownership or control by a foreign national,” Cardin and Van Hollen wrote Monday.
“We also recently asked Treasury Secretary [Steven] Mnuchin to review the acquisition of ByteGrid in his role as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States,” the Maryland Democrats wrote. “While we are hopeful that the Treasury Department’s review will be able to provide additional information about this specific transaction, we are concerned about the implications of this case for elections across the country.”
“Currently, CFIUS is authorized to review foreign investments in U.S. companies that result in foreign control of the company. If an investment poses a threat to national security, it can be blocked,” the senators wrote in the letter to Mnuchin. “If either AltPoint Capital or ByteGrid did not file a notice with CFIUS, the Committee has the ability to look back at any completed transaction that results in control and threatens national security and take steps to address the national security threat, including requiring divestment.”
It goes without saying that if the Russians just walk in here and buy up the firms that control our voter registration databases and other functions of our elections, that is something that sounds a note of concern; actually more of a cry of outrage and justifiably so.
Here’s a link to the Senate Intelligence Committee on the “Russian Active Measures Campaign and Interference in the 2016 Election” report and here’s Pierce’s synopsis of same.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dropped the first of the reports stemming from its nearly three-years long investigation into the Russian “active measures” as regards the 2016 presidential election. There will be others, but this one was quite enough. There were some astounding conclusions; for example, the report indicates that Russian ratfckers were prepared to raise holy hell all over social media if Hillary Rodham Clinton had won the election. They were brewing up the hashtag, #DemocracyRIP, which certainly would have trended heavily once the American conservative media got wind of it.
The Russians also tried to embed Russian officials in polling stations around the country. And there are several references to the now-famous Sergei Kislyak, for whom Paul Manafort was carrying a bag. In truth, between the redactions and the cautious language of those parts of the report you can read, there still was enough to conclude that the American electoral infrastructure is pretty much cheesecloth that any ambitious Albanian teenager can muck with almost at a whim. The only way that this was done by a “400-pound guy sitting on his bed,” to use the president*’s famous formulation from the campaign, would be if two 200-pound guys were sitting on the same bench in Yakutsk. […]
While any one voting machine is fairly vulnerable, as has been demonstrated over and over again publicly, the ability to actually do an operation to change the outcome of an election on the scale you would need to, and do it surreptitiously, is incredibly difficult. A much more achievable goal would be to undermine confidence in the results of the electoral process, and that could be done much more effectively and easily….A logical thing would be, if your goal is to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system—which the Russians have a long goal of wanting to put themselves on the same moral plane as the United States…one way would be to cause chaos on election day. How could you start to do that? Mess with the voter registration databases.
Maybe chaos on election day is in our future. Just this week Mitch McConnell blew off two elections protections laws. Clearly, the GOP establishment is not much concerned about the accuracy and efficacy of our elections — or perhaps they’re just acting on orders from a higher authority, who knows anymore?
In any event, Donald Trump began undermining confidence in election results during the 2016 campaign. It’s obvious at this point that that was part of his grand scheme, in collusion with Mother Russia, and it semi-backfired on him when he won. As to Russia and the U.S. being on the same moral plane, yes, this entire Trump episode has dragged us down to a level of commonality and then some. America has been undermined, as intended. That goal has not only been achieved by the Russians, it has been aided and abetted, nay amplified, by the likes of Republican low-lives like Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Doug Collins and the rest of the klown kar that emptied out and clacked in Congress just this week.
Robert Mueller sounded the alarm in no uncertain terms. The Russians are interfering with our elections, “even as we sit here.” We need to get moving.
“We?” Won’t work when there’s a Russian asset working as the head of the Senate and won’t put through any bills to protect the vote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitch-mcconnell-is-a-russian-asset/2019/07/26/02cf3510-afbc-11e9-a0c9-6d2d7818f3da_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0c3b79348f9a
Election security needs to be assured. Maybe it’s something that needs to be focused upon by each state. I have no idea. This is something that I’m only just now beginning to understand the depth of. But if people don’t heed Mueller’s comment in Congress this week, then we are sunk.
“Election security needs to be assured. Maybe it’s something that needs to be focused upon by each state.”
“By each state?” You mean leaving the security in the hands of the same officials who spend more of their time making it more difficult for *certain* people to exercise their right to vote through nonsensical “voter ID” bills and drawing political districts designed to enhance/protect one party’s power and ending early voting and making absentee voting more difficult for everyone but military personnel and, well, need I really go on? Maybe you should remember the obvious conflict of interest that existed during the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia, in which the REPUBLICAN Secretary of State was running for Governor but did NOT feel any particular need to step back from overseeing voting-related issues (including certifying voting tallies) at any point (even as early as the state’s GOP primary, his leading opponent called out the conflict of interest and the GOP-led legislature just took Kemp at his word that he could be “impartial”).
Maybe in the states which have boards or panels that are chosen on a largely non-partisan basis or which are appointed by bipartisan legislative committees, election security could be handled by each state. But with some 40 states in which that security would be left up to a GOP-dominated government whether in an elective, partisan office or appointed by a GOP governor or a GOP-dominated legislature (not saying or suggesting that all those states are controlled by that diabolical party seeking to stay in power by whatever means are necessary), I don’t have that kind of trust.
Right now, the codes that run the voting machines are proprietary. That means, they are secret and only the companies can know what is really in there. That should make everyone who believes in democracy shudder!
This has been going on since the ironically named “Help America Vote Act of 2002” signed into law by Bush Jr.
During bush’s 2004 campaign, Ohio’s secretary of state, Republican Kenneth Blackwell, who was, coincidentally, the co-chair of the Bush campaign, hired a computer co. called Smartech.
Kerry was 6-7% points ahead of Bush, with Ohio being the key to the presidency.
The polls also showed Kerry winning Ohio. Suddenly there was a plethora of irregular returns around midnight and then, ta-da! a miracle! Bush was ahead and you know who was elected.
Ever since electronic voting machines were mandated by HAVA, we’ve had voting patterns that no longer match the polling numbers.
Mark my words, in the future we are going to find out what was in those proprietary codes, and be very pissed off.
Now some states are changing over to paper ballots, tabulated by, yes, electronic counting machines. But, unless there are mandatory audits of every election, they can still steal the election.
You don’t think they would leave it to the voting public, do you?
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/28/ex_ohio_secretary_of_state_ken
Mitch McConnell is unpopular in his own district, perhaps he’s depending on the Russians to drag him over the finish line to continue to betray America for his own good. Prison time if it can be proved .” Moscow Mitch” helps the godless Russian establishment and Evangelicals are silently agreeing thus are complicit in the BETRAYAL of America. I doubt Jesus would be proud. SHAME.
I loathe the evangelicals. They are a cult of godless, materialistic users. They exploit the vulnerable and they bear zero resemblance to Christ or to his teachings.
I flat-out HATE the evangelicals, Ursula. Pack of fearful fools who want to lord it over anybody who haven’t got their lack of pigmentation and realize that those days are closing fast…and DON’T get me started on how they’ve handled mental health issues.
I’m not sure it’s all evangelicals. But it certainly applies to the Dominionists (Pence, Cruz, Kellyanne, and others), and some evangelicals. They have justified to themselves why Christ’s words are not Christian belief. Go figure.
I think election security has to be state by state at this point. But a majority of states are controlled by Republicans and they do not WANT anyone else voting. And their SCOTUS has defiled the Voting Rights Act already. So…..
I grew up in the Southern Baptist church and I know hippocracy when I see it and I saw a lot of it. From drinking alcohol to breaking every other rule of the Church. It just wasn’t hard for me to leave them behind.
Evangelicals have been in the forefront of opposition to many major freedom issues such as women’s right to vote and civil rights, you name it and they hate it. I had to get off Facebook or lose all my cousins because I couldn’t stand their stupid posts.
Oh the Russian establishment is every bit as hypocritically “Christian ” as ours. Russian Orthodox, of course.
I wouldn’t doubt that for a minute.
At this point, unless you’re in a solid red area like I am, it’s what EVERY Republican officeholder left is hoping for….and that’s kind of stupid. It didn’t work out in 2018 and I got a feeling that everyone’s heightened awareness is going to make 2020 even tougher (and yeah, Trump’s running his mouth off, but we already knew that).
$400 million of Russian owned aluminum plant suddenly appearing in his state would seem to imply something. Bonus: Company owned by Russian previously subject to US sanctions, now suddenly lifted.
How convenient for the Russian concerned.
McConnell has NO district. He’s a Senator–an office which is chosen by the people of the entire state.
And, for well over a decade, stories have been repeated about how “unpopular” McConnell is but he’s still been elected by a MAJORITY of the voters since he first ran for re-election back in 1990 and he didn’t really suffer his first real primary challenge until 2014 when he still won by nearly 25 points and then he won the general election with the second largest margin of victory of his career.
Of course you are correct, my bad. That said I’m ashamed my family comes from Kentucky when I see Rand Paul and “Moscow Mitch” dong so much damage to our Constitution. Mostly Mitch, Rand is just a comic relief except when he’s blocking bills like the 911 survivors healthcare bill then he’s just an ass.
Here’s the thing about stunts like what the Russians pulled with us and the UK. The key element is surprise, i.e. the saw of “never know what hit ’em”. You got to not be looking for it to actually work. Can you name one responsible public official (naturally, no current Republican officeholder counts as such) who ISN’T looking for such tricks now? One year and three odd months out from the 2020 elections and everyone’s in a state of BOLO (Be On the LookOut). France had the warning it needed to head off those same games so we know it’s doable.
So my suggestion to everybody? Lay off the despair, look at what all you CAN do and go do it. And in the back of your head, carry forward the understanding that our work is only getting started once Trump is gone.
There are plenty of tricks neither you nor I have seen yet but the Russians are masters of propaganda. They’ve been doing it for a long time. Do you know what a deep fake is? And how it can be used with all the faces the Russians recently collected and what other things they can do with those faces? We have to depend on our professionals to help us spot the new stuff and Mitch is blocking that so good luck America your leaders are collaborating with the enemy.
You want to wave that white flag, be my guest. As a matter of principle, I tend to reject the notion that any human being or group of them is deserving of the sort of Bond villain status that you’re conferring on the Russians at the moment.
There’s a story about General Grant during the final campaign of the Civil War. His officers went on and on and on about everything General Lee could do. Grant finally had enough and asked his officers if they thought Lee was going to pull a double somersault and land in their front and rear at the same time. Then he told to stop worry about what Lee was going to do and start worrying about what THEY were going to do. It’s still pretty good advice.
bareshark,
You said, “Lay off the despair, look at what all you CAN do and go do it.”
This hits at the heart of one annoying reality: “We” can do nothing about this.
“We” the people have had any access to influence the power-brokers stolen from us.
Sincerely, I would welcome ANY suggestion from you as to something we can do.
This is going to sound mean, Annis, and I apologize for that in advance. But if you’ve embraced that frame of mind as firmly as it sounds, you’ve lost already. Like too many well-meaning people on our side of the political spectrum, it sounds like you’ve internalized the fiction (and that’s all it is) that you are powerless and always will be powerless. Anyone who grew up in an abusive household like I did recognizes that mindset all too well. So if you’re expecting some magic words from me to change that for you, I’ve got nothing. It’d be too much like trying to change a white evangelical’s mind on, well, anything.
But here’s the thing: nobody ever got anywhere in this country by declaring everything hopeless. Think back to late 19th Century America, where labor unions were getting arrested or even killed to bring a better life we’ve since taken for granted. Think back to every civil rights movement you can name from first wave feminism to LGBTQ, who had to fight for the right to be considered people worthy of respect. Think on the clean energy and vegetarian crowd, whose eco-friendly ideas have gone from fringe to closer to mainstream in the last twenty years. Those examples are why I continue to work with MoveOn, why I never miss an election, why I stay involved in my local Democratic party and Indivisible groups and why I keep posting what I do. So my question back to you is this…what are YOU prepared to do?
Why does anybody try to deal with that mealy-mouthed bastard, Treasury Secretary [Steven] Mnuchin ?
He is one of many right-hand A**-holes that Trump surrounds himself with to destroy any, “good stuff”, our country has built to protect us … virtually every protection against health hazards, food quality, scientific studies to stop pollution, fight global warming problems, proper handling of nuclear power plants and waste … huge problems are beginning to show up, just because a 2 year old with the nuclear codes is in the WH ….
Our flush-out of the WH, cannot come soon enough ….
BTW, since it seems like the House, in spite of idiots like the big mouth Jim Jordon, trying to dominate everyone, maybe we should suggest since the investigation is about everything Russia. they should consider our concern about the voting machines and process, OWNED by Russian money?
The optics on everything Russia/Trump/McConnell already stink horribly … there are a few loose ends as well, starring, none other than L.Graham …. details can sometimes be VERY damning … what ever changed him into a screaming monkey must be awful …
I am sure that votes are properly counted in Russia as I am sure the earth is flat.
That’s the plan here. Get you to doubt the fundamental validity of the system.
Well, I live in Florida and it’s working on me. We had two counties compromised and the Senate and Governorship went to people who had been trailing in the polls except for the election. I’m sure it was rigged in favor of the Republicans. And I am 76 years old with 4 college degrees and have worked with people from all over the world so I not exactly naive.
So what’s motivating the treachery? Greed of course. Greed for power. Greed for more money than you’ll ever need or can spent.
The only answer I can come up is that the GOP made the calculation that to have a useful idiot in the WH was to their advantage; never mind how he got there. They could pack the courts and bend over for the special interests that were filling their pockets. All of the Gaetz in our government are forming a conga line to contribute to this treachery. And as all black holes do; they pull other morally weak bodies unto them. As an example I can give you Senator Rubio and Senator (Skeletor) Scott.
McConnell couldn’t care less what happens to the US in the future. He would be dead but he would have had an affluent life.
I’d add one more related ingredient to that stew: fear. Cut to the bottom of anyone’s excessive greed (come to think of it, does anybody know a form of greed that ISN’T excessive?) and fear is waiting for you down there. But what could they be afraid of in light of the cogent Mitch McConnell example cited?
My answer: not mattering. While these fools are alive and have positions and use their wealth, people are forced to pay attention to them. Not so when they’re dead…the takedown of numerous statues in the aftermath of the former Soviet Union’s fall (gee, can anyone think of a series of statues here in the US that got this treatment recently?) is a highly visible example of such. Deep in what passes for their souls, all these creeps recoil at the approach of oblivion and realize that they won’t have any more of a memory shelf life to set them apart from the billions they took from. And what they’ve defended is being systematically dismantled. So they fight back but it’ll be for nothing in the end. Come to this conclusion this late in the game, it always is.
Is this coincidence?
Russian influence reached 126 million people through Facebook alone https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/technology/facebook-google-russia.html
What’s the population of the US? 327.2 million http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/united-states-population/
So if you divide the number of people affected by the Russian interference (126 million) by the US population (327.2) you get 0.3853 or 38%.
What has been the president’s approval rating? 39%.
The latest figures include 37% who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_jul26
Interesting isn’t it? Is this his base?
I’ve got a better stat to add to that. I don’t know if it’s accurate, because I saw it on Twitter, but here goes: 37% of the population has an IQ 85 or under. Isn’t that something?
Ah Twitter! Its close but no cigar per se. Ok let me take you back to college and statistics. IQ is particularly well suited to the bell curve distribution because the mean for IQ is 100. So the same percentage would fall to the right as well as the left. The standard deviation is 15. To the left you would then get 85 then 70 then 55 and to the right 115 then 130 then 145 and if you go further the percent goes infinitesimal. IQ of between 85 and 100 is 34.13%; between 70 and 85 is 13.59%; between 55 and 70 is 2.14%; between 40 and 55 is .13%.
I have a gripe with IQ and that is that people from different zip codes consistently score differently.