After you sit and pause over this Muller investigation and the dozen Russians indicted (on Friday)....you come to this odd thing. Nowhere in this indictment is there some explanation over what the Russians did....beyond saying they sneaked, or broke into the three servers connected to the DNC, the House Democratic campaign, and the Hillary campaign. There has been a suggestion by one single state that the Russians did attempt (successfully) to break into the voter listing of Illinois. But no one says much after that.
Attempts on the 49 other states? Nope, no one says that in this effort.
But then you start to dig, seven other states had attempted hacks....it's just that the states didn't realize it. Yes, the US government went to analyze things and said that Alaska, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, Florida, California and Wisconsin....had issues. Why didn't they tell the states at the time? Prior to 2016's race? Unknown. They just chose not to make any big deal out of this. Why?
So I will tell you where all of this is going.
First, all of this chatter, if you accept it....means that the voting system can be hacked or manipulated (not that it occurred this time, and it won't be proven unless this gets into a court of law).
Second, by going at the voting listing, you are looking very likely at one key factor....real names/addresses....to be used to inject into second registrations. You could take Joe Smith of such-and-such address, and register Joe in another state, so he'll be in two elections. The problem here....which we have to worry about....what if 5-percent of registered voters are fake already, with Joe Smith-1 registered in this county, and Joe Smith-2 registered in another county....but neither are real. With the Russian method....you would just go and invent Joe Smith-3 in a third county, or another entire state. In fact, there might be twelve Joe Smiths existing out of one single non-existent Joe Smith.
Third, all of this leading back to absentee ballots? Yes. That's the amazing part of the story. As much as neither the Republicans and Democrats didn't want to tighten up the whole registration process....the Russians just walked into this 'candy-shop' and did their walk-around. They know how the 'candy-shop' works, and intend to return.
Could you fake-register 40,000 additional ballots in each state for 2020? Yes, of course.
Here's the nifty thing.....the Democrats desperately hope that these dozen Russians don't show up because if they do, and they tell you what their intention was....to add fake voters, and show you how crapped up the system is.....then you'd have to go and fix it.
The fix?
1. Official US ID cards, only for citizens.
2. No registration for voting unless you have an official ID card.
3. Dumping of the entire voting listing in each state and start fresh.
4. Review the whole process for absentee ballots.
5. Mandate some kind of face-to-face contact with registered voters and county clerks.
6. Refuse last-minute registrations.
7. Mandate the security required for storing the registration data nationally.
Chance of any of this happening for 2020? Zero. Chance of a future hack to slant the US election process? Better than a 99-percent chance.
Sunday, 15 July 2018
Lack of Trust in Believability
This past week, I listened to a discussion over believability. It was a long piece, but they made this significant impression over the fact that folks today....just don't have much trust or believability in what they see or hear.
You could have some Senator talking about some great 'evil', and just sit there grinning because out of his eight-minute hype....he probably made one single point of believability, and the rest of this was mostly all 'BS'.
You could have some sports authority giving a big long talk on something, and by the end....you sit and analyze his commentary....coming to the position that 98-percent of his evidence is fraudulent or non-existent.
You could have some 60-Minutes 'talker' (I used to call their people journalists), who weaves up some story over nine minutes, and then you come to this opinion as the commercial finally comes up....it was all fake news.
I think things went this way in the 1990s with President Clinton, and then went deeper into the pit of non-belief, with President Bush and President Obama. Even with candidates like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, you got more or less a double-dose of non-believability.
Trump? In a way, he's functioning like Mister Haney from Green Acres. Haney was a farmer, turned salesman, turned con-man. He knew the art of sales, and could easily have sold you a mixture of good and bad stuff. In this case, we are at least entertained by Trump, and often surprised that whatever he's selling....seems to be working.
Can America function in this landscape of disbelief? I have my doubts.
A large percentage of folks don't have much trust in the FBI, the State Department, the CIA, various religious groups, Judges, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Democracy, their local cops, or the banks.
You have various HR folks within companies who are viewing the approaching 'snowflakes' coming in for interviews, and rate them as 'losers'. Safe-space talk? Blacks lives matter? Non-belief.
Newspapers, long saddled with the responsibility of delivering voters to certain political parties? They are slowly dying off because the public seems to be in a period of non-believability.
The problem here is that you have a fairly dysfunctional political system in existence today.....with people in a state of disbelief. Both political parties have worked hard to commit people to a landscape of non-believability. Just the image of Senator McCain on a Sunday talk-show last year.....was enough for a fair number of Republican-voters to start laughing.
This past week, with FBI-super-agent Strozek's performance, people fell into a pit of non-believability.
Have we hit bottom yet? That's the thing about it.....I don't think so. And that might bother some folks....to think it's going to get worse.
You could have some Senator talking about some great 'evil', and just sit there grinning because out of his eight-minute hype....he probably made one single point of believability, and the rest of this was mostly all 'BS'.
You could have some sports authority giving a big long talk on something, and by the end....you sit and analyze his commentary....coming to the position that 98-percent of his evidence is fraudulent or non-existent.
You could have some 60-Minutes 'talker' (I used to call their people journalists), who weaves up some story over nine minutes, and then you come to this opinion as the commercial finally comes up....it was all fake news.
I think things went this way in the 1990s with President Clinton, and then went deeper into the pit of non-belief, with President Bush and President Obama. Even with candidates like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, you got more or less a double-dose of non-believability.
Trump? In a way, he's functioning like Mister Haney from Green Acres. Haney was a farmer, turned salesman, turned con-man. He knew the art of sales, and could easily have sold you a mixture of good and bad stuff. In this case, we are at least entertained by Trump, and often surprised that whatever he's selling....seems to be working.
Can America function in this landscape of disbelief? I have my doubts.
A large percentage of folks don't have much trust in the FBI, the State Department, the CIA, various religious groups, Judges, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Democracy, their local cops, or the banks.
You have various HR folks within companies who are viewing the approaching 'snowflakes' coming in for interviews, and rate them as 'losers'. Safe-space talk? Blacks lives matter? Non-belief.
Newspapers, long saddled with the responsibility of delivering voters to certain political parties? They are slowly dying off because the public seems to be in a period of non-believability.
The problem here is that you have a fairly dysfunctional political system in existence today.....with people in a state of disbelief. Both political parties have worked hard to commit people to a landscape of non-believability. Just the image of Senator McCain on a Sunday talk-show last year.....was enough for a fair number of Republican-voters to start laughing.
This past week, with FBI-super-agent Strozek's performance, people fell into a pit of non-believability.
Have we hit bottom yet? That's the thing about it.....I don't think so. And that might bother some folks....to think it's going to get worse.