Never a winning strategy — it just spreads the pathogens, whether or not the pig knows what’s going on.
As recount begins, White House says it has seen no evidence of hackers tampering with 2016 election https://t.co/ExWX4zCFlG
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) November 26, 2016
… “We stand behind our election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people,” a senior administration official told POLITICO late Friday.
“The federal government did not observe any increased level of malicious cyber activity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on election day,” the official added. “We believe our elections were free and fair from a cybersecurity perspective.”…
My emphasis.
… On Saturday, the Clinton campaign broke its long silence on the issue with a statement from the campaign’s general counsel, Marc Elias.
In a post on Medium, Elias confirmed that independent experts had briefed the campaign on potential irregularities that could be the result of hacking, but he said that ultimately the campaign found no “actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology.”
Still, he said, the campaign is joining Stein’s challenge in Wisconsin and will do the same if she requests recounts in the other states.
The senior Obama administration official reiterated the government’s accusation that Russia had directed its hackers to go after U.S. political organizations and political operatives’ email accounts with the goal of interfering in the election.
Moscow, the official said, “probably expected that publicity surrounding” leaked emails and documents “would raise questions about the integrity of the election process that could have undermined the legitimacy of the president-elect.”…
Instead of talking about deliberate voter suppression by U.S. legislators, James Comey’s Repub-friendly publicity stunts, or targeted/doctored leaks by foreign agencies, “we” are letting ourselves get distracted by dark tales of SCIENTERRIFIC HAXXORS somehow screwing with the black boxes from a vast distance. Oldest magicians’ trick in the world!
The election was illegitimate (the Electoral College, FBI, Wikileaks), but Trump still winning the EC after the recounts will mask this.
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) November 26, 2016
And so, as the true stories about voter-ID monkey-mischief and undersupplying sites and equipment to ‘undeserving’ neighborhoods continue to accumulate, the GOP and its media enablers have been given a shiny gift-wrapped package of ‘Democrats and their dumb conspiracy theories‘ misdirection… by Jill Stein, her foreign backers, and a bunch of third-party-voting special snowflakes retroactively embarrassed by the success of their efforts to keep Hillary out of the White House.
But it’s very good news for the Trump team!
liberal
LOL
germy
smintheus
Trump treated Obama as illegitimate for years. We should return the favor in just about any way we can.
greengoblin
I take issue with that “will of the people” statement.
NotMax
Inquiring minds want to know what are the other five impossible things Stein believes before breakfast.
germy
@greengoblin:
Will of some willfully ignorant people.
germy
@liberal:
J.
Speaking of the Russians…
Duke's Archives
Somehow, someway this is not fine.
bjacques
Worst case is the recount shows an election that wasn’t tainted by activity a Voter ID law would stop. Hacking? Who said anything about hacking? (^_^)
Also, it’s a last chance for state employees to get some overtime before they get the axe, as they almost certainly will when the state GOP makes further cuts in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”
germy
Baud
I have a feeling we’re going to start down a long, miserable road where we spin everything as good news for Trump.
I guess that’s good news for Trump.
Baud
@germy: I’m actually impressed he distinguished between the Greens and the Dems. #lowexpectations
jacy
You know, I just don’t see how this makes things any worse than they already are. I understand the White House position. But that position isn’t going to stop people from talking, agitating, complaining, or jumping into conspiracy theories. I understand that the money could be put to better use — but the people who are donating probably aren’t going to put it toward those things. And people are the other side are going to gin up a controversy over something — if it wasn’t this, it’d be something else. I, for one, don’t care how it makes “us” look. Because in the end, they’re going to see “us” through that lens anyway. So I say recount. Shit, if liberals/progressives didn’t do things because the other side was going to make whatever shitty hay they could out of it, we’d never do anything at all. This may get more people involved in the process, it may encourage people to learn something. It may not. But not doing it because the other side will “make fun of us” is a lousy argument against anything.
germy
@Baud: Is our president-elect learning?
Pogonip
I have the flu.
I got a flu shot.
Beware.
Pogonip
@Baud: I don’t know about Trump, but it’s excellent news for John McCain.
Earl
I have seen just about zero caring by the public about the effect of voter suppression except for Democrats who already cared. Hell, you have republican legislators in WI bragging that they are leveraging voter ID laws to suppress dem voters, and NC legislators targeting blacks.
I really think regardless of what Stein does no-one who doesn’t already care will give a damn.
That’s depressing, but it’s also the state of things.
Downpuppy
Once the recounts get rolling and the interference starts & the multiple stunts kick in to prevent it, added legitimacy will be long forgotten.
chopper
@germy:
trump’s just pissed someone else thought of a way to bilk voters out of their hard earned cash.
Duke's Archives
So the President says “don’t bother.” That’s really, really something I never thought I’d hear.
gvg
Well I think some people will become more convinced of hacking if we don’t do these recounts so it will slightly cut down future conspiracy theories. I guess joining the suit lets us watch more closely. I dont really trust stein. The more future things that go wrong w trump as president the more people would say why didn’t we etc. However when nothing changes some people are evidently going to be more hysterical and in denial.
Mnemosyne
@Earl:
I wish I could say you were wrong, but I fear you are not. There are way too many people in this country who think that only the “right” people should be allowed to vote, and people who are too poor or disabled or elderly to get a driver’s license shouldn’t be allowed to vote, either.
Anya
I wish people were not directing their grief to this wild goose chase. The vulgarian won because of an assist from Russia, the American media and rogue elements of the FBI, including their director. And even then he barely won. Let’s focus our attention on the battles ahead.
Mnemosyne
@Duke’s Archives:
He’s saying, Don’t bother investigating these hacking claims. And, he’s probably right. We don’t need to search for mysterious conspiracies in a country where Republicans publicly brag about preventing Democrats from voting. The “conspiracy” is right in front of our faces, and yet some people will desperately search for a more palatable (i.e. less openly racist) explanation.
Ella in New Mexico
First, there’s “hacking”, the internet-based, mostly ongoing meddling with “things”. That would require the “things” actually be connected to the internet, at some time in the equation, which most electronic voting machines probably are not and is probably the least likely way anyone would disrupt voting counts because it’s the equivalent of standing on a street corner with a sign saying “I just hacked all these voting machines inside this here precinct.” So yeah, I bet the US didn’t “see” any kind of activity like that.
But–we have seen by the most recent successful, wide-scale DDoS attack on Dyn that it is possible to use the “Internet of Things”– internet connected devices that are not going to tell you they’ve been hacked, now sending coded messages to other computers to disrupt an a targeted device or server. It’s why my husband is not allowed to use any USB device-especially one of his own–on his site’s government computer. Even though it’s not a secured or secret access computer, and is rarely used for anything other than accessing his email or putting in timesheet information. These tiny fucker programs are out there and they’re “seeking” contact with any open door, which literally could be on your kid’s Yellow Power Ranger USB he used at school to cut and paste his report from Wikipedia and now you’re just borrowing it to take to work to upload a recent picture of your dog for your screen saver.
So let’s say you have to update your electronic voting machine’s software prior to an election, and the way you transfer that update has been corrupted with one of the “bots’ that were released into the world recently with the sole job of finding their way to the voting machine software. So, it’s still unlikely, but this could happen. Why wouldn’t we want to know this? If the governments of the states don’t care to audit their own machines, then someone like Stein has to make them do it.
But Anne’s point about ignoring our good ole’ garden variety election fraud/voter suppression/tVoter ID shenanigans is important. But guess what: pushing for recounts in these states might actually find something you don’t expect right now. Or maybe we all DO suspect. We might find uncounted provisional and absentee ballots. We might find outright counting errors in these machines. We might find resistance from the officials in these states to pursue the necessary investigations regarding how any discrepancies we do find occurred. We might even get to crack open an EVM or two and test it’s software.
That would do a LOT of good for the us election system, maybe even spur more reforms by people from both sides to fix these gaping security holes. So we win, regardless of the eventual EC vote.
I simply cannot see anything but pure, partisan spite being a reason to argue against Stein doing this. No it won’t tarnish anyone’s reputation–you forget, they already say the worst shit about Clinton and her supporters anyway. It’s all crap and I say we just STAAAHP letting these assholes scare us with “possible criticism” anymore. Ever.
And for all of y’all who thinks this stuff is just “dark tales of SCIENTERRIFIC HAXXORS”: Clinton’s team has changed it’s mind on supporting the recounts and audits after having poo-poohed the initial concerns brought to them last week. That’s either a a very auspicious or ominous sign, take your pick. But it means they’re no longer scared to see what the truth might hold, for or against her.
And there’s also one more silver lining in this whole thing: anything that can show the election was messed up, unfair, or outright stolen, in addition to Clinton being well into the 2-3 million zone in the popular vote may actually give the Electoral College the second ball it needs to overturn it. Maybe that’s what the Clinton team is banking on. I say we should support them at this point.
PsiFighter37
@Duke’s Archives: All the damage that was caused – by Comey, Wikileaks, Russia, voter suppression laws, etc. – isn’t grounds (sadly enough) for re-running the election.
It is what it is. Learn to enjoy eating shit sandwiches on a daily basis for the next 4 years.
Pogonip
@efgoldman: I must have caught light string flu from those damn lights.
debbie
@Pogonip:
A couple friends who have had flu shots for years have also gotten sick from it this year.
Duke's Archives
@PsiFighter37: Four years? That’s optimistic.
jacy
OT – Ron Glass has died. I hate 2016.
Pogonip
@debbie: I blame Obama. And Trump.
liberal
@germy: I think shortly after the election The Onion’s piece about Al Qaeda just hitting their couches and eating popcorn (or something like that) and just watching the US destroy itself was highly emailed. I first thought it was recent, but it’s actually from 2014 or something. Yet so appropriate.
dww44
@smintheus: I second and third this. I’m tired of us rolling over and playing dead and always taking the high road.
schrodinger's cat
I do not understand the hostility to a recount. I also don’t understand fearing something that hasn’t even happened and surrendering preemptively. This takes being a chicken little to a whole another level.
Major Major Major Major
@Ella in New Mexico: a recount would not detect the kind of tampering you’re talking about.
dww44
@Ella in New Mexico: and I triple triple endorse your missive. I’ve gotten a lot of grief over the last two days, both here and at LGM, about my joining the Stein effort. I still don’t regret that I did. As far as I’m concerned it’s a necessary first step to examining a broken electoral system with enough apparent anomalies on Nov. 8 that merit a revisit, even if nothing turns up.
Major Major Major Major
@dww44: did you also join the effort in the Louisiana runoff?
Raven Onthill
These are not lightweight figures. Rivest in particular is a major figure in cryptography. We may be doing this for all the wrong reasons, but it’s a worthwhile thing to do; audits ought to be routine.
Still, going to be one more excuse for Republicans not to count votes. But then, they don’t need any more excuses.
James Powell
@Earl:
And that is, to those who care, really damning evidence of how deeply racist this country is.
Major Major Major Major
@Raven Onthill: a hand recount of ballots as cast would not detect this.
James Powell
@Duke’s Archives:
That’s really who Obama is. Forward not backward.
He & the Democrats could have set up investigations of the whole RW project in 2009, but they chose instead to pay attention to actual policies, to try to make the lives of Americans better, and other things that voters apparently don’t care about.
Anya
@schrodinger’s cat: it’s not fear. But many of us feel the recount is pointless and will gain nothing. Also, it makes us hypocritical when we attacked Trump for claiming the election will be rigged. But more than anything it will discourage people from voting since they won’t trust the system. And after all that Trump still wins.
Duke's Archives
@jacy: Shepherd Book died ?! Fuck this fucking year.
Major Major Major Major
For the record I’m not opposed to a recount per se, but the issues people are raising would require a forensic audit (which we should do!) and I’m worried this is diverting attention from Louisiana.
Villago Delenda Est
THIS is an instance where Obama sucks; the same BS that happened in 2000 and resulted in the deaths of over 4000 US servicemen and women and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through a totally optional war of aggression perpetrated by a deserting coward and the draft dodging sack of shit who was actually calling the shots.
debbie
@Pogonip:
I only blame Trump. They knew he was coming and screwed up the formula.
Villago Delenda Est
@liberal: This year it’s Daesh, getting precisely the regime in the US they want to advance their own murderous superstition based agenda.
debbie
@schrodinger’s cat:
The odds that a recount would change anything are small. I’m trying to stay focused on looking forward and doing whatever I can do to ensure Trump is a failure.
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
I just read that elsewhere. This fucking year.
I’m old enough to have been a “Barney Miller” fan (at least in syndication), so I was really excited that he was in “Firefly.” And he did not disappoint.
James Powell
@jacy:
One of my all time top ten favorite characters on TV on one of my all time top ten favorite shows.
schrodinger's cat
@Anya: Trump has already won.
schrodinger's cat
@debbie: The odds that Trump would win were very small too if Sam Wang and other numbers guys were to be believed. As long as the probability of the recount succeeding is greater than zero, it should be done.
debbie
@schrodinger’s cat:
For one thing, I’d rather the CIA and DOJ make a big stink about their findings re. hacking by the Russian government. Even if they couldn’t get a resolution at the UN, they could present their findings and expose the GOP as the Pawns of Putin they have become.
Duke's Archives
@Mnemosyne: I’ve heard of “Barney Miller” but I haven’t watched it. His gravitas in those scant episodes of Firefly was enough for me.
schrodinger's cat
@Anya: We play nice, worry about appearances while the other side repeatedly punches us in the neck and eats our lunch but we have clever and nasty names for D, so its all good.
Mnemosyne
@James Powell:
IIRC, most cops still say that “Barney Miller” was the most authentic show ever about being a cop: you go out, deal with the bunch of weirdos who make up the public, and then write reports about it.
Ella in New Mexico
@Major Major Major Major: thankfully, the majority of EVM’s in the targeted states have some form of paper verification system that could give clues to counting errors. And since you can’t justify a forensic audit without something concrete that indicates the need for one, the recount is all we got, at this juncture.
And again, uncovering “normal”errors and missing ballots will also be useful.
Ella in New Mexico
Uh-oh…Now who’s committing the crime of helping to provide talking points to Heir Fuherer
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/trump-labels-green-party-effort-to-recount-votes-in-wisconsin-a-scam/
Mnemosyne
@Duke’s Archives:
It still holds up fairly well. Some of the gay stereotypes can be cringeworthy when the characters first show up, but the conventions of the show usually demand that those characters gain the respect of the cops by the end of the episode. They use the Ron Glass character very well to defy the TV stereotypes of the 1970s — he’s a college-educated Black man who claims he’s just using the job for material to write his novel, but he’s really a good detective.
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m with you. We should just be a–holes for the next 4-8 years and complain about everything. Don’t let him rest.
tobie
@debbie:
Something like this should have been done in October. It would have helped. Some people would have thought twice about voting for the Kremlin candidate. Benefit of hindsight, I guess.
dww44
@PsiFighter37: As distasteful as the ss might be for the next 4 years, I’m honestly a lot more concerned about us all being here in by this time in 2020. With the likes of Putin and Flynn whispering in Trump’s ears and others not yet named (if Bolton is one, I just may hibernate) having influence over his massive ego, I seriously hope the country survives. Damaged maybe, but intact.
eemom
ok, let me back up a moment and try to explain calmly WHY you are a fucking idiot. The things you want to talk about absolutely ARE horrible, wrong, outrageous, affected the outcome of the election, and need to be fought against fiercely. No argument there.
But the immediate point is, NONE of those things, even if proven, would constitute a legal obstacle to trump entering the WH. Proof of hacking or some other form of vote tampering WOULD.
PIGL
@greengoblin: so do I. It’s preposterously false, and subservient and almost grovelling.
PIGL
@James Powell: they’d be in better shape to make people’s lives better is they’d spent some effort squashing the open GOP conspiracy to subvert elections; zygène the Dems might have won the last election instead of being swept into oblivion.
Citizen_X
@PIGL:
I don’t know what this word is, but I’m impressed by it.
Citizen_X
@germy: See? I think the recount should continue, just because it gets under Trump’s skin.
Is that a trivial reason? Sure. But his thin skin is one of his main weaknesses. He’s easily provoked into acting out; lets do so.
eemom
@efgoldman:
Based on what?
J R in WV
@Ella in New Mexico:
Great comment>!!! I agree with you, and think you did a great job of spelling out the issues that might be addressed by an audit of voting.
Thanks!
Srv
Jill Stein is ludicrous, but this recount will not help further “legitimize” Trump. He’s already President-elect, the media is largely ignoring Russia, voter suppression, FBI, etc. His delusional followers don’t believe Clinton won the popular vote anyway.
Srv
“Eemom” is still here? Why?
eemom
@efgoldman:
Facile bullshit buzz words from a condescending old man, following accusations of “hostility.” So superior a mode of argument.
Srv
@efgoldman: she was making death threats this morning, you jackass. Adam L was going to, never mind. Thanks.
Alain the site fixer
@Srv: I reported it to John. Not sure what anyone else did. Although I have the access and knowledge, I defer to the boss!
Srv
Ok, thanks. Just wondering.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Srv:
Here’s a paper bag to breathe into. She made one snarky comment to efgoldman—mild by her standards—and that was it.
Stick to the meta-trolling.
Elie
@Anya:
We cant let what they will think impede what we need to do. We are fighting for some very important stuff here… Sure, we can look “bad” but we need to defend our people and the integrity of the vote to the extent we can. We can’t just try to not look a certain way — we have to take what levers we have. BTW, with the rapidity of trying to normalize this guy, no one is looking at the Putin interference and we STILL don’t have information on his taxes and business interests… We have to use what we have…
Alain the site fixer
@Steeplejack (tablet): that shit isn’t snarky, we have standards.
ETA of course the troll comment is spot-on, but threats of violence are 100% unacceptable
Srv
@Steeplejack (tablet): I just asked a question you fucking twit.
Jeffro
Now THIS is my kind of article: 8 new reasons why we should be beating the crap out of the Electors (to include beating on the media about why the Electors should be beat upon). All things that have come to light in the past 3 weeks and things that should be considered.
Make. Them. Own. It. Nov 8th was not the last step here…we owe it to our kids and our country to not hand Russia a puppet, we owe it to our civil servants and soldiers, we owe it to everyone who’s earned what little safety net is provided in this country.
Jeffro
@Elie:
This is exactly right. We have to remember that they respect nothing but power…pulling out all the stops to avoid a Trump catastrophe is nothing less than what they’d do to try and stop Clinton if positions were reversed.
No normalization. No giving up. Fighting now means that at a minimum, he’s that much more weakened going into office (if not even more destabilized both politically and mentally). We are about to see the rollback of the entire (such as it is) safety net for American workers here, the wholesale selling off of our government, primarily to further the business interests of one. corrupt. family. We have to have it out now.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Srv:
The “question” I responded to was:
Smitty
Recount has gotten under Trump’s skin. Push it for all its worth. Turn his as approach to elections against him. Show him that the opposition still has some juice!
eemom
@Alain the site fixer:
The boss, like the other commenters involved, knows that I hate guns, and wouldn’t know how to shoot one with a map, a GPS unit and two seeing eye dogs.
But hey, kudos for your cyber-vigilance! You really should consider joining the Secret Service. They’re gonna need lots of tack-sharp folks like you in the Trump Tower.
Dadadadadadada
@jacy: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! God FUCKING dammit, this shithole of a year!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: That actually might be the silver lining to this. By screaming about a scam Trump’s supporters will go looking for them and who knows what they will find.
Donut
@Baud:
Someone had to replace McCain as the natural beneficiary of all political developments.
EJ
Keep punching left! That’ll help us win in 2018 and 2020!
Sondra
@Duke’s Archives: I’m with you. It infuriates me that the Obama administration is giving in so easily. That this behavior happens every time an election is stolen infuriates me even more.
There is not going to be a moment when we all unite “for the sake of the Country”. There is not going to be a moment when we accept the results as being “the will of the people in a free and fair election”. We are always treated to these empty phrases when this type of thing happens. What I want to hear is that for the sake of our Country this administration will look in every nook and cranny to make sure that no one tampered with our election results.
What I want to hear is that no one switched a few percentage of votes here and there throughout every county in the Country just enough to tilt the electoral college results to Trump.
I already know that the will of certain people: plus the ignorance of our electorate whether willful and deliberate or naive, uninformed or merely misled, wants to reverse course and undo everything Liberal and Progressive policies have achieved over these last 8 years. Many of them would like to take us back to the good old antebellum days when slavery was the norm.
No doubt certain elements here can picture themselves sitting on the verandas of their big white mansions sipping mint juleps for real if only we damned Liberals hadn’t interfered in their lifestyles. They think their lives would have been just like those nostalgic destination weddings to those charming old plantations, but for real. They cannot see that they would have been poor Southern dirt farmers, or low paid employees of the barely breaking even retail stores, or coal miners working 20 hour days without safety regulations or garment factory workers who were little more than indentured servants. But whether they lived then or now still they would have been white and mostly white men at that. I guess that’s enough for them to claim the privileges they think they deserve, but we also know that they will cheat to get the results they want. We know that because they tell us so as other commenters have pointed out.
Just for once I’d like our leaders to say out loud that they believe them when they say they will cheat. I need to hear them say that they believe them when they offer the Heil salute to a neo-nazi victory and that they believe them when they prove they only care about enriching themselves not by earning dollars with their own labor, but by cheating the rest of us out of our hard earned dollars.
So I’m angry and exhausted but I’m going to stay angry until I hear what I want to hear from our leaders. Now that so many more of us are finally motivated, when it’s too late to count, a recount would go a long way towards letting us get on with all the organizing and regrouping we are going to need to do in the not too distant future.