Without realizing what he was doing, Donald Trump confessed to another crime during his Wednesday interview Ainsley Earhardt of Fox News. In this case, his statements about the hush money payments his lawyer Michael Cohen made to his mistresses show that he knowingly lied on his 2017 federal financial disclosure by omitting the debt he owed to Cohen. You can just add that to the pile, I guess.
What’s more serious is the administration’s refusal to do anything to secure our elections:
A bill that would have significantly bolstered the nation’s defenses against electoral interference has been held up in the Senate at the behest of the White House, which opposed the proposed legislation, according to congressional sources.
The Secure Elections Act, introduced by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., in December 2017, had co-sponsorship from two of the Senate’s most prominent liberals, Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as from conservative stalwart Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and consummate centrist Susan Collins, R-Me.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., was set to conduct a markup of the bill on Wednesday morning in the Senate Rules Committee, which he chairs. The bill had widespread support, including from some of the committee’s Republican members, and was expected to come to a full Senate vote in October. But then the chairman’s mark, as the critical step is known, was canceled, and no explanation was given.
I want to you to understand the basic idea behind the bill, so let’s look at some of the provisions that were expected to be included:
As it currently stands, the legislation would grant every state’s top election official security clearance to receive threat information. It would also formalize the practice of information-sharing between the federal government—in particular, the Department of Homeland Security—and states regarding threats to electoral infrastructure. A technical advisory board would establish best practices related to election cybersecurity. Perhaps most significantly, the law would mandate that every state conduct a statistically significant audit following a federal election. It would also incentivize the purchase of voting machines that leave a paper record of votes cast, as opposed to some all-electronic models that do not. This would signify a marked shift away from all-electronic voting, which was encouraged with the passage of the Help Americans Vote Act in 2002.
It’s important to realize that this is a Republican bill with Democratic co-sponsors. It’s not true that there are no Republicans who are willing to legislate to protect the integrity of our elections, and this wasn’t a toothless or symbolic bill. It had some very worthwhile components. If nothing else, simply incentivizing the states to have elections that can be audited was a necessary step. Mandating that elections be audited was a major reform.
But the White House stepped in and shut the whole thing down. I wrote yesterday that Trump seems to be purposively working to undermine confidence in our elections, and this just bolsters my case. We have to ask why he’s doing it.
Today IC came up to Hill to brief Congress on cyber security for elections. From the reactions seemed to rattle both sides of the aisle.
Trump clings to the belief that Putin will protect him. Again. And that is one of the clearest revelations of guilt he’s given us. As expert a tactician as Putin is he probably dreamed that he’d bring an American President to his knees begging for protection but what will he ask for in return. And what will Trump give him, unfettered access?
At the very least, the removal of Magnitsky Act sanctions.
Recognition of Crimea as part of Russia. (Interestingly I have a Czech colleague, who told me when the Crimea incursion first started, that many in Europe probably feel that Crimea was an integral part of the greater Russia in its heyday)
Ceding of Syria to become a full fledged Russian vassal state.
Reduced support and investment in NATO defense.
Weakening of European Union and ultimate dissolution.
Those are a given. Before he oversaw Trump on his knees. Now, there’s a whole new ballgame.
He’s doing it because Putin told him to.
Because admitting the election system is vulnerable threatens his story that he won 2016 through sheer awesomeness.
Because his brain trust (aka Putin) tells him nothing needs to be done.
Because refusing to protect elections pisses off us libtards which thrills his fanboys.
. . . that HAVA — a putative “response” to the “hanging chads”, etc. of 2000 — went in exactly the wrong, makes-no-sense (beyond eliminating chad-prone punchcard ballots) direction; i.e., away from auditable paper trail, towards non-auditable all-electronic systems.
Sixteen years later, still seems beyond weird. Leaving our elections at at least as much risk as the system that enabled theft of the 2000 election via judicial coup.
A goodly amount of emphasis during the push for HAVA was placed on the difficulty disabled people had with the systems then in use, including some of the more notorious paper ballots in initiative-heavy states like CA. Eliminates the possibility of running out of physical ballots, as happened in Ohio in 2004 in lots of places.
Lots of screen shots of adaptability features that could be baked into the new software for people with low vision, e.g.
Besides, the youngs were expected to love it because tech, and that would help youth turnout.
Voting over the internet had a brief vogue, too.
Vocal supporters from both sides of the spectrum for such measures, too – it wasn’t partisan. More of a goo-goo thing.
. . . sorta vaguely recall such arguments being put forward.
Pretty sure I recall pushback in favor of auditable paper trail too, though.
My best guess about which won out and why has to do with electronic systems manufacturers having the better-placed political allies.
. . . such systems actually exist, though I couldn’t swear to it) is an electronic voting system that prints out a “receipt” recording the vote (I envision the self-checkout point-of-sale systems at grocery stores), which the voter can then examine to confirm his/her votes were recorded as intended, or go back and change any that weren’t before finalizing the recorded vote.
I concur with somebody this thread that vote-by-mail solves a lot problems but, like most any one-size-fits-all proposed solution, not all of them.
Personally, for years now, I always get an “absentee” ballot which, even in the couple mail-only special elections we’ve had, I always hand-deliver to the ballot-drop-off box in the County Courthouse rather than mailing it.
vote by mail
it is the only way
Because the hacking helps him, and helps republicans. You better believe that if it were France hacking to help democrats, France would be under a naval blockade, sanctions would have been issued, and every democrat who won an election would be facing Benghazi-level hearings.
Rather simple answer. Either:
Less likely, they plan on commit fraud to hold onto power. Trump telegraphs all his crimes and concerning the election he keeps tweeting about a Red Wave in 2018.
OR
More likely, Republican base voters ALREADY firmly believe electoral loses are evidence of fraud against them. Why secure an election you’re going to lose anyway when leaving it unsecure will keep a quarter of the nation supporting blatantly anti-democratic governance and calls to negate election results they don’t likely?
This is how you kill democracy to thundering applause.
I find myself mistaking straight-forward queries for rhetorical questions a lot lately, because so many people wonder aloud why Trump would commit this or that horrible action that benefits him in the immediate term.
In this case, it should be fairly obvious why Trump would want to interfere with election reform: because election tampering benefits Republicans. It could theoretically help out Democrats, but nobody engaged in serious election fraud appears to want them in power.
Why would Trump want Republicans to win? Because if they maintain control of Congress they won’t have any reason to oppose him. The 2018 midterm elections are widely seen as a referendum on the Trump administration, and if the GOP emerges victorious, Trump can rage in the streets like Frankenstein’s monster and nobody will stop him.
Goodbye Mueller; hello Kavanagh and his views on Presidential immunity from prosecution. Hello GOP majorities for the foreseeable future as “anti-voter fraud” bills proliferate across the land. You get the idea.
Even if none of these things were happen as a result of GOP victory in NOvember, Trump certainly has reason to believe they would. From a certain perspective, he’d be a fool not to fight a Dem takeover in Congress using any means available.
Off topic, but per news bulletins from the AJC, Reality Winner has been sentenced to 5 years and 2 months in prison for her leaking about the 2016 election. The U .S. Attorney said that her leaks did grave damage to American security. No doubt she shouldn’t have done what she did, it also seems to me that it’s the little people who get punished most in our judicial system. She’ll probably serve more prison time than Manafort and Cohen will,collectively.
Also the Randoph County Commissioers have just fired the elections consultant who recommended closing 6 of 9 voting precincts ahead of the November election. This was announced before their scheduled vote on the closing of those precincts.
Well…YEAH!!!
Of course.
Why?
Manafort and Cohen…as well as Trump (and the 2016 DNC Democrats as well)…were playing by the DC Swamp rules!!!
Duh.
She…and Snowden and Assange and Manning, et al…were not.
Nothing new here…
AG
There are two major, not necessarily mutually exclusive, hypotheses:
Number 1 is a longer-term and less-certain goal. It is probably better achieved through (continued) propaganda than a potential election fraud, particularly as his followers will not believe an election fraud to the benefit of his party. And whoever does believe it, undermines his authority.
The benefits of actually stealing the election, by contrast, are immediate, direct, and certain. The internal tensions it creates are on the liberal side. They put liberals in the position of either having to protect the legitimacy of the Republican victory or stop defending the legitimacy of the electoral process as practiced. That would create an agonizing civil war on the left, particularly if there was evidence of interference but not slam-dunk proof of decisive interference.
why does Trump block the election oversight bill?:
BECAUSE HE IS AN OVERT AGENT OF THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT
sheesh, can’t you guys see the handwriting????
Trump continues to distract from how vulnerable these upcoming elections are by undermining the entire Justice Department, elections, and even the outcomes of trials he doesn’t like. It would be really easy for the media to fall into this trap, and Republicans giving Trump the seeming greenlight to dump Sessions makes me nervous.
You have me convinced that pardoning Manafort wont help Trump (especially after his conviction on 8 counts), but Booman do you think it is at all likely that Trump will dump Sessions and further throw this process into chaos?
Presumably this is a rhetorical question coming from you, ha-ha! Der Trumper certainly wants whatever help his chief Russian handler can give him, and probably thinks that senate Repubs are deranged for advancing this bill. The status quo of a ramshackle US election machinery with a million and one chinks and weak points (which are likely intentional in Repub-controlled states) was a huge boon to Der Trumper and he would have to be insane to want to protect or reform our ridiculous elections system. So of course this bill is anathema to him.
The more interesting question is why a few senate Repubs appeared willing to look like they wanted election protection/reform, since they obviously know that the likely foreign hacking in 2018 is designed to help them exclusively. Presumably there is no likelihood that Trumper’s House would ever take this bill up, it’s purely a dead end senate gambit?
If these Repubs truly did care about protecting the integrity of American elections, the authoritarian WH’s whispered order to completely kill the bill would have been resisted or even ignored. So it sure doesn’t sound like it takes much to halt Repub interest in election integrity (for some reason…)
We have to understand that when we see today’s Repub base wearing t-shirts saying that they’d rather have Putin running the country than Pelosi, they are dead serious. They are completely AWOL as American citizens and they no longer see any basis for continuing the country as a putative “democracy” where they could lose elections and power. There are no longer any universal principles that bind them to their hated fellow Americans. Any means justifies the end of blocking a return of any power to Dems and the demographics they represent.
As the ongoing civil war advances step by step, the Left is now seen precisely as Lincoln was in 1860–as an “ape” that they simply will not permit to govern them. They would give the country to Putin before they will allow that, just as the antebellum South chose secession over rule by the ape Lincoln. So, thanks to the “conservative” movement, the entire rotting structure is now collapsing before our eyes–the blocking of this (obviously necessary) bill as simply another small data point.
The global moneyed interests do not see it this way as they pour their fossil fuel winnings into the US stock markets after the American Corporate Profits Act, Trumper and his Repubs’ only legislative accomplishment. But as our political order and society fall apart that money will simply have to depart these shores, likely sooner rather than later. Just as we can now see that the 11,000 year old stable climate is collapsing sooner rather than later….Heckuva Job, “conservative” movement!