GOP Jesus

Why Do People Hate Donald Trump So Much?

Quora produces some very fine answers regarding the political issues of the day. I've seen some pretty amazing ones these last few months and have enjoyed many great debates and discussions of late. Of course, Trump being Trump really helps.

Here is (hands down) the best fact based take down of him I have EVER seen. It makes it even better that it comes from a US Marine. A perfect summation of all the people that support him as well...

I’ll take a stab at this. Before you pass my answer off as “Another Liberal Snowflake” consider that 1.) I’m a right-leaning centrist who has voted Republican way more often than Democrat, and 2.) if you want to call someone who spent the entire decade of his 20’s serving in the Marine Corps a snowflake, I’d be ready to answer the question what did you do with your 20’s?

Why Liberals (And not-so liberals) are against President Trump.

A.) He lies. A LOT. Politifact rates 69% of the words he speaks as “Mostly False or worse” Only 17% of the things he says get a “Mostly True” or better rating. That is an absolutely unbelievable number. How he doesn’t speak more truth by mistake is beyond me. To put it in context, Obama’s rating was 26% mostly false or worse, and I had a problem with that. Many of Trump’s former business associates report that he has always been a compulsive liar, but now he’s the President of the United States, and that’s a problem. And this is a man who expects you to believe him when he points at other people and says “They’re lying”

B.) He’s an authoritarian populist, not a conservative. He advances regressive social policy while proposing to expand federal spending and federalist authority over states, both of which conservatives are supposed to hate.

C.) He pretends at Christianity to court the Religious Right but fails to live anything resembling a Christ-Like Life.

D.) His nationalist “America First” message effectively alienates us and removes us from our place as leaders in the international community.

E.) His ideas on “Keeping us safe” are all thinly veiled ideas to remove our freedoms, he is, after all, an authoritarian first. They also are simply bad ideas.

F.) He couldn’t pass a 3rd-grade civics exam. He doesn't’ know what he’s doing. He doesn't’ understand how international relations work, he doesn’t understand how federal state or local governments work, and every time someone tries to “Run it like a business” it’s a spectacular failure. See Colorado Springs’ recent history as an example. And that was a businessman with a MUCH better business track record then Trump. We are talking about a man who lost money owning a freaking gambling casino.

G.) He’s unethical and always has been. As a businessman, he constantly left in his wake unpaid contractors and invoices, litigation, broken promises, whatever he could get away with.

H.) He is damaging our relationships with our best international friends while kissing up to nations that do not have our best interests in mind. To his question “Wouldn't’ it be great to have better relations with Russia?” The answer is Yes. But RUSSIA has to be the ones who earn that, who must stop doing the things that are damaging to that relationship, or we are simply weaker for it.

I.) He has never seen a shortcut he didn't’ like, and you can’t take shortcuts in government. “Nuclear Option, Remove the Filibuster, I’ll change the Constitution by Executive Order…Don…what happens when you remove the filibuster and the other side retakes the majority in the Senate? Suddenly want that filibuster back? What happens if you manage to change the Constitution by Executive Order and an Anti-2A President wins the next election?

J.) He is and always has been an unabashed racist. Yes, I’ve seen your favorite meme that claims he was never accused of racism before the Democrats…Absolutely false. See the Central Park 5, the lawsuits and fines resulting from his refusal to lease to black tenants, the 1992 lost appeal trying to overturn penalties for removing black dealers from tables, his remarks to the house native American affairs subcommittee in 1993. The man sees and treats racial groups of people as monoliths.

K.) He is systematically steamrolling regulations specifically designed to keep a disaster like the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis from happening again.

L.) He speaks and acts like a demagogue. He sees the Legislative and Judicial branches of government as inconveniences, blows up at criticism no matter how deserved and actively tries to countermand constitutional processes, not to mention attempts to blackmail and coerce people who are saying negative things about him

M.) His choices for top positions, with the exception of Gen. Mattis, who is a gem, have been horrendous. A secretary of Education without a resume that would get her hired as a small town grammar school principal, A secretary of Energy who didn't know the Department of Energy was responsible for nuclear reserves, an EPA head whose biggest accomplishments to date had been suing the EPA on multiple occasions, an FCC head who while working for Verizon actively lobbied to kill net neutrality, and an Attorney General who thinks pot is “nearly as bad as heroin” and asked Congress for permission to go after legal pot businesses in states where it is legal. (There goes that great Republican States rights rally cry again, right? *Crickets*) An Interim AG after Firing his First AG who’s appointment is probably unconstitutional.

N.) He denies scientific fact. Ever notice that the only people you hear denying climate change are politicians and lobbyists? 97% of actual scientists studying the issue agree that it’s real, man-made and caused by greenhouse gasses. Ever notice that every big disaster movie starts with a bunch of politicians in a room ignoring a scientist's warning?

0.) He does not have the temperament to lead this nation. He is Thin Skinned, childish, and a bully, never mind misogynistic, boorish, rude, and incapable of civil discourse.

P.) He still does not understand that the words he speaks, or tweets, are the official position of 1/3 of the US government, and so does not govern his words. He still thinks when he speaks it’s good ol’ Donald Trump. It’s not. It’s the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. You have probably spread a meme or two around talking about how no president’s every word has ever been dissected before…YES, THEY ALWAYS HAVE. It’s just that every other president in our lifetime has understood the importance of his words and took great care to govern his speech. Trump blurts out whatever comes to his mind then complains when people talk about what a dumb thing that was to say.

Q.) He’s unqualified. If you owned a small business and were looking for someone to manage it, and an unnamed resume came across your desk and you saw 6 bankruptcies, showing a man who had failed to make money running CASINOS, would you hire him? He is a very poor businessman. This is a man it is estimated would have been worth $10 BILLION more if he’d just taken what his father had given him, invested it in Index Funds and left it alone.

R.) He is President. But he refuses to take a leadership position and understand that he is everyone’s President. Conservatives complain about liberals chanting “Not my President” while Trump himself behaves as if no one but his supporters matter.

S.) He’s a blatant hypocrite. He spent 8 years bitching Obama out for his family trips, or golfing, or any time he took for himself, and what does he do? He was already on his 20th golf outing in APRIL of his 1st year in office. He constantly rants about respect for the military, yet can’t be bothered to attend the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day because of a little rain. (And that excuse about Marine One not being able to fly in the rain is HILARIOUS.)

I could go on, but I’m risking Carpel Tunnel, and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll have health insurance.

Edit:

Ok, Ok. Based on the most common feedback in the comments (Including the offer of a Marriage Proposal - - my wife was not amused) I’ll see what I can do about T-Z

T.) He’s a misogynist. It's not really ok in this day and age to be a misogynist, but it’s not a huge deal if you’re a private citizen. It’s a pretty big deal if you hate half the people you’re elected to lead. The disdain for women seeps out of his …whatever…. and he just can’t hide it.

U.) Face it. In any other election “Grab Em’ By the Pussy” would have been the end of that candidate’s chances. Back in the 90’s I used to marvel about how Teflon Bill Clinton was. I no longer do. The fact that he managed to slip by on that is as much a statement about how much people hate Hillary Clinton as it is about what is wrong with politics in this country right now.

V.) He has one response to a differing opinion. Attack. A good leader listens to criticism, to different points of view, is capable of self-reflection, tries to guide people to his point of view, and when necessary stands his ground and defends his convictions. Any of that sound like Trump. His default is not to Lead, its’ to attack. Scorched Earth. The Jim Acosta reaction is a good example. There was no defense of his convictions when Acosta was asking him repeated questions about his rhetoric on the caravan. His response was to attack Acosta.

W.) He takes credit for everything positive while deflecting blame for everything negative. Look at him with the Stock Market. He’s been bragging about it since day one, and to give credit where credit is due, speculation on coming deregulation early in his presidency did fuel some rapid growth, but to pretend that its’ all him, that we’er not in the 9th year of the longest bull market in history and THEN, when the standard market volatility that deregulation inevitably brings about starts to show up? Yeah. Look at yesterday. Hey! Stock Markets losing because the Democrats won! Do I need to bring out the Stock market chart for the last 10 Years again?

X.) He emboldens the worst among us. Counter-protesters are slammed into by a car while countering actual Nazi rally, and the response is there’s fault on “Both Sides” The media is at fault for a nut job sending them and Donald’s favorite targets pipe bombs. The truth is not all Republicans, not all Trump Supporters are racist, fascist lunatics. Many are just taken in by the bombastic personality and are living in an information bubble made worse by the fact that they unfollow anyone and ignore any source of information that makes them feel uncomfortable. People on the left do that too. The Biggest problem the right has right now is that the worst of the Right is the loudest and the most in your face, and the actual right, especially the Freaking PRESIDENT needs to be standing up and saying No. Those are not our values.

Y.) He seems to think the Constitution of The United States, the document that IS who we are, the document he took an oath to support and defend is some sort of inconvenience. He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of Constitution, from believing he can alter the 14th through executive order, to Thinking The practice clause in the first amendment somehow supersedes the establishment clause (not that he really understands either) or that the practice clause only applies to Christians. Or his attacks on freedom of expression and the press. He repeatedly makes it clear that if he’s read them, he does not understand Articles 1–3, and that’s something he really should have before he took the job, because they’re not going away.

Z.) I’ll use Z for something I do blame him for, but the rest of us have to carry the blame too. Polarization. This country is more politically polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. Some of you who are a few years older than me may remember how it was in the late 60’s when construction workers in New York were being applauded for beating up hippies, I think it’s pretty close to that right now, but that was before my time. And he is the cause of much of the current level polarization, but also the result. It didn't’ start with Trump. We’ve been going down this road I think since the eruption of the Tea Party in the early years of the Obama Administration. I do hope the tide turns before it gets much worse because the thing that scares me more than anything is what if that keeps going the way it has been?

Is Pence on the Outs?

Just after last week's election, Donald Trump asked Mike Pence, his current vice president, to be his vice president:

“Mike, will you be my running mate?” Mr. Trump asked Vice President Pence, who stood up, raised his hand, and nodded.

“Will you? Thank you. O.K., good,” the president said. “That was unexpected, but I feel very fine.”

It was very weird, but I knew exactly what it meant: it was the kiss of death. Trump is going to dump Pence in 2020, or maybe sooner.

Why? He doesn't trust Pence. Precisely because Pence is trustworthy. I am certain that Trump absolutely hates Pence. Notice how every other person in Trump's administration is somehow corrupt or crooked? Mike Pence is the only exception.

A typical example is Trump's choice for attorney general, Matt Whitaker. Whitaker served on the board of a company that scammed would-be inventors out of millions of dollars. Whitaker would threaten with his status as a former US attorney when customers complained about being screwed. The company was shut down by the FTC in March 2017, and was under investigation by the FBI during the period Whitaker acted on behalf of the company. Litigation is ongoing, which means that Whitaker has an inherent conflict of interest as attorney general.

Pence, on the other hand, tries so hard to keep on the straight and narrow that he won't eat dinner alone with a woman other than his wife, or have drinks with another woman unless his wife is there. This earned Pence heaps of criticism and ridicule from all sides when it came out last year.

Is Pence pussy-whipped? Is he so out of control that he doesn't trust himself alone with another woman? Is he a terrible drunk who gets all handsy? Is he a closet homosexual who secretly hates women trapped in a marriage of convenience with a nutty religious woman?

It's probably a good policy not to go dine alone with women socially. It's definitely a good idea not to drink at parties without your wife. Or ever. Alcohol has destroyed tens of millions of lives, and is involved in most car crashes, rapes, and crimes in general. It is a scourge on society. (Trump's single redeeming value is that he doesn't drink.) But categorically refusing to have business dinners with women as a matter of policy is discriminatory and wrong.

Trump knows that the only reason Pence agreed to be his running mate is that Pence fully expected Trump to be impeached before he served his full term, and that came a step closer to reality when Democrats took the House last week.

It is quite possible that once Mueller releases his report, the Democrats in the House will have sufficient cause to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump for all manner of crimes, but most particularly tax evasion, money laundering for the Russians for decades through real estate deals in New York and Florida, and obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation and the firing of James Comey.

That will mean a trial in the Senate. The Republicans will have a larger majority in the Senate next year, and some of Trump's greatest Republican critics will be gone. But there may be a few Republicans who still have souls and will side with the Democrats if they smell blood in the water. Because no politician actually likes Trump, because they all know he'll stab them in the back when it suits him.

Pence is the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. That means could vote himself president in a deadlocked impeachment proceeding. And Trump could not have that.

So now Trump is constantly asking whether Pence is loyal. Which is a joke, because Trump is loyal to no one. Just ask Jeff Sessions.

But the only way to remove the vice president is through impeachment: unlike the attorney general, Trump cannot fire Pence. That leaves Trump in a bind, because there's been no evidence that Pence has done anything illegal, other than whatever obstruction conspiracy he might have been involved in with Trump.

Which means that to take out Pence, Trump would have to take himself out. Which, if that goes down next year, could make Nancy Pelosi president. Wouldn't that be hilarious?

Education Is...

Trump Claims to Support the Military. Do They Support Him?

Prevailing wisdom would have it that members of the military would favor Donald Trump, given his bombastic speeches and militaristic stance. But is it really true?

During the Vietnam War Trump got four college deferments and a fifth one for "heal spurs." Those heal spurs would prevent him from marching, Trump said. Because Trump thinks the the only thing soldiers do is march. 

But there are countless military jobs that don't require marching: flying airplanes, driving trucks, fixing engines, loading torpedoes, constructing facilities, handling logistics, cooking meals, policing bases. And many of these jobs were on American soil, especially if you volunteered instead of letting yourself get drafted: one of my former bosses became a programmer at Fort Huachuca for the duration of the Vietnam War.

Do our troops really appreciate a president who is a rich, spoiled draft dodger that thinks they're all marching morons?

Trump has constantly denigrated the military's primary mission for the last seventy years, keeping the peace in Europe and Asia. He keeps whining about how those countries aren't paying for their defense, but the fact is, our troops are there so that we have control and avoid more wars like WWII and the Korean War.

Keeping Russia, China and North Korea in check is a vital mission, and keeping Europe, Japan and South Korea in our column is solely for our benefit.

We spend more on our military than the next ten or twelve nations. The reason we have the world's biggest military is because our troops are everywhere, and we want it that way. If we abandon our missions across the world and pull our troops out of Germany, Japan, and South Korea, then the military budget would have to come down drastically. Because our troops would sit around on American bases with no mission.

In the last weeks of the midterm elections, Trump played the race card and started screaming about the caravan of women and children traveling through Mexico. He sent 5,600 troops to the border, where, because of the posse comitatus act, they stand around doing nothing, eating MREs instead of real food, wasting their time and hundreds of millions of our tax dollars on a nonexistent mission.

Do our troops really appreciate being props in an election year stunt?

Last year Trump insisted having a military parade on Veterans Day 2018 with tanks and missiles. When the Pentagon told him it would cost too much he huffed that he would go to France because they have better parades.

So Trump went to France for Armistice Day, to attend a ceremony for the troops who gave their lives in the Great War. But it was raining, preventing the helicopter from flying. Trump didn't want to spend two whole hours in the car. So he cancelled the event and stayed in the American embassy, watching TV and tweeting. Somehow, that didn't stop his chief of staff, John Kelly from attending, or keep Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron away from similar events.

Do American troops appreciate being dissed by a draft-dodging pussy? Did American troops in Vietnam cancel their helicopter sorties because of a little rain?

The United States has been fighting the war in Afghanistan for seventeen years. George Bush botched it from the get-go, allowing Osama bin Laden to escape into Pakistan. In the 1980s the Soviets were fighting the same Taliban thugs we're fighting today, only back then Ronald Reagan was funding bin Laden and the Taliban.

After a pathetic surge in Afghanistan, it's clear now that Trump is losing the war. To be fair, it's probably a war that can't be won. But after claiming that Bush made a huge mistake by invading Iraq, a war that Trump has falsely stated he opposed, Trump is just equivocating, afraid of being the one to lose Afghanistan instead of making the hard decisions. So our troops are trapped in a hellish desert purgatory that we're still spending trillions of dollars on.

As long as the Taliban can hide in nuclear-armed Pakistan and fund themselves with opium they export to US streets, where thousands of Americans die from heroin overdoses, there is no path to an American victory.

Do our troops appreciate being trapped in a pointless stalemate because they can't go after the enemy?

Trump's implicit racism, from his post-Charlottesville comments to his Mexican drug-dealing rapist tirade to his disrespect of a black soldier slain in Africa, probably does not endear him to to the troops. The military is more diverse than American society at large:

The Department of Defense publishes regular studies that compare the civilian labor force to the composition of the military. Their 2014 report states: “Although racial minorities make up 23.4% of the civilian benchmark (the civilian labor force age 18 to 44), 32.9% of DoD’s enlisted forces in FY14 are racial minorities.”

Hispanics, in particular, make up a significant fraction of the armed forces: 18% of the Marines, for example. Do they appreciate how Trump characterizes people fleeing horrendous situations in their parents' countries of origin as diseased terrorists?

Finally, it is clear that North Korea is playing Trump for a fool. A few months ago Trump claimed he had eliminated North Korea's nuclear threat, and that he "fell in love" with Kim. New satellite imagery has revealed that Kim Jong Un has duped Trump:

North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to American intelligence agencies but left undiscussed as President Trump claims to have neutralized the North’s nuclear threat.

The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site — a step it began, then halted — while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.

Trump is a blustering, blundering fool when it comes to military matters. He increasingly ignores his general's advice. He does not appreciate the military's missions or their sacrifices, and views them merely as pawns in his sadistic games.

Sort of like Jeff Sessions.

What America Actually Fucking Looks Like

Our new members of Congress...

Here We Go Again. Again.

Here it is: your weekly dose of mass murder. 

An armed man dressed in black opened fire late Wednesday night inside a crowded country and western dance hall in Thousand Oaks, Calif., killing at least 12 people, including a sheriff’s deputy who had responded to the scene. The gunman was also dead.

This story refutes every talking point gun nuts make about mass shootings.

Witnesses recalled a chaotic scene at the bar, which was filled with hundreds of people, many of them college students: A gunman opening fire, first at a security guard, as patrons dropped to the dance floor, hid under tables and broke windows to escape. 

The number of people wounded was unclear, but the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said about 22 people had been taken to various hospitals.

The county sheriff, Geoff Dean, his voice cracking, identified one victim as Sgt. Ron Helus, who was shot when he entered the building.

And then there's this:

A witness interviewed by ABC7.com said that the violence started when the gunman walked up to the entrance to the bar, shot a security guard and a cashier, and deployed a smoke bomb.

Donald Trump and gun nuts keep telling us that more guys with guns will solve this problem. But the first ones to get shot were the bouncer and the cashier. Then the guy started throwing smoke bombs, making it almost impossible for anyone else who might have had a gun to shoot back. Because they would have no way to tell who was who in the cloud of smoke. Besides, carrying a gun while dancing is a terrible idea, as the FBI agent who accidentally shot someone on a dance floor could tell you.

But the assassin could fire blindly in any direction and hit more victims, shooting them like proverbial fish in a barrel.

Then a cop with a gun came in and was immediately killed.

Trump responded to the synagogue shooting by criticizing the victims for not having enough guards and guns, and saying that the shooter should be executed. This just shows how stupidly dense he is: there aren't enough security guards in the country to guard every synagogue, church, school, night club and dance hall. And the threat of execution is no deterrent to suicidal maniacs. In the end these killers shoot themselves, or commit suicide by cop.

And now we know who the shooter is:

Authorities identified the shooter as Ian David Long, 28, a Marine Corps veteran who was visited by the Ventura County sheriff’s crisis intervention team after a call of a “subject disturbing” at his home in Newbury Park in April. He was never placed on a mental health hold, and Sheriff Geoff Dean said Long may have been suffering from PTSD.

This country trained a man to be an efficient killer, sent him off to a war that messed with his head, and then turned him loose on society. Then he used the military tactics our country taught him to kill a dozen people and wound dozens more.

People will be eager to blame this man's mental state for the shooting. "See," they'll say, "he was crazy." Yes, he was. But the gun lobby put the weapons in his hands and pointed him at that dance hall.

Some may try to paint the Thousand Oaks victims as casualties of a war that has dragged on for 17 years with no resolution in sight. And they wouldn't be wrong if they painted the shooter as one of those victims. Despite a half-hearted surge last year, Trump has done nothing but lose ground in the war in Afghanistan.

But the real problem is, again, that we let any random person with a questionable psych profile have as many guns as they like through a perverse, willful and wanton misinterpretation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution so that gun manufacturers can keep raking in the dough and gun nuts can get their rocks off.

Online Voting Would Be a Tremendous Blunder

It's incredible how people just don't learn. Case in point: this glowing article about the wonders of online voting using blockchains. 

Like everything to do with computerized voting, this is a totally idiotic idea if you favor free and fair elections. If you're the Republican Party or Russia's GRU, blockchain voting is great because you can easily dictate the result.

The promise of blockchain is that it's decentralized and somehow magically invulnerable to fraud and theft. This is manifestly untrue.

Nine times out of ten when you read about Bitcoin -- the most prominent user of blockchains -- it's because someone got ripped off for millions of dollars. Fraud and theft are rampant with Bitcoin: blockchains do nothing to stop that.

The author thinks that people can use their phones and home computers to vote online. This is totally naive and completely idiotic: personal phones and and home computers are the most insecure devices on the internet. They are riddled with viruses and malware, because the average person doesn't take the most basic security precautions, and the operating systems are inherently insecure because they allow users to install new software, like the voting app.

Yeah, blockchains might be a technical solution to the "double spend problem" (though I am skeptical about this -- the blockchains have to be hosted somewhere, and how secure are those systems?) .

But the real problem is the application used to register your votes. Phones and home computers will never be secure enough to ensure that the candidate you selected in the app is the one that actually receives your vote on the back end. Malware on your phone could be used to select a different candidate from the one you picked, through an infinite number of possible hacks.

Even if the voting app were magically made bulletproof, the companies that control the app stores and the web browsers (Apple, Google and Mozilla) are the companies that will control your vote. How can we trust that the programmers didn't put some kind of backdoor into the app?

Then there's authentication. Many states require picture ID to vote. With app-based voting there is absolutely no way to ensure that you were the person who cast your vote. (And no, taking your picture or your fingerprint when you vote on your phone isn't any kind of proof because those things are already available elsewhere.)

Instead of showing up at your polling place, the government would have to send you some kind of authorization or password to vote. That goes through email or your phone's text app. These are not secure. These authorizations could be intercepted anywhere along the line, and anyone who has your phone or your login will be able to vote in your stead. A hacker who got hold of the database of voting authorizations could cast millions of votes.

Voter information is exposed on the internet all the time (for example, in Georgia, and this Republican contractor). Inevitably this same mistake would happen to the authorization file.

But the ultimate reason that you can never use computers for registering votes is that there is absolutely no way in hell to do a legitimate recount. Recounts are totally impossible with any form of voting that does not use a physical token, like a paper ballot.

I'm a computer programmer, I don't believe for one second that you can guarantee that every vote will be properly counted with blockchains. Blockchain systems are supposed to be wonderful because they arrive at a "consensus," essentially some kind of majority rule. That means that there will always be disagreements, and they will be arbitrated by some kind of consensus mechanism.

If a single entity controls more than 50% of the hosts, they can dictate the results. This is an acknowledged problem with Bitcoin (known as the 51% attack), and they just shrug it off. Well, they argue, no single entity could control 51% of the Bitcoin miners.

But this is false. With Bitcoin, it's completely possible for one country (China, for example), to devote sufficient resources (large numbers of fast processors that do bitcoin mining) to gain a 51% majority.

What computers will store the blockchains used for voting? Anyone with a server? Including servers in China and Russia? Or servers authorized by the federal, state and local governments? Clearly the latter.

Whoever controls those servers controls the vote, with no possibility of a recount, because there are no physical ballots, because everything is done in the computer.

Because the basis of our system is the secret ballot, there can be no link between you and your vote in the system. That means you cannot validate that your vote was properly recorded: you just have to trust that your vote goes through. This comes up often during recounts in close elections: ballots are discarded if they can be linked to individual voters -- that is, if they have signatures or other identifying marks.

I agree that the voting process is often manipulated for partisan gain, for all the reasons specified by the author of the article:

Messing with polling stations is one of the most common voter suppression tactics. Across the country, polling stations have been closed in minority neighborhoods, had their locations changed from election to election, and have been kept understaffed, or inaccessible, or ill-equipped, so that voters must stand in line for hours.

But the "blockchain solution" would allow Russia or China or Julian Assange to completely hose every election in the country. They wouldn't even have to do much hacking: if they hacked just one race, every other race in the country would be in doubt, throwing the country into total chaos.

Paper ballots are the only viable solution for free and fair elections. Yes, it's still possible to mess with them through official fraud, ballot box stuffing, criminal poll workers, theft, and so on. But these issues can be mitigated through proper election monitoring, hand-counted audits of random precincts in every jurisdiction and well-established chain-of-custody procedures.

With computers, everything happens in a black box that no one can see inside and no one can verify. This will always be the case, no matter what kind of mumbo-jumbo blockchain snake-oil salesmen spew at us.

There is no magic internet or computer-based solution to voting. Physical ballots that allow for manual recounts are the only verifiable voting mechanism. Instead of wasting time on pipe-dreams about blockchains and the internet, the federal government needs to step up enforcement of voting rights to ensure that local officials don't screw with the vote. Early voting should be the norm everywhere, and election day should be a holiday so everyone is guaranteed an opportunity to vote.

Remember, a successful hack of the an election doesn't actually have to install a particular candidate in office: it just has to cast doubt on the result, leaving the country leaderless and divided.

Election 2018 Predictions

Election 2018 predictions....

Dems take the House with the total number at 234 (GOP at 211). Honestly, I think it's going to be more but I wanted to go conservative on this one.

GOP holds the Senate but only because of Mike Pence. That's right, I'm predicting a 50-50 tie in the Senate. GOP will pick up North Dakota and the Dems will pick up Nevada and Arizona. Claire is going to hold on in Missouri.

Dems will add 8 to their column in the Governor races, picking up Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin. The GOP will pick up Alaska.

How did I arrive at these conclusions? Pretty simple, really. Look at the states with heavy urban areas. More voters means more Democrats. Rural states and areas will hold for the GOP.

I also think that Trump beating the xenophobic drum of immigration is sub moronic considering he could be claiming credit of the economy.

For Millenials...

Kansas Militiamen Who Bombed Mosque Admit Trump Incited Them

While bobbleheads on Fox News insist Donald Trump did not incite a white nationalist to shoot up a synagogue or send mail bombs to targets of Trump's rage, lawyers for three Kansas militiamen who plotted to bomb a mosque claim that their clients should get more lenient sentences because . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . Donald Trump incited them.

Patrick Eugene Stein faces life in prison for conspiring with two other men to carry out the attack, which was supposed to take place on the day after the 2016 presidential election. On Monday, his attorneys filed a memo in U.S. District Court in the District of Kansas, requesting that Stein receive a sentence of no more than 15 years. They note that Stein was an “early and avid supporter” of Trump and argue that the climate in the months leading up to the 2016 election should be taken in account when evaluating the comments prosecutors used to build their case.

During the trial in the spring, prosecutors played back recordings in which Stein described Muslim immigrants as “cockroaches” that needed to be exterminated, and talked about killing Muslims with weapons dipped in pigs' blood. Two months before the conversation took place, The Washington Post’s Abigail Hauslohner noted, Trump had referenced a questionable tale about Gen. John J. Pershing killing Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs' blood.

"The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president,” James Pratt and Michael Shultz, Stein’s defense attorneys, wrote in their sentencing memo, as HuffPost first reported.

No, Trump has not directly told his supporters to bomb mosques or shoot Jews. But he has told supporters to beat up protesters, praised politicians who assaulted journalists, and told cops to injure suspects. He has called Nazis marching in Charlottesville "very fine people" after one of their number ran down people with a car and killed a woman. He's always winking at politically motivated violence, so it should be no surprise when his supporters take the hint.

Conservatives used to heap ridicule on liberals by mischaracterizing their compassion for destitute blacks who who committed crimes as "blaming society," rather than taking individual responsibility for their actions.

Now we've got white conservatives blaming the political climate for their crimes, and that they should get a pass because Donald Trump is racist dickhead.

Yes, Donald Trump is morally culpable for the horrific political climate he created in this country. But his followers shouldn't get off the hook for committing the crimes he incited.

Next thing you know, Trump will be pardoning these "very fine people."

Just What Does Trump Think He Is?

Donald Trump thinks he can erase the 14th Amendment with a scrawl of his pen and eliminate birthright citizenship. He has now claimed, “We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits.”

Of course, like most everything this gasbag belches, this is an outright lie. Dozens of countries colonized by Europe, mostly in the Western Hemisphere, have what is called jus soli, or "right of the soil." For example, Canada and Mexico have birthright citizenship, like the United States does.

Birthright citizenship has been a bugaboo for white nationalists for a long time, though they usually use the derogatory term "anchor babies." Trump harped on this during the campaign in 2015. So why is he trotting it out again just now?

That's an easy one: the synagogue shooting in Pennsylvania. Just a week before an important election Trump had to publicly repudiate the murder of eleven American Jews by a fellow white nationalist.

But to assure other white nationalists he was still one of them, Trump had to do something to prove he's still a racist douche bag. Hence, the attack on the perennial favorite of white nationalists: anchor babies.

This looks like a cynical and transparent ploy to juice conservative turnout, because such an executive order cannot stand up in court. The president cannot overturn the Constitution all by his lonesome.

But if Trump really does believe he can do this, and that the Supreme Court he has packed with sycophants will rubber stamp a clear abrogation of the Constitution, it's even worse.

It means that Trump thinks he is a tyrant who can issue diktats according to his every whim.

That is what the Republicans accused Barack Obama of when he issued executive orders (which, by the way, numbered fewer than those written by George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, etc.).

You can make a reasoned argument that the Constitution should be amended so that only children born of permanent legal residents are citizens, as Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, etc., have done. A real president who was truly concerned about this issue would have proposed such an amendment shortly after his inauguration, not days before an election.

What you can't do is claim the president can do whatever the hell he wants, all to mollify sympathizers of racist nutjobs who shoot up places of worship.

The Coddling of the American Mind

I've been following Dr. Haidt's research for years. His work on political sociology is groundbreaking. His new book delves into the dangers of over protecting young people from ideas they don't like. Here's a recent segment in which he explains his peer reviewed research and I have to say, I'm deeply concerned if we continue down the path of encouraging fragility.



Liberals, I'm calling on you to knock this shit off because we need to be tougher and the Trump party. They laugh at us when we do this shit.

To be clear, I'm not saying we need to let people be racists, homophobic or sexist. In fact, we need to confront that shit head on and call them out. Ensconcing oneself into a protective bubble of self referential confirmation allows evil to flourish.

It's Happening Again

It's official: the angry white men who sent more than a dozen bombs in the mail and who shot up a synagogue were directly incited by Donald Trump.

The mail bomber lived out of a van festooned with pro-Trump propaganda: a rolling shrine to racism. According to his lawyer, Cesar Sayoc was directly radicalized by Donald Trump:

Sayoc, a 56-year-old Florida man who friends and other associates say had never shown any interest in politics, suddenly began sharing images of himself on Facebook at Trump campaign events. He signed up for Twitter, where he trafficked in conspiracy theories and conservative memes. He registered as a Republican to vote in Florida ­— Lowy said he believes it was for the first time in Sayoc’s life ­— in 2016. He traded out his Native American decals for ones that supported Trump.

“Had no interest in politics, was always at the night clubs, the gyms, wherever he thought he could meet people, impress people. And along came the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, who welcomed all extremists, all outsiders, all outliers, and he felt that somebody was finally talking to him,” Lowy said.

The synagogue shooter, Robert Bowers, was also directly radicalized by Trump. Bowers blasted Trump for not being nationalistic enough -- Trump only hates Muslims, Latinos, Chinese, Japanese, Germans, French, Canadians, transgendered people, women who need abortions, women who need birth control, women who have been assaulted by dickheads, people who live in countries wracked by dictatorship and violence and look to the United States for salvation.

Bowers swallowed the whole "caravan will kill us" line that Trump is trying to sell and took it one step further. He attacked Tree of Life Synagogue specifically because they are part of a century-old organization that helps resettle refugees in the United States:

The most recent postings on the Gab account believed to belong to Bowers specifically targeted the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, known as HIAS, which is one of nine organizations that works with the federal government to resettle refugees in American communities.

“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in,” Bowers is suspected of writing hours before authorities said he opened fire at Tree of Life.

In one posting, which seems to have been published several weeks ago, the author appears to threaten participants in the HIAS’s National Refugee Shabbat project, for which more than 200 congregations across the country held celebration and worship services centered on refugees last week. The organization, founded in 1881 to assist Jews fleeing Russia and Eastern Europe, now works to resettle displaced people from around the world, including Muslim and Central and South American nations.

“Why hello there HIAS! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us? We appreciate the list of friends you have provided,” the poster wrote before linking to the Web page that lists all of the participating congregations.

If you whip a dog into a frenzy, encourage it to attack people on the street, and then let it off its leash and it tears the throat out of a five-year-old child, you are guilty of murder.

Every day, on Twitter, at his rallies, at the scrum in front of Marine One, Trump is whipping his dogs into a frenzy, encouraging them to beat up reporters, punch protesters at his rallies, telling cops it's okay to brutalize suspects.

Trump didn't directly order these attacks. But he is morally responsible for the mail bombs and the bloodshed at Tree of Life.

And then, to add insult to injury, Trump blamed the Jewish victims for not having guards.

How many times do we have to repeat this? Guns do not provide protection, they only allow retaliation. Guards are just the first people to be hit by the burst of gunfire from the AR-15 shooters like Bowers love to use. Four cops with guns were among the shooting victims at the synagogue.

One of the Bowers' victims was a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor. What were her last thoughts as gunfire rang though the synagogue?

Oh, no. It's happening again.

A Week Of Hate Courtesy Of Trump and His Supporters

Well, let's see. First we had Gregory Bush trying to kill black people in Kentucky. Then we had Cesar Sayoc send pipe bombs to 14 major Democratic leaders. And we ended with another shooting in which Robert Bowers walked into a synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed worshipers because he thought they were aiding the caravan coming from Honduras.

Thank you, Trump supporters and right wing bloggers/commenters for being responsible for all of this!

I've been saying this for quite some time on this site but these people are domestic terrorists. They are actively encouraging acts of violence against liberals. Their paranoid delusions have sent them to a place from which there is no coming back.

They are pure fucking evil and they want to kill. It's just that simple.

Consider Sayoc, who, according to reports...

...went on racist, anti-gay tirades at the Fort Lauderdale pizza shop where he worked as a night-shift deliveryman in 2017, telling his manager, a lesbian, that she and other gay people along with Democrats should all be put onto an island and then “nuked.” At a reunion event in 2015 with his college soccer team, he browbeat former team members with racist, sexist conspiracy theories.

Or Bush who tried to break into a black church only to give up and shoot up a grocery store with predominantly black patrons.

Bowers had an AR-15 (shocking...not) and several hand guns which helped him out a great deal, especially with shooting and killing the four policemen who were also armed. When you allow ordinary citizens the capability of a soldier, they create a war zone.

Of course, the right is already engaging in whatboutism, pointing out liberal violence that mythically equal. Worse, Trump blamed the media and Democrats for not being civil enough. Like the women who wears the sexy dress and gets raped, we brought it on ourselves.

When the Democrats take back the House in a week and a half, they should start issuing subpoenas to right wing hate groups and throwing these assholes in Gitmo. They aren't patriots.

They are traitors.

The Fat Slob in the Mirror

Donald Trump has constantly incited violence against political opponents and the media. The same day a bomb showed up in George Soros' mailbox, Trump praised a congressman who bodyslammed a reporter who was just asking a question.

Trump is now blaming the media for several bombs sent to prominent Democrats, George Soros, CNN and Robert De Niro.

A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2018

Yes, it's all the media's fault for spreading fake news: they keep repeating Trump's twitter feed and showing video of him making false claims and citing inaccurate statistics so he can make real estate arms deals with dictators who murder reporters.

The media just reflect what Trump says and does. If he doesn't like having his lies thrown back in his face, he should just shut up.

Why, just the other morning he was griping to Melania at breakfast (five sausage McMuffins and a Diet Coke): "Jesus Christ, that slob in the bathroom mirror was so fat and ugly! And what a terrible comb-over!"

Sexual Predator Claims "Executive Privilege"

A man on a Southwest Airlines flight groped the breasts of the woman sitting in front of him. He was arrested, cuffed and charged by the FBI with Abusive Sexual Contact.

But he didn't think he'd done anything wrong because, as the perp/perv says, the President  of the United States says it's okay to grab women by their private parts.

According to the complaint:

16. After being placed in hand cuffs, ALEXANDER asked what the sentence was for the charge he was being arrested for. Later, in the vehicle, ALEXANDER stated that the President of the United States says it's ok to grab women by their private parts.

Is this really the world that evangelicals wanted to create when they voted for Donald Trump? They used to say that character counts, that a country must be led by people with exemplary personal standards. That the president must serve as a paragon of virtue for the nation.

To be honest, this crap has been going on forever. Trump didn't start it. But with him as president, conservatives are starting to think that assaulting women is their god-given right. Since this is a democracy and everyone is equal, they reason, if a drunken Supreme Court nominee can get away with trying to rape a teenage girl, then every construction worker should be able to cop a feel on an airplane.

According to Trump supporters, arresting guys for groping women is PC bullshit!

How much lower will this country sink after two more years of this clown?

The Cyberoperation Begins!

Early voting in the 2018 midterm elections has been going on for weeks now, but the US Cyber Command has only now started a "cyberoperation" to stop Russian hackers trying to swing the election.

The United States Cyber Command is targeting individual Russian operatives to try to deter them from spreading disinformation to interfere in elections, telling them that American operatives have identified them and are tracking their work, according to officials briefed on the operation.

The campaign, which includes missions undertaken in recent days, is the first known overseas cyberoperation to protect American elections, including the November midterms.

What kinds of things is Cyber Command doing?

Defense officials would not say how many individuals they were targeting, and they would not describe the methods that Cyber Command has used to send the direct messages to the operatives behind the influence campaigns. It is not clear if the information was delivered in an email, a chat or some other electronic intervention.

Senior defense officials said they were not directly threatening the operatives. Still, former officials said anyone singled out would know, based on the United States government’s actions against other Russian operatives, that they could be indicted or targeted with sanctions. Even the unstated threat of sanctions could help deter some Russians from participating in covert disinformation campaigns, said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former intelligence official now with the Center for a New American Security.

Yes, Donald Trump's Cyber Command is stopping Russian hackers by sending them threatening emails. I wonder how these emails go?

Dearest Misha,

Please stop hacking Democrats' emails, especially beto@betofortexas.com.

Also, please stop posting inflammatory and threatening messages on #MeToo against women who have been abused by Supreme Court nominees. Don't pretend to be guys who were unjustly accused of rape. And don't post on #HimToo, suggesting that every man will be in danger of false rape accusations, and that women will run everything if the Democrats win. That might inflame conservative men and increase their turnout in November.

And please stop picking on George Soros on right-wing subreddits. Someone might get the idea of putting a bomb in his mailbox.

Yours Truly,
Jared

xxxooo

And if they don't stop, Trump's Cyber Command will tell their mommies.

Trump's Only True Skill

For Trump supporters and apologists everywhere....

“Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright.

The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them."

--Adam Serwer, The Cruelty Is The Whole Point.

Who are we to believe-Trump or our lyin' ears?

President Trump's reluctance to call out the Saudi government for the assassination of Washington Post reporter Jamal Kashoggi illustrates two very key truths. First, Trump owes the Saudis a bunch of money from his business interests and doesn't want to make waves. Recently, he hilariously tweeted out this...

For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018

Yet during the 2016 campaign we have him on tape saying something much different. The clip comes at the end of this video which also details his financial ties with Saudi Arabia.

 

Who are we to believe-Trump or our lyin' ears?

The second truth that is illustrated by his reluctance to call out the Saudis on the Kashoggi death is he really, really hates reporters (or anyone for that matter) that criticize him. If they get killed, great! That's one less asshole he has to deal with.

The president is not acting in the best interests of this country. He is acting in his own, personal interest.