Wednesday, October 02, 2019
Latest Poll On Support For Democratic Candidates
The charts above are from the most recent Morning Consult Poll -- done between September 23rd and 29th of a national sample of 16,274 registered voters who say they will participate in a Democratic primary or caucus. The margin of error is only 1 point.
The top chart shows national support for the candidates. The bottom chart shows support in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
Pathetic GOP Attempts To Cover For Trump Failing (Bigly)
We now have the White House's own transcript of Trump's call to the Ukrainian president and the whistleblower claim of what happened on that call. They are remarkably consistent with each other. It is now obvious that Donald Trump threatened to withhold critical military aid passed by Congress unless Ukrainian officials helped him dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son (evidence of which simply does not exist).
This has left White House aides and congressional Republicans scrambling to try and protect Trump from impeachment. Those attempts are pathetic, inadequate, and fall far short of succeeding. Here is how John Harwood at cnbc.com lists the sad attempts and tells us how they fail:
It was hearsay
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy notes that “the whistleblower wasn’t on the call” between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart. “Hearsay,” Sen. Lindsey Graham insists, cannot be a basis for impeachment.
Both observations are irrelevant. In the partial transcript of the call released by the White House itself, Trump’s own words affirm the whistleblower’s account. That is direct evidence, not hearsay.
Biased whistleblower
The president says the still-unidentified whistleblower harbors “known bias” against him. This observation, which the intelligence community inspector general called “arguable,” does not discredit the whistleblower’s allegations, which the inspector general found “credible.”
If the whistleblower’s information is accurate, his motivation doesn’t matter. Trump’s own former homeland security advisor, Thomas Bossert, has described himself as “deeply disturbed” by the president’s behavior, too.
Media distortion
On “60 Minutes” Sunday night, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley asked about Trump’s comment that “I need you to do us a favor, though” after Ukraine’s new president requested military aid to counter Russian aggression.
“You added a word there,” GOP leader McCarthy replied, referring to the damning “though.”
McCarthy’s assertion was false; Pelley accurately quoted the White House-released document. The most charitable interpretation of the GOP leader’s embarrassment is that he had not actually reviewed the evidence he had gone on national television to discuss.
It wasn’t about Biden
On “Meet the Press,” House GOP Whip Steve Scalise insisted the favor Trump sought was an investigation into the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, rather than dirt on Biden. That investigation, in turn, might explain the true source of outside interference in the 2016 election.
In fact, the partial transcript shows Trump specifically requested an investigation of Biden and his son. The U.S. government already knows the origin of 2016 interference: Russia, which favored Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Scalise alluded to unfounded suspicions among conspiracy-minded Republicans that Ukraine, seeking to help Clinton, was the real meddler. Those suspicions, former Trump aide Bossert notes, have been “completely debunked.”
Biden interfered
Trump asserts that, as Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden sought to protect his son by demanding that Ukraine fire a prosecutor. At the time, Hunter Biden worked for a Ukrainian energy firm that had faced an investigation.
Yet Biden’s demand was not personal. He made it on behalf of the U.S. government and allies including the European Union and the International Monetary Fund – none of whom have accused the former vice president of misconduct.
Moreover, Ukrainian officials say the investigation into Hunter Biden’s company was inactive when the prosecutor was ousted. The prosecutor who replaced him told the Los Angeles Times he had no evidence of illegality.
No quid pro quo
In the call, Trump did not explicitly condition military aid on a new Biden investigation. “I didn’t do it,” the president told reporters. “There was no quid pro quo.”
As a matter of propriety, that does not absolve Trump for baselessly seeking derogatory information about a domestic rival from a foreign government – an abuse of presidential power under any circumstances.
But former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah, calling Trump’s purpose “100%” clear, notes that even mobsters don’t make extortion demands explicit. Writing in The Washington Post, Flake said the partial transcript “removed all ambiguity about the president’s intent.”
“The whistleblower’s account seems convincing,” concludes Kori Schake, a former national security aide to President George W. Bush, “that the president was using our country’s foreign policy to blackmail a foreign country.”
Ukraine is getting aid
The U.S. expanded military assistance to Ukraine after Russia seized part of its territory in 2014. Trump says he has helped more than Obama.
But furnishing aid requires support by Congress. Both parties have provided it.
The Trump administration’s Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council all supported the aid this summer, Fox News has reported. But Trump personally froze it just days before calling the Ukrainian leader.
Trump unfroze the aid only after the whistleblower complained to Congress.
Tuesday, October 01, 2019
This New Poll Should Worry Trump (And Republicans)
These charts reflect the results of a new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between September 27th and 29th of a national sample of 1,115 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.6 points.
These are not the kind of numbers that get a president re-elected. Trump should be very worried, and so should the Republicans who must share the ticket with him.
Democrats Have Higher Favorable Rating Than Republicans
This chart is from a recent Gallup Poll -- done between September 3rd and 15th of a national sample of 1,525 adults, with a 3 point margin of error. It shows that public opinion has the Democratic Party with a five point higher favorable rating than the Republican Party.
Can Our Electronic Voting Machines Be Trusted?
I'm an older voter, and I worked at the polls in quite a few elections. I can remember working at a polling site that used paper ballots. It was 3:00am, before all the votes were counted in that election (the 1976 presidential election), and that was in a small rural precinct. Today, electronic voting machines are used, and the results of the election are known just a few minutes after the polls close in each precinct. There's no doubt that the modern machines save time, especially for the poll workers. But the question now is different -- Can those electronic machines be trusted? In far too many precincts, the machines are old, vulnerable to hacking, and have no paper trail.
The following article should give us pause about the sanctity of our voting process. It is by A.J. Vicens at Mother Jones. He writes:
A report issued Thursday by some of the country’s leading election security experts found that voting machines used in dozens of state remain vulnerable to hacks and manipulations, warning that that without continued efforts to increase funding, upgrade technology, and adopt of voter-marked paper ballot systems, “we fear that the 2020 presidential elections will realize the worst fears only hinted at during the 2016 elections: insecure, attacked, and ultimately distrusted.”
The 47-page report is the product of researchers who organized a shakedown of voting machines at the annual DefCon conference, one of world’s biggest information security gatherings frequented by hackers, government officials, and industry workers. First incorporated into DefCon in 2017 with the aim of improving voting machine security, this year’s version of the now-annual “Voting Machine Hacking Village” assembled over 100 machines and let hackers loose to find and exploit their vulnerabilities. While election officials have criticized the effort’s utility as a testing ground, deriding it as a “pseudo environment,” some have seen value in letting machines’ flaws become more known and potentially lead to security improvements.
“Once again, Voting Village participants were able to find new ways, or replicate previously published methods, of compromising every one of the devices in the room,” the authors wrote, pointing out that every piece of assembled equipment is certified for use in at least one US jurisdiction. The report’s authors, some of whom have been involved with election machine security research going back more than a decade, noted that in most cases the participants tested voting equipment “they had no prior knowledge of or experience” in a “challenging setting ” with less time and resources than attackers would be assumed to marshal.
The report urges election officials to use machines relying on voter-marked paper ballots and pair those with “statistically rigorous post-election audits” to verify the outcome of elections reflects the will of voters. The authors also warn that supply chain issues “continue to pose significant security risks,” including cases where machines include hardware components of foreign origin, or where election administrators deploy foreign-based software, cloud, or other remote services. The report lands as officials in several states are working to upgrade election equipment, and as lawmakers in Washington, D.C. debate federal election security legislation and funding.
Ultimately, the report notes flaws that have been acknowledged for years.
“As disturbing as this outcome is, we note that it is at this point an unsurprising result,” the authors conclude. “However, it is notable—and especially disappointing—that many of the specific vulnerabilities reported over a decade earlier…are still present in these systems today.”
You Can read the full report here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)