After high-profile candidates lost decisively in the last two elections…the party now finds itself in unprecedented territory for the 2018 ballot: with no major candidate to run. Democratic leaders havenât yet lined up a substantial name to represent the party and its message despite months of trying.
Ann Richards, elected in 1990, was the last Texas Democratic governor. And now, no major Dem candidate will run for governor. This is despite a booming Hispanic population and Democratic dominance in the stateâs largest cities.
Democrats have expanded their advantage in California and New York. Combined, these states gave Clinton a 6 million vote edge, more than twice her national margin. But those two states elect only 4% of the Senate.
We once thought that there was an âObama coalitionâ that would only grow because of demographics: Left-leaning populations were growing, America was becoming less white, and this alone would guarantee Democrat majorities well into the future. This idea has failed. Is it time for the DNC establishment to accept the awful truth that they are no longer a national party?
The Cook Political Report says that even if Democrats won every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats in districts that Hillary Clinton won, or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points, they would still fall short of the House majority and lose five Senate seats. Some permanent majority. Time for a few new Democrats to lead.
On to cartoons. Many people pointed out that there were some similarities between Trump and Kim:
Strategic thinking, Trump-style:
Uncle Rex tells America a bedtime story:
Trump said that his North Korea comments were similar to a few other guys:
Foxconn gets $3 billion in tax breaks in exchange for building a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin. It will take 20 years for the state to break even:
Wrongo has written many times about vote suppression, including earlier this week. We now see that the GOP in Indiana (who control the place) are disenfranchising Democratic precincts, but not the Republican ones. IndyStar, a local paper in Indianapolis, reported:
From 2008 to 2016, GOP officials expanded early voting stations in Republican dominated Hamilton County…and decreased them in the state’s biggest Democratic hotbed, Marion County.
Maybe now that GOP JeffBo is our Attorney General, Republicans feel they no longer even have to be subtle about voter suppression. More from the IndyStar:
That made voting more convenient in GOP areas for people…And the results were immediate.
Most telling, Hamilton County saw a 63% increase in absentee voting from 2008 to 2016, while Marion County saw a 26% decline. Absentee ballots are used at early voting stations.
The paper acknowledges that population growth may have played a role, but Hamilton County Clerk Kathy Richardson, a Republican, told IndyStar the rise in absentee voting in Hamilton County was largely a result of the addition of two early voting stations, which brought the total to three.
More from IndyStar:
Other Central Indiana Republican strongholds, including Boone, Johnson and Hendricks counties, also have added early voting sites â and enjoyed corresponding increases in absentee voter turnout. But not Marion County, which tends to vote Democratic, and has a large African-American population.
During that same 2008-16 period, the number of early voting stations declined from three to one in Marion County, as Republican officials blocked expansion.
Indiana voted for Obama in 2008, and apparently, that was enough for the GOP.
More early voting stations for Republican precincts in suburban white Republican counties, fewer early voting stations for Democratic precincts in urban black counties. So is this willful rigging that Republican officials are engaging in? Seems like itâs a plan.
Fewer opportunities for early voting disproportionately affects those who donât get the early voting opportunity.
The real message here is that Indiana is showing us another level of rigging of the voting system by GOP operatives. With gerrymandering and restrictive voting practices across this country, voter suppression is the real threat to our democracy, not the very few cases of voter fraud. The question is: How do we correct this, and build a system with accountability?
We have previously reported on voter suppression here, here, here and here.
This is yet another Wrongologist column for those people who say âboth parties are the same, it doesnât matter who you vote forâ. Do you get it yet?
Timeout. Â Letâs go somewhere to escape from the noise and the madness of the week.
Wrongo recommends Bluetooth over the ear headphones, and a VERY generous pour of Bushmills 21-year old Irish, matured in a mixture of Oloroso Sherry and Bourbon casks, before a two year marrying period spent in Madeira casks.
For those who cannot abide alcohol, just the headphones for you.
Now, listen to the Casta Diva prayer from the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini, performed by Anna Netrebko in 2007 with the Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden und Freiburg. This opera is regarded as a leading example of the bel canto genre. The soprano prayer Casta diva occurs in Act I:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlSodSvo1Lg
The most prolific Norma was Maria Callas, who gave 89 stage performances of the opera.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email sent by the execrable Feedburner, can view the video here.
Gibraltar, looking toward the Atlantic, 2016 – photo by Wrongo
The FCC has just said that Americans might not need a fast home internet connection. Instead, mobile internet via a smartphone might be all the public needs. No matter how fast the public’s internet connection is, people all over America will still be regularly accessing adult content websites such as https://www.porn7.xxx/, whether it be through their smartphone or any other device. From Ars Technica:
The suggestion comes in the FCC’s annual inquiry into broadband availability. Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband (or more formally, “advanced telecommunications capability”) is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion. If the FCC finds that broadband isn’t being deployed quickly enough to everyone, it is required by law to “take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market.”
Today’s Wrongologist column is for all of those people who said “both parties are the same, it doesn’t matter who you vote for“. Nothing like the “small government” folks at the FCC telling America what type of internet access we need. It is fortunate that there are still internet providers out their devoted to giving a high-quality service, such as the internet Nebraska has.
During the Obama administration, the FCC determined that broadband wasn’t reaching Americans fast enough, particularly in rural areas. And, they did not consider mobile broadband to be a full replacement for a home (or “fixed”) internet connection via cable, fiber, or other technologies. Many rural areas are now benefiting from higher speed internet providers moving into their locations, if you’re wanting to learn more about whether fiber could come to you look into Denham Springs news.
Last year, the FCC concluded that Americans needed BOTH home and mobile access:
34 million Americans, about 10% of the country, still lack access to fixed broadband at the FCC’s benchmark speed of 25Mbps for downloads, 3Mbps for uploads…
The FCC also concluded under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler that since home internet connections and smartphones have different capabilities and limitations, Americans should have access to both instead of just one or the other.
But now we have a Republican administration. Ajit Pai, the GOP’s new FCC Chairman, is poised to change that policy by declaring that mobile broadband with speeds of 10Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream is all anyone needs. This is a deep tongue kiss from the FCC to the broadband industry.
More from Ars Technica: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
This [Agit’s plan] would be the first time that the FCC has set a broadband speed standard for mobile; at 10Mbps/1Mbps, it would be less than half as fast as the FCC’s home broadband speed standard of 25Mbps/3Mbps.
In Europe you can now routinely get 250Mbps internet service, and higher speeds in parts of Asia. Good job FCC!
The changes were signaled in an FCC Notice of Inquiry, the first step toward completing a new analysis of broadband deployment. The document asks the public for comments on a variety of questions, including whether mobile broadband can substitute for fixed Internet connections.
Pai has previously made it clear that he thinks mobile broadband can substitute for fixed connections. In 2012, Pai’s first year as a member of the FCC board, he criticized the then-Democratic majority for concluding that mobile internet service can’t replace home Internet.
Those who work from home need faster speeds, and the number of “at home” workers is growing. Companies have learned that letting employees work from home gets them a lifestyle improvement by ending the weeks of their year spent commuting. Working from home also lets companies lower their commercial rents.
Consumer internet usage will increase as you’re able to read by viewing this source here and similar pages regarding internet stats in the past and future. With the current costs of mobile data, an evening of Netflix delivered by smartphone will put the average US consumer over their data plan maximum. The data caps in most mobile plans are low, and the costs of overages are high. Reliability is another issue. The service is fragile in storms, and unstable under high volume usage, such as at large public gatherings.
Do you remember the good old days when we made fun of Russia and China for their quaint infrastructure? Now, Republicans are trying to pretend the future doesn’t exist.
Maybe America doesn’t need interstate highways, local roads might be good enough. Pai is playing to Trump voters: Why would they want anything faster than mobile? They get Trump’s Twitter feed, so what else to they need?
You don’t like this? Is it making you angry?
You should know what to do by now. Hint: It usually happens on a Tuesday.
Music appreciation: Today we hear “Hymn to Freedom” by the Oscar Peterson Trio. It was written in 1962 in support of the Civil Rights movement. Here it is live in Denmark in 1964, with Oscar Peterson on Piano, Ray Brown on Bass and Ed Thigpen on Drums:
Freedom from the FCC and the Ajit Pai’s of the world is what we need.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Justice Department released an amicus brief in the case, currently before the Supreme Court, over whether Ohio can continue to remove “infrequent voters” who fail to cast a ballot over a six-year period. One of those voters, Larry Harmon, is a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit brought by Demos and the ACLU of Ohio. The 60-year-old software engineer and Navy veteran voted in 2008 and then returned to the polls for a local referendum in 2015, only to find that he was no longer registered, even though he hadn’t moved or done anything else to change his status.
Ohio has purged about 2 million voters from its rolls, including 1.2 million for infrequent voting. From the WaPo:
In a court filing late Monday, Justice Department attorneys took the opposite position from the Obama administration in a case that involves Ohioâs removal last year of tens of thousands of inactive voters from its voting rolls.
In their brief, government lawyers say they reconsidered the Ohio vote-purging issue after the âchange in Administrations,â and they argue that the stateâs actions are legal under federal law.
Ohio allows the purging process to begin when voters have not cast a ballot in two years. The person is sent a notice asking them to confirm their registration. If the voter does not respond and does not cast a ballot over the next four years, they are removed from the rolls.
But a federal appeals court ruled that Ohio had violated the National Voter Registration Act, a 1993 law that made it easier to register at the DMV and other public agencies and stipulated that voter-roll maintenance: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
…shall not result in the removal of the name of any person from the official list of voters registered to vote in an election for Federal office by reason of the personâs failure to vote.
Trumpâs DOJ has decided that âuse it or lose itâ applies to your right to vote.
We are witnessing a steady erosion of voter rights that started with the Supreme Courtâs 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder. The Court struck down Section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). That Section required states with a history of voting discrimination to get pre-approval from the Justice Department for any changes to voting qualifications or procedures.
Since the Shelby ruling, many states, including some that were formerly covered under the VRA, have instituted stricter voter identification laws and instituted voter roll purges. Ari Berman lists examples from the 2016 election â the first election without full protection of the VRA:
There were 868 fewer polling places in states with long histories of voting discrimination, such as Arizona, Texas and North Carolina.
In Wisconsin, 300,000 registered voters lacked strict forms of voter ID, and voter turnout was at its lowest levels in 20 years. This was particularly apparent in Milwaukee, where voting was down13%, where 70% of the stateâs African-American population lives.
In North Carolina, black turnout decreased 16% during the first week of early voting because in 40 heavily black counties, there were 158 fewer early polling places.
The plan is this: First, make voting as complicated and inconvenient as possible and then, when people basically give up on voting, you drop them from the rolls for non-participation.
What harm is there in keeping a non-voter or irregular voter on the rolls? Voter impersonation happens about as often as winning the Power Ball lottery, so why not leave a name on the rolls until removal is substantiated? When you move from one state to another, and register to vote, no one has committed voter fraud. No one took Wrongoâs parents off the Florida voter rolls after they died. That wasnât voter fraud either.
The false concern about voter fraud is a cloak for a determined effort to gut every improvement the country has made on voting rights in the past 50 years.
On to music. Glenn Campbell had an outsized influence on American music. His free and fluid mix of country, pop and light rock left a big mark in Nashville. Here is Campbell doing âClassical Gasâ:
Few who knew Campbell only as the singer of âBy the Time I Get to Phoenixâ and âWichita Linemanâ also knew that he was a very accomplished guitarist.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Every time I meet someone from outside Silicon Valley â a normy â I can think of 10 companies that are working madly to put that person out of a job…
Well, that makes most of us ânormiesâ. In context, we are the people who do not work in Silicon Valley. We are the people who use technology, rather than invent technology, and many of us ought to see technology as a threat to our jobs and our place in society.
He’d sold his online ad company to Twitter for a small fortune, and was working as a senior exec at Facebook (an experience he wrote up in his best-selling book, Chaos Monkeys). But at some point in 2015, he looked into the not-too-distant future and saw a very bleak world, one that was nothing like the polished utopia of connectivity and total information promised by his colleagues.
Martinez pointed out that there are enough guns for every man, woman and child in this country, and theyâre in the hands of people who would be hurt most by automation:
You donât realize it but weâre in a race between technology and politics, and technologists are winning…
Martinez worries about how the combination of automation and artificial intelligence will develop faster than we expect, and that the consequences are lost jobs.
Martinezâs response was to become a tech prepper, another rich guy who buys an escape pod somewhere off the grid, where he thinks he will be safe from the revolution that he helped bring about. More from Mashable: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
So, just passing [after turning] 40, Antonio decided he needed some form of getaway, a place to escape if things turn sour. He now lives most of his life on a small Island called Orcas off the coast of Washington State, on five Walt Whitman acres that are only accessible by 4×4 via a bumpy dirt path that…cuts through densely packed trees.
Heâs not alone. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn told The New Yorker earlier this year that around half of Silicon Valley billionaires have some degree of âapocalypse insurance.â Pay-Pal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel recently bought a 477-acre escape hatch in New Zealand, and became a Kiwi. Other techies are getting together on secret Facebook groups to discuss survivalist tactics.
Weâve got to expect that with AI and automation, our economy will change dramatically. We will see both economic and social disruption until we achieve some form of new equilibrium in 30 years or so.
It will be a world where either you work for the machines, or the machines work for you.
Robert Shiller, of the famous Case-Shiller Index, wrote in the NYT about the changing meaning of the âAmerican Dreamâ from the 1930s where it meant:
…ideals rather than material goods, [where]…life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement…It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable…
That dream has left the building, replaced by this:
Forbes Magazine started what it calls the âAmerican Dream Index.â It is based on seven statistical measures of material prosperity: bankruptcies, building permits, entrepreneurship, goods-producing employment, labor participation rate, layoffs and unemployment claims. This kind of characterization is commonplace today, and very different from the original spirit of the American dream.
How will the âNormiesâ survive in a society that doesnât care if you have a job? That refuses to provide a safety net precisely when it celebrates the progress of technology that costs jobs?
The Silicon Valley survivalists understand that, when this happens, people will look for scapegoats. And we just might decide that the techies are it.
Todayâs music is âGuest Listâ by the Eels from the 1996 album âBeautiful Freakâ:
 Takeaway Lyric:
Are you one of the beautiful people
Is my name on the list
Wanna be one of the beautiful people
Wanna feel like Iâm missed
Are you one of the beautiful people
Am I on the wrong track
Sometimes it feels like Iâm made of eggshell
And it feels like Iâm gonna crack
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Here are yesterdayâs cartoons today. The week begins with Congress at home trying to explain all the winning to their voters, while Der Donald is again on the golf course. For the next 17 days, the job of the Whitewash House is limited to describing his golfing success:
Is it more likely to see four new faces on Mt. Rushmore, or a fifth?
We flushed another week down the crapper. A few things to think about: At a rally in Huntington, WV, Donald Trump characterized the investigation into his campaign as a “total fabrication” and again demanded Hillary Clinton be investigated.
The US Secret Service couldnât agree on a lease with the Trump Organization to keep a command post in Trump Tower in NYC, so they have moved to a trailer outside. Do ya think that Trump could call Trump and worked this thing out?
But, everyone is talking about Special Counsel Muellerâs convening of a Grand Jury. As important, the Senate blocked Trump from being able to make recess appointments while they are on their August break. This requires the agreement of every senator, so the Senate will be in session every three business days throughout the August recess. That means Trump canât fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and/or Robert Mueller, and use the recess appointment process to appoint a successor without Senate confirmation of the appointment.
And Trump is going on vacay just like the Senate. The guy who once asked, âWhatâs the point?â about vacations, left on Friday for a 17-day vacation at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort. While heâs away, the White House will undertake a number of repairs, including replacing the heating and cooling system, and repairing steps on the South Portico.
Is that why Trump called the White House a dump?
Too much to think about, so letâs take a Saturday Soother break. Get yourself an iced La Colombe Pure Black Cold Brew coffee, sit in a cool dark room, and watch this video of a flash mob doing Gustav Holst’s “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity“, the 4th movement from Holstâs âThe Planetsâ. It is performed by the Berklee Contemporary Symphonic Orchestra (BCSO) in November 2016 at Bostonâs Prudential Center:
Why doesnât this happen when Wrongo is at the mall?
To cap off our Saturday shout-out to Gustav Holst, this same movement of Holstâs âThe Planetsâ was also used to set the following poem by Sir Cecil Spring Rice to music, and is a hymn to Britain:
I Vow to Thee, My Country
I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.
And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.
It was sung at the funerals of Winston Churchill, Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced that there would be no change for the Missouri Breaks National Monument. Zinke is from Montana, so saving one for his peeps isnât a big surprise.
Missouri Breaks is one of 27 monuments established during the previous 20 years by presidents using the Antiquities Act. The Antiquities Act allows presidents to set aside objects of historic or scientific interest to prevent their destruction. The law was created in 1906 to guard against looting of sacred American Indian sites.
In April, Trump ordered the Department of the Interior to review the status of every national monument designated since 1996. As a result of the review, these cultural and/or natural treasures could be significantly reduced in size or even eliminated, and the Antiquities Act itself could be severely limited. The land would remain owned by the federal government, but might lose its protected status, and be contracted to private enterprises. When you allow corporations to ‘lease’ land for oil, fracking, mining, ranching, etc. fences go up, private police forces are hired to keep people out for their ‘safety’.
Not everyone agrees that Trump has the authority to do what he wants. From the Washington Times:
If President Donald Trump or any successor desires the authority to revoke national monument designations, they should urge Congress to amend the Antiquities Act accordingly. They should not torture the plain language of the Act to advance a political agenda at the expense of regular constitutional order.
Indeed, those who claim that the Antiquities Act does not grant a reversal power cannot find a single case in another area of federal law that supports that contention. To override the norm, legislators have to clearly limit reversal powers in the original law; the plain text of the Antiquities Act includes no such limits.
Who knows? Next, Der Donald will lease the Grand Canyon to China for use as a landfill.
But the bigger picture is that behind the smoke and mirrors of Trumpâs pathological lying and the mediaâs obsession with Russia, his cabinet appointees are working like industrious termites, eating away much of the support beams of our nationâs rules-based edifice.
Consider Attorney General Jeff Sessions. From the New Yorker: (brackets and editing by the Wrongologist)
He [Sessions] has reversed the Obama Administrationâs commitment to voting rights…He has changed an Obama-era directive to federal prosecutors to seek reasonable, as opposed to maximum, prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders…he has revived a discredited approach to civil forfeiture, which subjects innocent people to the loss of their property. He has also backed away from the effort…to rein in and reform police departments, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri, that have discriminated against African-Americans.
Although candidate Trump promised to protect LGBT rights, President Trump last week vowed to remove transgender service members from the armed forces, and Sessions…took the position in court that Title VII, the nationâs premier anti-discrimination law, does not protect gay people from bias. Most of all, Sessions has embraced the issue that first brought him and Trump together: the crackdown on immigration…
All across the government, Trump appointees are busy chewing through the existing regulatory edifice, ending not just Obama-era rules, but others that have been in place for decades.
Another truly damning thing is Trumpâs surrogatesâ efforts to undermine foreign policy. The WaPo reports:
Trump signed off on Iran’s compliance with profound reluctance, and he has since signaled that when Iran’s certification comes up again â as it will every 90 days, per a mandate from Congress â he intends to declare Iran not in compliance, possibly even if there is evidence to the contrary.
American officials have already told allies they should be prepared to join in reopening negotiations with Iran or expect that the US may [unilaterally] abandon the agreement, as it did the Paris climate accord.
It is difficult to see how this ends well for the US. Imagine, Iran and North Korea both pursuing nuclear weapons to deploy against the US. Why would we want to engage on two fronts, when one (North Korea) is already so problematic?
What is the Trump agenda? Are there any articulated goals? What are the strategies to achieve them?
Have we heard a concrete proposal for any of his big ideas (health care, tax reform, or infrastructure)?
We have not, but his termites keep chewing, and soon, our whole building will be compromised.
Is it the best of times or the worst of times? This is no longer a partisan discussion. We have an economy in the midst of a long expansion, the third longest since 1850. The statistics say we are close to full employment. But, our mortality rate is moving in the wrong direction, and we have an opioid epidemic that is serious enough to cause jobs to go unfilled. The NYT reports that in Youngstown Ohio, middle class factory jobs go begging:
Itâs not that local workers lack the skills for these positions, many of which do not even require a high school diploma but pay $15 to $25 an hour and offer full benefits. Rather, the problem is that too many applicants â nearly half, in some cases â fail a drug test.
The Fedâs regular Beige Book surveys of economic activity across the country in April, May and July all noted the inability of employers to find workers able to pass drug screenings.
So the best of times? Probably not. Bloomberg reports that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) looked at the US economy. This is what they see:
For some time now there has been a general sense that household incomes are stagnating for a large share of the population, job opportunities are deteriorating, prospects for upward mobility are waning, and economic gains are increasingly accruing to those that are already wealthy. This sense is generally borne out by economic data and when comparing the US with other advanced economies.
The IMF then goes on to compare the US with 23Â other advanced economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in this chart:
The chart is a bit of an eye test unless itâs viewed on a big monitor, but its overall point is that the US has been losing ground relative to its past OECD reports by several measures of living standards. 35 countries make up the OECD. The members include all of Western Europe, Russia, Japan, Australia, and several developing nations like Korea and Panama.
And in the areas where the US hasn’t lost ground (poverty rates, high school graduation rates), it was at or near the bottom of the heap to begin with. The clear message is that the US — the richest nation on Earth, as is frequently proclaimed, although it’s actually not the richest per capita — is increasingly becoming the developed world’s poor relation as far as the actual living standards of most of its population go.
This analysis is contained in the staff report of the IMF’s annual “consultation” with the U.S., which was published last week. The IMF economists havenât turned up anything shocking or new, it’s just that as outsiders, they have a different perspective than what we hear from our politicians and economists.
For example:
Income polarization is suppressing consumption…weighing on labor supply and reducing the ability of households to adapt to shocks. High levels of poverty are creating disparities in the education system, hampering human capital formation and eating into future productivity.
What is to be done? Well, the IMF report concludes:
Reforms should include building a more efficient tax system; establishing a more effective regulatory system; raising infrastructure spending; improving education and developing skills; strengthening healthcare coverage while containing costs; offering family-friendly benefits; maintaining a free, fair, and mutually beneficial trade and investment regime; and reforming the immigration and welfare systems.
In other words, they suggest substantial reform. Itâs doubtful that America can take care of these things anytime soon.
The subtext to most of their suggestions is that other affluent countries have found ways to improve in these areas, while the US has not. We donât have to look too far into the past to see when those countries were modeling their economies on ours. But today, on all sorts of issues, like taxation, labor markets, health care, and education, the opposite is now true.
Other wealthy countries have figured out how to raise revenue, provide quality education, help the the unemployed, reduce poverty, and keep their citizens healthier than America has.
We must catch up, or admit our time as the world’s indispensable economy is over.
Todayâs music (dis)honors the turmoil in the White House. See âya Mooch! Remember that in just six months, Trump has gone through two National Security Advisers, two Chiefs of Staff, two Communications Directors, two Press Secretaries, and two Directors of the FBI.
Here is âDisorder in the Houseâ by the late Warren Zevon and Bruce Springsteen:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Nobody knows whether the Russians hacked the 2016 presidential election. One thing on which there seems to be broad agreement is that no foreign power was able to change the actual vote totals, since we have 192,480 precincts in the US. And we use so many different vote collection and vote processing technologies throughout the country, hacking would be very difficult.
Over the weekend at Def Con, a convention of hackers held in Las Vegas, hackers managed to break into many different US electronic voting systems, taking control of some of them in less than 90 minutes. The hackers successfully broke in through the voting system hardware, or through wireless communication. From The Hill:
…[the hackers] at the annual DEF CON in Las Vegas were given physical voting machines and remote access…[and] within minutes, hackers exposed glaring physical and software vulnerabilities across multiple US voting machine companies’ products. Some devices were found to have physical ports that could be used to attach devices containing malicious software. Others had insecure Wi-Fi connections, or were running outdated software with security vulnerabilities like Windows XP.
By the end of the weekend, every one of the 30 machines, including those used to tabulate votes and to check voters in when they go to the polls, had been hacked. The Telegraph reported that:
They purchased 30 different election machines from a US Government auction…
Who knew you can buy these voting machines at a US government auction? Is there a legitimate purpose for them after they’ve been decommissioned? Isn’t this a way for hackers to study the weaknesses in these machines, and maybe figure out a way to hack ones that are currently in use? This is where penetration testing becomes so important. Ethical hackers (penetration testers) carry out scans to filter out potentially exploitable vulnerabilities. They attempt to exploit the vulnerabilities in a system to determine whether it is possible to hack in to get unauthorized access. Find out more at https://www.synack.com/blog/penetration-testing-vs-vulnerability-scanning/. This could have been used with these decommissioned voting machines, although perhaps just not selling them would have been easier.
The idea that electronic voting machines could be hacked has been around for a while. Computer programmer Harri Hursti, hacked into Diebold voting machines in 2005. That hack is now known as the “Hursti Hack“. Electronic voting machines require regular software security updates. Updates lead to a re-do of each state’s voter machine certification process, which can cost over $1 million to complete.
Gizmodo reports that even though the most recent election security standards were released in 2015, most state’s machines are only compliant with standards from 2002 because of the costs of updates. That cost breaks down to about $30-$40 per voter, and most states just don’t have the money.
OTOH, a hack of the last presidential election would have only needed to change the votes in three states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) to be successful in changing the result. And the absolute margin of victory in each of those states was small enough that it could have been accomplished without accessing all polling places. Still, no credible group is saying hacking on that scale occurred in 2016.
It is glib to suggest that the answer is to use paper ballots. With upwards of 150 million votes to count, that would require a huge number of volunteers. It begs the question of what method of “auditing” the count will be used, and who will perform it.
If we persist in electronic voting, those states would need to adopt a comprehensive sampling methodology for the machines before results can be certified. This would mean that we simply can’t accept using machines that don’t provide a paper trail, or a way to audit their vote tally.
We need to remember that we call the winners based on initial uncertified vote tallies. Before we know it, someone has conceded while we’re still counting votes. Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin grew for about a month after the 2016 election as more and more votes were counted, even though it had no bearing on the Electoral College.
For the presidency, the federal government could specify that states that can’t certify their results up to a pre-set federal standard of accuracy, using a pre-set methodology, wouldn’t be allowed to cast votes in the Electoral College. This would pressure the states to put in better protections against hacking.
Finally, the federal government should pay for any required upgrades.
Continuing Wrongo’s tour of music by old guys, here is “Why Worry” from a 1986 PBS recording by Chet Atkins, the Everly Brothers, Mark Knopfler, and Michael McDonald. This song was written by Mark Knopfler for The Everly Brothers, and it beautifully demonstrates their unique harmony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkFcQRiFL68
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
