May 31, 2018

Good news: WSJ teams up with Verified Voting to advocate for paper ballots, more secure elections

From The Voting News
https://thevotingnews.com/remember-the-age-of-paper-ballots-its-back-wall-street-journal/

Remember the Age of Paper Ballots? It’s Back | Wall Street Journal
May 25 2018

In an era rife with concerns about cybersecurity, election officials are increasingly turning to a decidedly low-tech solution: paper. While security advocates have long considered use of paper a best practice for election integrity, the pace of its adoption has accelerated in the wake of Russian meddling in the U.S. election in 2016. City and county governments around the country and a handful of states, so far, have moved to replace electronic voting methods with paper ballots or to adopt electronic voting machines that generate paper receipts. Virginia last year, just two months before its state election, phased out all its old electronic touch-screen machines after a demonstration at a hacking conference spotlighted vulnerabilities in its electronic voting machines. Voters across the state cast paper ballots on election day. In Kentucky and Pennsylvania, meanwhile, state officials have ordered that all new voting equipment have a paper trail.

… Marian Schneider, president of Verified Voting, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that has long advocated for paper systems or backups, adds, “The value of having the voter-marked paper ballot is that it allows you to detect if something happened and to recover from it.”

Ms. Schneider, a former Pennsylvania election official, says that interest in election security has increased among local officials and the public at large. “I haven’t seen anything like it the whole time people have been working and advocating against these vulnerable machines,” she says. “So that’s a good thing, that the issue has been elevated in the consciousness of the press and the public.




WSJ article:
Remember the Age of Paper Ballots? It’s Back
To maintain election integrity, local governments are looking to the past to make sure the future is secure
By Byron Tau
https://www.wsj.com/articles/remember-the-age-of-paper-ballots-its-back-1527172511
Updated May 29, 2018 6:17 p.m. ET

May 26, 2018

Remember Lawrence screaming about Ryan being at center of Nunes scandal & media totally missing it?

This is why Ryan won't get rid of Nunes:

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10028865654
From March 28, 2017. I am copying the whole OP here:

O'Donnell tonight: Ryan at center of Nunes scandal. R in as deep as N; this why R won't remove Nunes

O'Donnell again tonight showed clip of Ryan saying he "had to brief the speaker first" before going to WH. Asks, "Why are no reporters picking up on Ryan involvement in Nunes scandal? I’ve showed this clip three times of Nunes saying he had to brief the speaker before he did anything else, and yet no one is picking up on it."

"Ryan is at the center of the scandal. The press apparently didn’t hear it when he said it in the WH driveway when he said he first went to Ryan before going to the WH. Everything he did after that would have been at the direction of Ryan. "

"The Nunes scandal is Paul Ryan’s scandal. That is why Ryan won’t remove him. Ryan is in it as deep as Nunes is. If Nunes can lose the chairmanship over it, Ryan can lose the speakership over it. "

I have wondered myself why more aren't picking up on this, even on DU. See this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028850749
for O'Donnell show video and transcript from Thursday where he raises this question of why no one seems to be picking up on Ryan's involvement and says Nunes is covering up for Ryan; that Nunes fell on his sword for Ryan.

This is very important; it means Ryan is colluding as well as Nunes! Not only colluding, but directing Nunes. Much more in the thread from the Thursday show linked to above, but O'Donnell feels it so important that he brought it up for the third time tonight.

He also had former CIA director on telling why it was critical to Nunes and Ryan to stop Sally Yates testimony.

May 25, 2018

Clapper's bombshell: Russia swung the election. What if he's right? Calls out GOP. (WaPo)

Long snip

The key point is this. Even if you put aside whatever the Trump campaign did or didn’t do to conspire with Russian sabotage, what’s left is this obvious fact: Trump and his GOP allies don’t want to know the full story of what Russia’s operation entailed in and of itself, because it doesn’t concern them in the least, and indeed they are engaged in an active effort to keep that story suppressed.

It keeps getting lost in the discussion, but one of the charges of both Mueller’s investigation and the probes run out of Congress has been to determine the full truth about the Russian effort separate and irrespective of whether there was any Trump campaign collusion with it. Trump himself has regularly dismissed the whole thing as a hoax. The GOP-run House Intelligence Committee probe laughably airbrushed Russia’s goal of helping Trump win out of its final conclusion, putting it at odds with both the intelligence community and Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans.

And this isn’t the only way in which Trump’s Republican allies are actively working to prevent the full truth from coming out. Their push for the release of highly sensitive Justice Department documents on the FBI informant that Trump and his allies have railed about — who contacted Trump campaign officials after the FBI established questionable contacts involving Russian hopes of corrupting the election — represents direct collaboration between Trump and Republicans to subvert Mueller’s investigation. This pressure resulted in an extraordinary capitulation by DOJ, in which officials agreed to make info they believe to be compromising available only to Republicans (though now Democrats will get a briefing as well).

Whatever you think of Clapper, he is pinpointing the core difficulty here. We want congressional oversight of our intelligence services, so the public can have confidence that their awesome powers are not being abused. But there comes a point at which legitimate oversight gets weaponized and perverted into its opposite — a bad-faith political effort to subvert legitimate law enforcement activity and prevent accountability and justice. In this case, what’s being subverted is an effort to determine the full extent of outside sabotage of an American presidential election, something that may have altered its outcome.

Whether Clapper is right in claiming that the outcome was indeed altered will probably forever remain an open question. But his assertion does highlight the fact that Trump and his GOP allies are actively trying to prevent that full story from coming out — and aren’t troubled in the least by the possibility that he might be right.

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/05/24/james-clappers-bombshell-russia-swung-the-election-what-if-hes-right/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0b8917089fec

May 24, 2018

RAchel talking Clapper, stolen election again tonight; said HIllary would have won if they hadn't.

Actually said it. Finally.

May 21, 2018

David Hogg: Wear #OrangeCaps at graduation for gun control

In the wake of the Santa Fe High School mass shooting that killed eight teenage students and two teachers on Friday, Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg called on his Twitter followers to advocate for gun control during their graduation ceremonies.

With college and high school graduation season in full swing, Hogg invited people to spray paint their graduation caps orange to show "support of common sense gun laws," via a tweet Saturday.

Hogg, 18, said he'd be painting his cap orange for graduation at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed in February by a gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle.

"Feel free ... to join if you want," he wrote, using the hashtag #OrangeCaps.

https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/997611693269188609

More at link:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/05/19/david-hogg-urges-grads-orange-caps-gun-control-after-santa-fe-shooting/626666002/

May 10, 2018

Alert ! Avenatti up next on Rachel.

May 10, 2018

Hilarious photo of cat sleeping on laundry rack

Edited to add: Interesting the way we assign gender when we don't know! Some posts referring to cat as he and some as she. Not judging; it's just something I've always found interesting.

May 9, 2018

Remember the olden days when you could stay informed by checking news once a day?

Just sayin.

May 7, 2018

FB post from Ellen's Restaurant in Dallas RE their message going viral /getting death threats

Edited to add: Yes, they got death threats:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/386370-dallas-restaurant-says-it-got-death-threats-for-putting-pro-gun

That was the reason for the explanation below on FB and the revised message:

FB post:
What a day this has been! We want to give some clarification to an issue that has caused quite a bit of confusion and anxiety.

Early this morning, we began posting a message on the bottom of our receipts stating that Ellen's intends to donate a portion of our proceeds this week toward the efforts of finding common ground and compromise in the fight to eliminate needless gun violence, especially in our schools and against our dedicated police officers.

With a limited number of characters available for that message, we simplified it to say we support "reasonable and effective gun regulations" toward that end.

Edited to add:Yes, they got death threats. That's why they revised their statement and posted the message below on FB.

What was not expected was that those two words -- reasonable and effective -- would be misinterpreted as our support for gun control. The mistake was an honest one. The opposite is true.

We support the Constitution, including the 2nd Amendment, 100%. And like the NRA, we also support finding solutions to the senseless killings that happen much too frequently. We believe those two things are completely compatible.

After a very courteous and informative conversation with a customer, we realized how our message could be misconstrued and we moved quickly to clarify. By then, the situation had become viral.

We believe our position is anything but controversial. Rather, it is the American way of dealing with problems. Historically, every time we have had a big challenge, we have come together -- Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, and Liberals -- and put our collective brain power and dedication to the task.

No one wants children to die in their classrooms. No one wants police to be killed in the line of duty. The differences we have are in our approach. But we can fix it if we breathe, calm down, and listen to one another. As Americans, that's what we are supposed to do.

Go to link to see the revised message - couldn't copy it:
https://www.facebook.com/EllensDallas/posts/1924290394310689

May 5, 2018

Obama's Most Adorable Moments Are The Ones He Shares With Kids (Some photos I hadn't seen before)

Some photos here I don’t recall seeing, even in Sousa’s book, and many I had seen, but even the ones we’ve seen are worth viewing again. Check out the link to see the explanations below the photos. He visited so many places where people were in distress. There is one with a bunch of kids right after Sandy Hook happened. Many more at the link. I just posted the ones I don't recall seeing.

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-with-kids-photos_us_57644931e4b015db1bc94b44