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Snarkoleptic

Snarkoleptic's Journal
Snarkoleptic's Journal
September 11, 2019

America's Electronic Voting System is Corrupted to the Core - Jenny Cohn

This is a must-read article for anyone concerned about the use of e-voting machines to subvert the democratic process.
https://medium.com/@jennycohn1/americas-electronic-voting-system-is-corrupted-to-the-core-1f55f34f346e

(on edit, it seems the link doesn't work - prolly because @jennycohn1 is part of the URL)
Here's another link-
https://tinyurl.com/yxgg8d79


Voting machine vendors have an alarming history of deception. In July 2018, cybersecurity journalist Kim Zetter reported that, despite ES&’s prior denials, ES&S’s election-management system (EMS) computers were sold with remote access software between 2000 and 2006. ES&S won’t say where it installed the remote access software that it lied about, but claims it’s been removed. According to Zetter’s article, Diebold’s EMS computers were sold with remote access software as well, and Dominion refused to comment.

The installation of remote access software in EMS computers is a big deal because these are centralized county or state computers used to program all voting machines in the county or state. According to Zetter’s reporting, some of these computers also include the central tabulators that aggregate all precinct totals.

But the vendor lies don’t end there. On August 8, 2019, Zetter further reported that ES&S’s EMS computers also connect to the internet, something else that ES&S had said was not the case but that leading election-security experts had long suspected.

Meanwhile, ES&S installed wireless modems in ballot scanners in Florida, Wisconsin, and Illinois starting in about 2015. Although some election officials claimed that these modems do not connect to the internet, this too was a lie, as further reported by Zetter.
August 28, 2019

Now is the time to ask questions about the retirement of Anthony Kennedy from SCOTUS.

Putin's cronies apparently co-signed Deutsche bank loans for Trump, so it's time to shine on spotlight on the Kennedy SCOTUS retirement.
It's all connected folks, it's all deeply connected.

https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-kennedy-son-loaned-president-trump-over-a-billion-dollars-2018-6

The son of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was leading a real-estate division of Deutsche Bank as it gave President Donald Trump over $1 billion in loans to finance his real-estate projects when other banks wouldn't, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Justin Kennedy, the former global head of Deutsche Bank's real-estate capital markets division, was one of Trump's close business associates, The Times reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Because of Trump's inconsistent track record in business, which included multiple bankruptcy filings and frequent lawsuits, most other major banks would not lend to him. Deutsche Bank loaned Trump the funds to construct and renovate skyscrapers and other developments in New York City and Chicago, The Times reported.

After Trump's first address to Congress, in February 2017, he reportedly stopped to chat with Anthony Kennedy, saying: "Say hello to your boy. Special guy."




June 6, 2019

American companies added the fewest jobs in 9 years in May, ADP says.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/adp-jobs-report-payrolls-miss-fall-to-9-year-low-2019-6-1028256735

The private sector created the fewest jobs in nine years in May, a surprisingly soft pace of growth that could suggest the US labor market is cooling down.

The ADP National Employment Report out Wednesday showed the private sector added 27,000 jobs last month, well below economist forecasts for a 185,000 increase and the slowest pace since September 2010.

"Payroll growth was bound to slow in May, following April's unexpected strength, but this is a much bigger slowdown than we expected," said Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "ADP's model is not always reliable, but this is such a big miss that we have to temper our forecast for Friday's official number."


In related news... This chart is from last month, but shows that Trump still lags behind Obama in job creation.
Here's the source of the chart- https://twitter.com/SteveRattner/status/1125363814466228225
Recent news of strong hiring– a strong factor in past elections -is a positive for Trump heading into the ‘20 elections. Will Americans recognize that the pace of job growth under his tenure (202k/month) is below that of Obama’s last 28 months (220k/month)?


May 19, 2019

My son graduated from a 4-year university with zero debt this week!

Warning- Vanity Post:
He could have graduated in 3 1/2 years (due to AP credits from high school), but took off the fall 2018 semester to do a Zoology internship.
This was all done under his own power with scholarships and grant money, plus $3,000 from his grandparents to buy my old company car (valued at $9,500).
So proud of his accomplishment and pleased he's able to pursue his passion without the burden of student loan debt.
Back in the day, I worked in banking and routinely saw $60K - $120K in student loans, which I viewed as a tax on our future.

We need to (once again) recognize that spending on education is not just spending, but an investment in our future.

May 12, 2019

Trumpanzees are a deranged lot!




http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/reckless-geriatric-menace-264891
MAY 10--A 70-year-old Florida motorist was arrested Tuesday after an off-duty cop spotted the suspect driving while “sitting on the sunroof” of his Cadillac sedan, according to court records.

Leonard Olaf Olsen, the accused septuagenarian, was traveling on Interstate 4 around 1 PM on May 7 when the sheriff’s deputy spotted him recklessly driving his vehicle. The deputy, who recorded Olsen in action, estimated that the Cadillac reached speeds in excess of 100 mph.
.
“The car drives itself and has a gigantic computer in it," Olsen explained. “I thought it would be a nice way to praise God for a minute, and I thought it would be nice at the time and that's what I did.


Olsen’s rap sheet includes weapons convictions in 2006 and 2017. In the latter case, he was arrested for firing a .40 caliber handgun into the air while standing in the driveway of his Lakeland residence. Olsen’s wife told police that the July 2017 incident occurred after he “became upset and began to act out in an aggressive manner.” Olsen’s spouse said that before the shooting started, he stated that he “was going to make America Great Again and Donald Trump told him to do it.”
March 23, 2019

Trump has sold out the farmers who voted for him -- and now they're racing toward calamity.

File this under "The Corporatocracy Will Never Stop Consuming Everything in it's Path." (until it's too late)

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/trump-sold-farmers-voted-now-theyre-racing-toward-calamity/

Indeed, a central cause of the spreading farm depression is the increasing monopolization of all the things farmers must buy (from seeds to machinery) and of the markets that buy from them. The big four biotech ag giants, for example, control 63 percent of all commercial seeds sold in the world; four meat processors control 84 percent of the U.S. beef market; and four global traders control up to 90 percent of the world’s grain sales. Our farmers and their families are hurting, but so far, our leaders, including the president, aren’t helping them.


--snipski--

...(tRump) whacked $3.6 billion from the safety-net programs that offer a measure of relief to hard-hit producers when crop prices crash. Revealing his plutocratic core, the cuts specifically targeted programs that benefit small farmers — a deliberate manipulation meant to drive more families off the land and increase corporate monopolization of agriculture.

Not satisfied with intentionally injuring family farmers, Trump added insult by calling the dab of support they get from the government “overly generous.” This from a real estate flimflammer who continues to rake in millions of dollars in government cash and special tax breaks.

Far from stepping up to stop this robbery of farmers, ransacking of rural vitality and rip-off of consumers, Congress and Trump coddle the monopolistic robbers, ransackers, and rip-off artists. To help counter their insanity, join forces with the grassroots power of Farm Aid.

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