Trump II

[Rob C]

Funny about ID cards; it's the same bit of nonsense in the UK, where opposition to the idea is huge. How strange, then, that at the same time there's so much concern about fraud, voter cheating etc. etc. Having lived with an ID card in Spain for decades, I quickly realised it's actually a very useful item to have. Why any sane person objects is beyond me: isn't it better to have an instantly reachable card in a crisis, an accident or whatever, linking you to the person that you say you are? It could save your life.

Strange, driving liceces are fine; a passport is wonderful, secret numbers and codes are expected for your various methods of banking; your credit card(s) carry your info, but hey! not a bloody ID card! How damned peculiar the mindset of some 'freedom fighters' amongst us...

I remember mentioning to somebody here that Brits didn't have ID cards; bemused, the person asked me: then how on Earth do you prove who you are? I shrugged, said they don't really care very much... only terrorists need to carry ID.

Rob

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

No, that is all someone has to do to register to vote.... Once the registrar approves the application, there is nothing I can do as an election officer to "catch" an illegal voter...

When you start your reply with a "No..." I assume you would disagree with what I was saying. You are actually confirming my point, except you are making a distinction which is best described as "same difference." 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... So I guess you are saying that all the Secretaries of State (most of whom were republican) that affirmed there was no massive fraud in this past election are lying to us?  the rest of you statements are just BS....

I could not care less if they are Republican or if they are lying or not. All I am saying is they simply couldn't know without a massive cross-checking of databases, which nobody has done so far. You'd think it would be an easy task (cross-checking) but you'd be surprised how many "easy" things are not done.

P.S. On a side note, you might have noticed that I've never labeled your statements as BS, no matter how much I disagree with them. Would be nice if you'd return the favor.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...Is there some documentation on the this incident that you can link to?...

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/10/27/2-investigators-chicago-voters-cast-ballots-from-beyond-the-grave/

Floyd Stevens. Records show he’s voted 11 times since his death in 1993....In all, the analysis showed 119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade.

[Alan Goldhammer]

When you start your reply with a "No..." I assume you would disagree with what I was saying. You are actually confirming my point, except you are making a distinction which is best described as "same difference." 

Why do you keep overlooking the obvious which is what Otto was saying and he was in fact not confirming your point.  The point is that it is the state's fault for having poor registration requirements or not doing due diligence so that non-citizens cannot vote.  The data is all out there and states have the access to it so that the voter rolls are proper.  Of course this could all be dealt with rather easily if the US had a national ID card as Rob described in a previous post.  Of course so many of the conservatives see this as another step towards government control of our lives (as if govt already did not control much of our lives anyway).

BTW, for the fourth time you still have not answered my question.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Slobodan, do you think President Trump is an honest person?  I would like a serious answer and not a quip.

Ok, can't use a quip. Can I use a joke?

Job interview:

Interviewer: "Can you tell me what you consider your weakness to be?"

Candidate" "Honesty"

Interviewer: "I wouldn't think honesty is a weakness"

Candidate: "I do not give a sh*t what you think"

End of story: this time the candidate got the job. The job of the President of the U.S.A.

So, if you are asking me if Trump is honest, I'd say yes, he is. In the above sense, of course.  If you have in mind some other definition of honesty, let me know, and I will try to answer that too.

[Alan Goldhammer]

P.S. On a side note, you might have noticed that I've never labeled your statements as BS, no matter how much I disagree with them. Would be nice if you'd return the favor.

If you are wrong you will be called out on it.  I don't use the term BS which you seem so enamored of, I just say you are wrong when the facts are out there.  I would return the favor if you had the courtesy to answer the question I posed several pages back in a very nice manner.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... The point is that it is the state's fault for having poor registration requirements or not doing due diligence so that non-citizens cannot vote...

Seriously, do I or anybody else really care if it is a state fault or federal fault or the Pope's fault or someone's mother-in-law's fault??? The end result is the same: illegal vote.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Ok, can't use a quip. Can I use a joke?

Job interview:

Interviewer: "Can you tell me what you consider your weakness to be?"

Candidate" "Honesty"

Interviewer: "I wouldn't think honesty is a weakness"

Candidate: "I do not give a sh*t what you think"

End of story: this time the candidate got the job. The job of the President of the U.S.A.

So, if you are asking me if Trump is honest, I'd say yes, he is. In the above sense, of course.  If you have in mind some other definition of honesty, let me know, and I will try to answer that too.

You know what honesty is and just don't want to confront it.  That's fine with me as you are entitled to any definition of honesty as you want.  I'll stick with the dictionary definition, "honor, integrity, probity mean uprightness of character or action. honesty implies a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way."  I'll let others deal with your quips and snarky responses as they seem to be more patient or forgiving than I am.  Adios amigo.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...I don't use the term BS...

I just quoted you using it!?

...the rest of you statements are just BS...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I'll stick with the dictionary definition, "honor, integrity, probity mean uprightness of character or action. honesty implies a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way." ...

Ok, thanks. I just needed your definition of honesty. If the above, then no, I do not consider Trump an honest man. Nor I like the guy. I do not idolize him. I think he is a playboy billionaire jerk.

[JNB_Rare]

Hey, did ANYONE notice that the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, met with President Trump today for the first time face-to-face? Probably not.  The meeting seemed to be well scripted and went according to plan. Trump soft-pedaled the NAFTA renegotiation, calling it a "tweak" that will benefit both economies (but not Mexico, of course).

In an interesting side event, Trump and Trudeau met with a roundtable of women business leaders (including Ivanka) and announced the creation of a Canada-US Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders. Apparently the idea came from Trudeau's "wicked smart" Chief of Staff, Katie Telford. One Canadian journalist quipped that if someone had bet him a million dollars a year ago that Katie Telford would ever sit at the same table with DJT, that he would have borrowed the money to bet against it. He was genuinely surprised.

For Trump it could be good press, although I'm sure it will be called hypocricy by some. For Trudeau, it was probably good press, and a "natural" move. Trudeau formed Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet in 2015, and has kept that gender parity during cabinet reshuffles (currently 15 women and 14 men). When asked why he chose to do this, he said simply, “Because it’s 2015”. He has said that he wants his cabinet to reflective of society, and he has followed through to a large degree.

Our Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is Jody Wilson-Raybould, a former crown prosecutor and First Nations Chief (We Wai Kai Nation).

Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, is a former journalist (including a post in Moscow). She is of Ukrainian heritage, speaks 5 languages, and has been banned from entering Russia for her criticism of the Putin regime (sorry Donald). She negotiated CETA (Canadian-European Union Trade Agreement) in her former cabinet post as trade minister.

Our Minister of National Defense, Harjit Singh Sajjan, was the first Canadian-Sikh to command a Canadian military regiment. A highly-decorated lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces (3 tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Bosnia), he is credited for changing the face of intelligence gathering and analysis in Afghanistan.

Our Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan, is a former medical geographer (studies the effects of locale and climate on health - who knew?). She served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

We have a Minister of Environment and Climate Change! Catharine McKenna is a former international trade lawyer and legal advisor to the negotiator of a U.N. peacekeeping mission. With the climate change portfolio, her peacekeeping experience may prove to be useful.

We have a Minister of Status of Women: Maryam Monsef’s family fled the Taliban and emigrated to Canada.

The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Ahmed Hussen, came to Canada as a refugee from Somalia at the age of 16.

The Minister of Health, Jane Philpott, is a former family doctor, chief of a hospital’s department of family medicine, and associate professor of family and community medicine. She worked in Niger for Doctors Without Borders.

Our Minister of Veterans Affairs, Kent Hehr, is a former lawyer and a quadriplegic as a result of being struck in a drive-by shooting at the age of 21.

Carla Qualtrough, a former lawyer, Paralympic medalist, and president of the Canadian Paralympic Committee, is our Minister of Sports and Persons with Disabilities.

In case you still think Canadians aren't forward-thinking enough, our Minister of Transport is Marc Garneau, a former astronaut, navy commander, and President of the Canadian Space Agency.

Anyway, back to the real news.

[Alan Klein]

I suggest you investigate the situation of the citizens of Norway, a socialist nation with one the highest standards of living in the world and best part of a trillion dollars in cash in the bank. (as opposed to the debt status of nearly all capitalist nations)

  Norway is a wonderful and lucky country.  It's easy for socialism to work in a country like it, because of its oil reserves and production, is the richest per capita country in the world.  It has more oil per capita than any other country except in the Middle East.   Also, Norway has 5 million people compared to the US which has 330 million of which 4.6 million are Norwegian, almost as many as Norway.  NYC alone has more than 3.5 million people than the entire population of Norway.  Anyway, its not like the US has no socialism.  We have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food subsidies, Obamacare, etc. representing costs into the trillions of dollars.    The problem with socialism is that eventually the money runs out.  The US owes US$20 trillion in debt and is adding to that at a rate of US$500 billion a year.  These are untenable amounts.  Maybe Norway can give us some of their oil. 

[Alan Klein]

One more post for the nite...this time a letter to America from The Boss, Bruce Springsteen.

A Letter of Apology From Bruce Springsteen for Letting Trump Win

He starts:
My name is Bruce Springsteen, and one day soon, when the windows of your mosques are smashed and the synagogues lie in ashes, when the skies are gray with dust and the sea has risen to wash away the roads, when the stars and stripes of our flag stand for discrimination and fear, I will wonder, could I have made a difference?

I have had to look at myself in the mirror. More importantly, I have had to look at my children, and consider, uncomfortably, the world they will inherit. And I wonder.
...


... Daddy, will we have the ability to look the rich in the eye and say, ‘You may have more than us, but you do not have more rights than us.’

Give me a break.  He's in denial.  He IS one of the rich.

[Alan Klein]

So  a more interesting discussion might be how to replace what is a potentially broken system, with something better. Of course, it would help to know how large that need actually is (which is why Trumps claim won't be objectively investigated, not in his interest), besides the fact that improvements are always useful.

I have difficulty understanding why the system is not replaced by something better. In my country, with an election coming up next month, each citizen (thus legal) age of 18+ gets a single voter card (with hologram and all) sent home (yes one does need to have a known residence), and thus can cast 1 vote when handing over that card to the members of the voting station (and there are checklists at the allowed voting stations in one's town) who hand you the relevant ballot paper to fill in. Lots of checks and balances are involved, and also provisions for lost cards and travel situations.

Is it 100% secure, probably not, but pretty damn close. The group of people who do not go and vote is almost infinitely larger anyway, and could have a much larger influence on the outcome than an odd incident here or there, which then would probably get magnified anyway as if fraud would be rampant by (usually) the loser's side.

But, back to the topic, we'll have to wait and see if Trump feels the need to proof this, yet another, unbelievable claim. I'm not holding my breath. His tax returns would be much more important for democracy, to establish his vulnerability to foreign influence (like China). There must be a reason he's not sharing, unlike those who preceded him.

Cheers,
Bart

Your country and Europe in general is smart.  They require a photo ID card of some kind to prove who you are.  Makes a lot of common sense.  In the US, every time a Republican proposes photo ID's for voting, it's the Democrats who oppose saying this is some racist plot by Republicans to deny votes to Black Americans.  Of course what Democrats won't admit is that after many poor Americans and illegal residents are registered, they make arrangements for voting for them, Democrat of course.  The whole identification process is a joke.  This is part of the voting frauds that go one that are hidden and hard to identify.  The Secretary of States who are responsible for checking are usually Democrats in those states where the fraud is going on like California.  So they don't check anything.  This is the stuff the Trump is talking about. 

[jeremyrh]

Your country and Europe in general is smart.  They require a photo ID card of some kind to prove who you are.  Makes a lot of common sense.  In the US, every time a Republican proposes photo ID's for voting, it's the Democrats who oppose saying this is some racist plot by Republicans to deny votes to Black Americans.  Of course what Democrats won't admit is that after many poor Americans and illegal residents are registered, they make arrangements for voting for them, Democrat of course.  The whole identification process is a joke.  This is part of the voting frauds that go one that are hidden and hard to identify.  The Secretary of States who are responsible for checking are usually Democrats in those states where the fraud is going on like California.  So they don't check anything.  This is the stuff the Trump is talking about.

Well Trump has been challenged many times to come up with evidence of voter fraud, and he hasn't come through. I suggest you send him the results of your own detailed investigation and get the process started.

[Schewe]

This is the stuff the Trump is talking about.

I guess you missed the part of my previous post:

So, here's the problem with that...the claims have been made by a wing nut crackpot who claims to have created an iPhone/Android app called VoteStand that has PROOF that over 3 million fraudulent votes were cast on Nov 8. Problem is, it's all a shame as talked about in this article: VoteStand: Donald Trump relies on unknown app to back up claims of voter fraud. From the article:

""Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand," Mr Trump tweeted, apparently in reference to seeing final data from the app. "Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!"

THAT'S where the 3 million voters crap came from...that's the source of the massive voter fraud. Trump's claim is based on a total crackpot!

Clearly the US can and should do better with the process of registering legitimate voters..while written in 2012, this article discusses some of the weakness of our registration system. WHY ARE 51 MILLION ELIGIBLE AMERICANS NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE?. From the article:

Who isn't Registered?
Today, approximately 51 million eligible Americans are still not registered to vote. This represents almost one in four eligible persons, disproportionately low-income voters, people of color, and younger Americans. Among eligible voters, some 30 percent of African Americans, 40 percent of Hispanics, 45 percent of Asian Americans, and 41 percent of young adults (age 18-24), were not registered to vote in the historic 2008 election.

In the 2008 elections, the voting rate for all eligible persons of voting age was only 64 percent, while the voting rate for people who were registered to vote was 90 percent – showing that registration is key to turnout.

In many states, pre-election registration deadlines of 25-30 days prior to the election have not been updated for decades; such deadlines may have been adopted long before the age of the Internet or computers, and no longer make sense in today’s world.

In the 2008 election, 2 to 3 million registered voters were prevented from voting because of various administrative problems, and 9 million eligible Americans were not registered because of residency rules or registration deadlines.

The number of people barred from voting in 2008 because of such problems exceeded the popular vote margin of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.


BTW, the Pew Report that Spicer and Trump referenced as proof of fraud only talked about isn't about fraud: "Spicer responded. "There's one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who voted were noncitizens. There's other studies that have been presented to him. It's a belief he maintains."

But the Pew Report titled Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient: Evidence That America’s Voter Registration System Needs an Upgrade. It makes no mention of voter fraud, just voter role problems.

So, no, Trump is delusional when it comes to the popular vote because, well, he's a malignant narcissism who refuses to accept the reality of the fact he won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. We simply can't let it go...even though there's a lot more important stuff for him to spend his time on.

(edit to fix typo)

[Petrus]

Your country and Europe in general is smart.  They require a photo ID card of some kind to prove who you are.  Makes a lot of common sense.

Here in Finland (and Northern Europe in general) things go smoothly: All people living in the country are in a social security database with birth date, address, parents' names, kids' names and social security number of course etc. So, when elections come up everybody gets an information leaflet in the mail telling that elections are coming up and where the polling station (schools usually) for that particular area is located, and the instructions about absentee balloting if one wants to do that instead. Nobody needs to register for anything, it is enough that you have turned 18 before the Election Day, it is all automatic.

At the polling station you must prove your identity with either 1) official identity card (good for travel between EU countries also) 2) driver's license, or 3) passport, or 4) the people manning the polling station know you, as they are volunteers from the same neighbourhood anyway.

Possessing an official photo ID is NOT required by law, by the way, but it certainly comes in handy many times, as there are many things you can not do without one (banking, travel, voting etc). Systems in US  like voter registration every time, manual census every 10 years, or UK proving identity with gas bills and such are truly idiotic in our view, as you might understand.

What comes to mr Trump, it certainly has made following the news entertaining (check CNN and NYT every morning), but it really is curious to me why you Americans elected a draft evader, tax evader, pathological lier and man with clearly a mental disorder as your president?

[laughingbear]

Here is another, quite comprehensive, academic source on the subject:

https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/eip-blogs/2016/12/22/was-there-fraud-in-us-elections

Post 2008 states that happily embraced the western plutonomy style of government, with the US perhaps leading the pack, show clear signs of demise, hence urgent requirement for deep structured reforms, instead more of the the same old same old politics.

I think failure to reform our democratic structures in a timely fashion is no option. However, I see very little efforts, not enough in Europe, not enough in the US. What I see however is an ever increasing will to spend on and display further militarisation, and that is leading down the road to destruction only.

Constitutional reforms are needed to a) Have the finance system work for the people, not the other way around b) inject more direct democracy swiss style into the entire system, would be my suggestion, c) acknowledge climate change and enshrine actions that cover coming generations, and the list goes on and on...

Without deep reforms, I do find the possible outcome of the current "spiral" pretty predictable. I am also convinced that certain people who dwadle in the Halls of power now have a vested interest in more devastating and far reaching war theaters.... The rest is up to imagination.

Sadly, I can not ask my parents or grandparents anymore, how they felt when fascism spread through the entire world. I imagine, it felt similar to what I perceive these days.

Best
G 

[Alan Klein]

An investigation would show if there's voter fraud and how bad it is if it does exist.