White House Releases Sensitive Personal Info From Voters Concerned About Privacy (vox.com) 330
Huge_UID shares an article from Vox:
The White House just responded to concerns it would release voters' sensitive personal information by releasing a bunch of voters' sensitive personal information. Last month, the White House's "election integrity" commission sent out requests to every state asking for all voters' names, party IDs, addresses, and even the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, among other information. The White House then said this information would be made available to the public. A lot of people did not like the idea, fearing that their personal information could be made public. So some sent emails to the White House, demanding that it rescind the request. This week, the White House decided to make those emails from concerned citizens public through the commission's new website... It didn't censor any of the personal information -- such as names, email addresses, actual addresses, and phone numbers -- included in those emails.
Some of the emails also included the commenter's place of employment -- though at least one commenter helpfully informed the White House that their voter info was available at Goatse. But the voting comission is now also facing new lawsuits from the ACLU, Public Citizen, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, McClatchy reported on Monday, noting that "Trump's voting commission has told states to hold off on sharing the data until after a judge's ruling in a lawsuit."
Some of the emails also included the commenter's place of employment -- though at least one commenter helpfully informed the White House that their voter info was available at Goatse. But the voting comission is now also facing new lawsuits from the ACLU, Public Citizen, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, McClatchy reported on Monday, noting that "Trump's voting commission has told states to hold off on sharing the data until after a judge's ruling in a lawsuit."
Not the first administration.. (Score:4, Insightful)
..to not give a fuck about your privacy.
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Insightful)
deflect, deflect, deflect
and don't get me started on her emails!!1!
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The fact that he kept us from depression, addressed a number of issues, has done nothing but piss off you GOP types that wanted him to fail.
BUT you have to be a real fuck to defend trump and try to equate him to Obama.
Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Insightful)
For watering down Obamacare at the insistence of Republicans.
The reason Obamacare is a train wreck is because the Republicans made it that way. For all their talk of the Democrats ramming it through, the reality is that the Democrats let the Republicans be involved in shaping that bill. The original plan was to have a single-payer system with a base-level public option that would have effectively cut the insurance companies off at the knees.
All of the failings of Obamacare—the insurance companies leaving the exchanges over cost, the insurance companies cranking up prices to extortionate levels, etc.—would not have happened under the original, Democrat plan. Had the Democrats rammed that through, the Republicans would still be pissing themselves, unable to find anything wrong with the plan. Instead, the Democrats chose to work across the aisle and created a bill that had fundamental structural problems, introduced by the Republicans so that that they would have cause to tear it down later.
So no, I wasn't mad at the Obama administration or the Democrats when they were in power (for two years), because they have never acted the way Republicans have. Democrats have never refused to let Republicans have a seat at the table, even when the result was something demonstrably worse as a result. And the only times that the Democrats have "rammed a bill through" have occurred as a direct result of Republicans locking arms and voting the way their party leadership told them to vote rather than voting based on what was best for their states, even after the Democrats made huge concessions to try to get Republican votes.
This is not to say that the Democrats don't engage in those sorts of politics to a limited degree, but arguing that they are equally bad in that regard is like saying that slapping somebody across the face is the same as shooting someone. The Republicans are much, much, much worse at outright rejecting the opinions of Democrats, they are much, much, much worse at compromise, and they are much, much, much worse when it comes to voting as a block of mindless drones instead of as individuals. So I'm mildly annoyed with the Democrats for their bad behavior, because it is mildly bad, and I'm furious at the Republicans for their bad behavior, because it is atrocious.
And lest you think this comes from a rabid Democrat, I've voted for both parties over the years, and I think both of our Democrat senators are terrible, and have voted against both of them consistently for the past decade.
Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Be angry at Obama for WHAT?
For sweeping all the crimes of the Bush administration under the rug in the name of some Pollyannesque idea that Republicans will work with him for the good of America. That showed an amazing lack of awareness and judgement. The same Kumbaya approach was visible during the Obamacare negotiations and led to the Republicans' effective sabotage of the law.
The first thing Obama should have done is start a hundred investigations - into the reasons why America was pushed into a catastrophic war by a lying administration, into the staggering incompetent way post-war Iraq and Afghanistan were handled (for example, investigate how the Republican governor of Iraq was named based on party loyalty, not on competence), on the incredible waste of money (billions of dollars, literally pallets of cash, were sent to Iraq and vanished). America needed and deserved this cleaning process, and it was Obama's duty, as president, to shine a light into all this morass. If the Republican party had been properly slapped at this time, if half of the Bush administration had been jailed as they so richly deserved, we would all have been better off.
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Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:4, Funny)
If you are outraged now, but were not last year, then your outrage is dishonest political spectacle.
Dammit Boris, Your post was too many levels of deflection. No rubles for you until you post better. Get back to work and do better work for the motherland.
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What past administrations did has no bearing on whether the current administration is doing good or bad. Calling "hypocrisy" is just a bullshit way of trying to shut down the conversation.
Also, don't forget that the Obama were not a bunch of venal conmen, lying citrus fruits and traitors to their country.
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps, but this administration has raised not giving a fuck about America into an art form.
Re: Why is this modded up? (Score:5, Informative)
We can't have an intellectual discussion because you won't see what is painfully obvious to the rest of us: Trump is an unmitigated dumpster fire, who will do serious damage to this nation at best, and will set us back 100 years or more at worst.
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Hard? He's been in office for half a year and already made Bush look like Churchill.
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Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:2)
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..to not give a fuck about your privacy.
Nice deflection Kellyanne!
Greg Palast (Score:2)
has been covering voting shenanigans since 2000. He spoke to WMNF(.org) news on 6 July about his investigation into this farce of an integrity project. His website. [gregpalast.com]
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Except this is stuff that states already sell to anyone that cares to pay for it. The righteous indignation is nothing more than blatant hypocrisy.
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Informative)
That is a lie. The left has never made a claim of voter fraud. That particular accusation came from Donald Trump himself prior to the election. He had no proof of this then, and still hasn't.
The claims the left made were that Russia influenced the elections. The hacking that went on as part of this influence campaign happened prior to the election (the email server). There is some evidence for this influence, as witnessed by the emails actually being released on Wikileaks and Donald Trump Jr's disclosure of his emails which spoke of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.
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Republicans never stopped to ask themselves WHY the russians would support trump.
You can't confront republicans with facts. Their brains completely shut down when you do. If they HAD asked themselves that question, they would have run as far and as fast as they could in the opposite direction from the candidate that putin prefers.
trump was OBVIOUSLY the weaker candidate, but republicans fell for the trick. They fall for it every time.
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Informative)
If the Russians have information that Hillary is trying to hide, the American people should be demanding to know what it is, and thanking the Russians for providing it.
It's funny to hear this argument when every leak that is embarrassing to the Trump administration gets met with attempts by conservative pundits to redirect the discussion to finding and prosecuting the leakers. Apparently, demanding to know what Trump is trying to hide and thanking the leakers doesn't seem so important.
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No it was not the left or the so called liberal media.
It was the intelligence agencies. I tend to happen to side with them. Even if Hillary fucked up (she did with the email server as you and I would be thrown in jail if we did this) and Putin just shared information, it is still collusion with a foreign power and treason to a high degree.
A nation should not be involved in another nation's election or internal affairs. I will say this hypocritically too as an American as we did evil in the name of good in S
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Nope. You or I might lose our security clearances and/or our jobs, and it would definitely be a career-limiting move, but nobody was thrown in jail for inadvertent mishandling of classified information. Everyone who saw jail or prison time mishandled it deliberately.
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Interesting)
No it was not the left or the so called liberal media.
It was the intelligence agencies. I tend to happen to side with them.
Why would you trust the intelligence agencies? Do you need a recap of their track record?
Even if Hillary fucked up (she did with the email server as you and I would be thrown in jail if we did this) and Putin just shared information, it is still collusion with a foreign power and treason to a high degree.
Are we at war with Russia? Or are they our ally? How is diplomacy with a foreign state we are not at war with treasonous?
A nation should not be involved in another nation's election or internal affairs. I will say this hypocritically too as an American as we did evil in the name of good in South America to prevent evil communism with propping up Pinochet in Chile who murdered people!
Why not? It's called diplomacy. The US does it all the time. And if you want to call out examples of when the US does bad things, why stop at one?
It was wrong and Russia not only interfered but had counter intelligence agents whose job was sabotage and espionage during the cold war give the information to Trump Jr. Gee what is wrong with that???!!!
Where's the evidence? It's been almost a year now since these allegations started.
Further, was anything exposed false? If Putin himself "hacked" Hillary's emails (and remember - this was all due to a certain moran falling for a phishing email) and hand delivered it to Trump, so what? Putin should be given a damned medal for exposing Hillary's shit.
You'll jump to believe some made up shit about prostitutes and water sports as long as Wolf Blitzer reads it out to you. But when faced with actual evidence of gross misbehavior and wrongdoing, you get into a tizzy about the way someone got caught.
What's the evidence? Have you been watching the news? Let's say Isis and Iran met with an Hillary aide. THey share information to wikileaks just 4 days before the election. Hilary hires her daughter to speak with an Iranian national guard who did espionage work during the Reagan years against the US. Iran wants some sanctions lifted and Isis wants to be recognized.
Boom! Hillary wins by a landslide and 4 more years of liberal rule after all the negative news about Trump suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Let me ask you this? Would you be somewhat bothered if this were true? I mean ask yourself if this is normal diplomacy and you wouldn't be upset one bit? Or would you be getting your torches and pitchforks and call for investigations and impeachment? We are not at war with Isis or Iran so that is ok right?
I am a democrat so I will disclaim this. But if that were true I would be outraged! I would want her head on a block and have her tried for treason. I know you would too as I assume you are Republican of course. To me this is an American issue not political.
If you support Putin and are not a troll and want to give a medal then you are un-American and a piece of shit as I would not if the reverse were true. I do not want a nation of supporting parties like football teams regardless of the consequences.
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:4, Informative)
it is still collusion with a foreign power and treason to a high degree.
Are we at war with Russia? Or are they our ally? How is diplomacy with a foreign state we are not at war with treasonous?
This is beyond diplomacy, you do not have to be at war with a country.
A federal law, Section 30121 of Title 52 [cornell.edu], makes it a crime for any foreigner to contribute or donate money or some “other thing of value” in connection with an American election, or for anyone to solicit a foreigner to do so. Previous court cases concerning similar related laws have held, that a “thing of value” can be something intangible, like information.
Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I cannot support the current administration. But the amount of doublespeak I hear regarding Russia's "influence" on the last elections from Democrat mouths and their mouthpieces like CNN, WashPo, and NYT is simply astounding. They are both claiming that they only talk about influence rather than an actual conspiracy; and trying very hard to make every article imply that there's a full blown Manchurian candidate conspiracy... sometimes in the same paragraph. As a result the public perception is that Russia w
Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:2)
Good one troll.
If anyone voted for Trump, must be cause they're stupid racist and bought by Russia.
If anyone speaks against your party line, it's because they're a Russian agent.
So it's either a Democrat opinion or it's not real or malicious. One party system is great, eh comrade?
By the way, tell me what's better for Russia as an enemy of the US - one favorable president or a society that eats itself to the point of destruction?
Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:2)
I wasn't born in the US and was trying to correct the typical American ignorance about the geopolitics of the regions we interfere in.
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That is a lie. The left has never made a claim of voter fraud.
California Progressives Allege Voter Fraud in Democratic Party Election, Demand Voter ID [townhall.com]. Oops. When you get it wrong right out of the gate, kind of deflates the rest of your post, doesn't it?
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Nice try, but that isn't talking about the same election!
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Then why did Jill Stein request a recount in three states?
Well they say the first stage is denial... or maybe it was just desperate hope that a manual recount would change the outcome. After all, why only do it in three states? If it was a real allegation of voter fraud, the she would not have said this [freep.com]:
But it certainly wasn't a widespread belief of the entire group called "the Left".
Re: Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty sure they're claiming the interfered through social engineering, not literally hacking voting booths, although some attention was given to that possibility given Russia's actual cyber espionage on that front.
Keep defending your boy though. Go team!
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Calling her "Shillary" isn't sexist. It means she's a shill. Perhaps you were thinking of "Shrillary"?
Successful voter fraud isn't detected. "There have been studies" actually means "there have been surveys of people self reporting voter fraud" and "someone counted up the few dumbasses who got caught". And yes, most non-Democrats would absolutely support voter ID laws where the ID was free and easy to get.
Feelings don't mean shit, I agree. Yet here we are - liberals FEEL that Trump is guilty of somethi
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EVERY previous administration has a least pretended to care about the privacy of the citizenry. I'll admit that it was often clearly a pretense, and none cared very much.
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Objectively, if you look back at the Nixon administration, he seemed well liked. He won two elections in a landslide, and his approval ratings were decent. What ultimately lead to his undoing was his own insecurity.
The watergate investigators honestly believed Nixon had no involvement or knowledge of the burglary before it happened, which was based on the same recordings that ultimately got him into trouble. Where he got into trouble was when he found out that his own staff ordered it, and then he tried to
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, indeed. Nixon was mostly underrated. His objectification as the archetype "crook" doesn't help with understanding the history. As a career politician he was quite competent and he left many good deeds such as the EPA, severing the Bretton Woods exchange rate system (which had ran out of its historical usefulness), going to China, and nominating decent justices to the supreme court.
Gosh, if we're now looking back at Richard fucking Nixon and missing him, what does that say about the current shitshow?
Re:Not the first administration.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Objectively, if you look back at the Nixon administration, he seemed well liked.
In part because evidence of Nixon ordering Haldeman to monkey-wrench LBJ's Vietnam peace talks didn't surface until recently. Whatever positive qualities Nixon may have had as a statesman were completely undercut by his paranoia and treachery. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1... [nytimes.com]
Evil? Or incompetence? (Score:2)
And, does it really makes any difference?
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Evil is worse, because prisons are more expensive than colleges (preyear).
Reminder (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the pieces of information that the Trump administration is demanding from the states is how voters voted. They want to know if you voted for Trump or one of his opponents.
Let that sink in for a second. Imaging the Slashdot comments section if a President Clinton or President Obama demanded this same information from the states. Remember, the Constitution gives the power over all US elections to the states.
Re:Reminder (Score:5, Informative)
You're making that up. The states don't have that information and everybody (but you) knows it.
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Here's the actual request from the letter sent to Maine:
publicly available voter roll data for Maine, including, if publicly available under the laws of your state, the full first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.
You can interpret the phrase "voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward" two ways... a history of which elections you voted in or a history of what your votes were in the elections you voted in.
Yes, we know which one it SHOULD be interpreted as and states aren't supposed to keep a record of what your votes were, but the government wasn't supposed to gathering massive amounts of telephone records either and then we found out that they were. W
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Go here:
http://www.elections.virginia.... [virginia.gov]
That's a list of stuff that Virginia will sell to you. You know - state of Virginia, Governor Terry McAullife who's standing up to that evil Trump and not giving him a damned thing!!!!!
Yeah, but he'll sell it to you.
One of the items in the list:
"Vote History List (VHL) – a list of those persons who voted in a primary, special or general election in a specified jurisdiction, legislative, election district or statewide over a four year time period."
That's what t
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Have you seen how voting works in Massachusetts? They don't have that information. They only have name, address, party affiliation and whether or not the person voted. Our name is simply crossed off a list by hand. Then, we take a ballot from a stack of ballots, fill it out and feed it into a machine.
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There are certain (blue) states that have done a good job of voter information security. There have already been proof of concept deanonymization attacks on voter machines in certain (red) states.
Have you seen how voting works in Texas?
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I live in Texas. Voting is done in churches in some areas and so are meetings with politicians with it's citizens. An obvious way to imploy power from the religious right.
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I've lived in a few states and I never thought anything about voting in a school or a church or a strip mall. They're just places which are available and can accommodate voting.
I live in Colorado now and for last fall's election I brought my ballot to the nearest voting location which was a church. It wasn't just for dropping off ballots either. In-person voting was going on too. Somehow Clinton still won Colorado.
Re: Reminder (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever seen how an absentee ballot shows up? Vote by mail has been growing in every election over the past several decades. They absolutely have personal information.
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One of the pieces of information that the Trump administration is demanding from the states is how voters voted.
This can be read two ways. We already know the official aggregate tallies. It seems (am I correct?) that they are thinking that the party affiliations are indicative of voting results. If so, that assumption is ridiculous and stupid. I am registered with the Republican party, but I voted for another as a protest vote. Actually, this describes every election since Bush 1. He broke his oath. I wish there was actually a hell for him to burn in.
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Voting ballots are anonymous.
But otherwise great story bro.
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One of the pieces of information that the Trump administration is demanding from the states is how voters voted. They want to know if you voted for Trump or one of his opponents.
Let that sink in for a second. Imaging the Slashdot comments section if a President Clinton or President Obama demanded this same information from the states. Remember, the Constitution gives the power over all US elections to the states.
That is different. Trump has an R next to his name so it's ok. I agree if someone with a D next to his name did that then we would need to impeach and form an armed rebellion as that would be socialist!
Yes sarcasm implied.
Sadly, many on my facebook friends list actually agree with my above comment. Disclaimer I am a Democrat so I am biased, but what keeps me up at night is this super hyper partisanship where it is like cheering for a football team! The fact the right admires Putin and sees nothing w
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The USA does not keep count of "how" each person voted. The voting is done in secret.
The problem is the numbers of noncitizens voting illegally in U.S. elections.
Study supports Trump: 5.7 million noncitizens may have cast illegal votes (June 19, 2017)
http://www.washingtontimes.com... [washingtontimes.com]
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One of the pieces of information that the Trump administration is demanding from the states is how voters voted.
By "how voters voted" you mean - like paper ballot -vs- electronic -vs- mail-in? I didn't see that in any of the linked articles, or really any articles linked from there. If you mean "who they voted for" that also wasn't in the articles, and in theory it isn't supposed to be kept. If they did, that would violate several treaties and some state constitutions (West Virginia, not sure what others?)
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These are the grounds that so many governors are using to refuse to give the information to Trump and his goons.
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One of the pieces of data requested for every voter is party affiliation: https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
I'll let you do the math.
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Besides your batshit crazy conspiracy theories, what exactly is your point? Obama did it as well so Trump doing it is just peachy?
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Two of the items on the demand list from the voter fraud "commission" are 1) party affiliation, and 2) voting record. The possibility of deanonymization of votes in several states has already been proven. In fact, there are data brokers selling personal information of conservative voters. For more information about this, I suggest checking EFF's site. This has been an issue of theirs for a while.
Re:Reminder (Score:5, Interesting)
You're both right and wrong.
How you voted in the general election is not, to the best of my knowledge, tracked. That you voted (or didn't) is.
But, in many states, they track if you voted in a primary as well, and which one. Because in those states (the state I live in being one of them), you can either vote in the Republican primary or the Democratic primary. And notably, the primaries are not held on the same day.
So, my state would have information that I voted in the Democratic primary in the last election cycle. From that, it can be assumed that if I voted (I did), I probably voted Democratic. (The percent of people who stink vote during primaries is remarkably small.)
Re:And the reality happened (Score:5, Informative)
When Kobach was Kansas Secretary of State, he made ferreting out voter fraud a centerpiece of his administration and conducted a two-year investigation. He found nine cases, mostly older Republicans.
http://www.politico.com/magazi... [politico.com]
There is no wide scale voter fraud. It doesn't exist.
https://www.brennancenter.org/... [brennancenter.org]
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Can you cite any proof of wide scale voter fraud?
I've only read about four documented cases of vote fraud in 2016.
https://www.dailykos.com/stori... [dailykos.com]
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If you read the article, you would have seen that a mistake was made in the website. It was not a malicious act. Yet, you and other posters act like this is some vast conspiracy against privacy.
Not exactly a malicious act, instead it's a mix of incompetency and a complete lack of concern about things like privacy.
When you take a incompetent people, and give them a checklist of rules they don't care about, they're going to violate those rules. That's why the Trump administration keeps having scandals.
The otter convient fact is that the voter roles are being looked into because there are wide scale voter fraud.
Just how many fraudulent voters do you think the left has? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?
Don't you find it interesting that the left can apparently organize a small army of illegal voters and no one co
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Deflect! Deflect! OK!
To be fair, it is not deflection if it is in direction response to someone else speculating what would happen if Obama did this.
Passive Aggressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure let's hear what you have to say. What did you say? You don't want people to have access to your private personal information? Let's see here... okay so we'll go ahead and just release some of that publicly for you. Don't complain. We haven't released EVERYTHING on you, just yet...
Re:Passive Aggressive (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry. None of the Trump supporters are the sorts of vindictive people who would actually use this information to go harass people who didn't vote for Trump. A more stable group of concerned citizens you have never seen before and will never see again.
I'm just waiting... (Score:2)
...for people to start throwing molotov cocktails at Trump's properties. Seriously, I think stuff like that is just around the corner.
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...for people to start throwing molotov cocktails at Trump's properties
Or they will shoot up his local pizza parlor!
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people who use violence to intimidate others
I don't think the idea would be intimidation as much as it would be retribution. It would be taking money from a man that only likes himself and money.
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I completely agree. It would be bad news for everyone.
We’re technologically savvy (Score:4)
I remember when, not so long ago, people were making fun of presidents and other politicians for being technologically illiterate, and perhaps not even knowing what a “mouse” was. Well, I have to give it to the current administration. Not only are they masters of the technology (databases, social media, etc.), they’ve now officially embraced one of the latest social trends: doxing!
The times, they are a-changing...
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Seriously (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF is wrong with your government? That sort of shit would bring down a government in any sane first-world democracy.
True freedom.
uhm.. "editors"? (Score:2, Informative)
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Ur gonna complain about THAT?
THAT is not the title on the front page of the publication. At the very least, the editors should be putting "sic" after a grammatical mistake when they are reposting it. The whole point of editors is to polish up what's published. Unlike comments, which afford to have mistakes because they are drafts and don't represent the publication, that which the editors put on the front page is the very face of the publication.
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They literally emailed the information and that information from them was released.
No, if the sentence was "...information received from ...." (or something like that) that would be appropriate. As it was written, "from" was not grammatically correct. And editors should, by all means, catch that.
But at least (Score:2)
we're not "suffering" under Obama anymore.
Fascinating (Score:2)
What occurs in a story about direct publishing of names and other actual personal info?
Deflection, and every attempt to change the subject you can imagine. This is an interesting trend we have here. The amount of deflection is ramped up with the provable veracity of the story. This is not consistent w
Assholes!!! (Score:2)
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There is no other way to put this: This is an ASSHOLE move by an ASSHOLE 'administration' being led by an ASSHOLE 'President' who continually demonstrates through actions that they don't give a flying FUCK about the average citizen, they only care about their agendas and their corporate and 1%-er cronies. Finding that they've been in bed with Russia the whole time and throwing the entire administration out on their ear can't come soon enough. 2020 elections can't come soon enough. How are you Trump-supporting idiots liking him and his minions now? You all like your privacy AT LEAST AS MUCH AS I DO, and they just took a BIG STEAMING DUMP all over the entire CONCEPT of your privacy, HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?
I don't think you understand his supporters. Haven't you noticed by now that they think he can do no wrong. No matter how bad it is, they don't care. He, himself, had it right when he said he could shoot someone in broad daylight and lose no voters. His supporters are just plain idiots and there's pretty much nothing you or anyone else can do about it.
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I guess I'm kinder than you are about it. Some of them 'think he can do no wrong'; some of them, as usual, thought he was the 'least worst' of two choices, and many of those are now regretting it, but keeping their heads down and their mouths shut, because they don't want to deal with it. Then there's some who thought he could be controlled, and they're finding out how wrong they were, too. HIs approval rating is currently 39% and dropping. As the reality sinks in it'll just get worse, and when all his promises and schemes are shown to be nonsense, the bottom will drop out. My greatest fear at this point is when they inevitably find the allegations of collusion are true and have to start removing the administration. I don't know what provisions we have in our system of government to handle something on that scale. Guess we'd have the Speaker of the House as POTUS?
If Ryan thought he could pull it off, I'm sure he'd go for it. But I suspect that Ryan doesn't think he has a realistic chance of getting rid of Pence, even if he could get rid of Trump. They're just thinking they can get their tax cuts passed with Trump; nothing else matters as much to them, though a few more right-wingers on SCOTUS is surely on their wish list.
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Did you notice that Pence lawyered up a while back? He, apparently, is not completely stupid: he sees how much of a liability being involved with the current administration is to his political career and saw fit to get ahead of the whole thing as soon as possible; he's a career politician, through-and-through. Five bucks says when the axe falls, he's going to be standing aside of the conflagration, yelling like Ashe in the Bruce Campbell version of Army of Darkness "..hey, I don't even KNOW these assholes!". He'll step aside, co-operate fully with any further Senate an FBI investigations, and try to walk away as cleanly as possible -- or at least I hope that's what happens. I don't think Mike Pence should be POTUS, especially by default.
Of course Pence shouldn't be POTUS, much like Trump shouldn't be POTUS, but Pence is smart enough to be still standing when Trump gets the axe. I wonder if that's why he even agreed to be VPOTUS in the first place.
Lots of trolls on this story (Score:2)
To me is looks as if this story has dragged in a bunch of astroturfers.
Re:The summary is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it did happen. Calling things you don't like "bullshit" or "fake news" doesn't magically make them go away.
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Could you cite what study you are talking about?
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http://www.washingtontimes.com... [washingtontimes.com]
re noncitizens voting illegally in U.S. elections.
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From the link:
"The research organization Just Facts, a widely cited, independent think tank led by self-described conservatives and libertarians, revealed its number-crunching in a report on national immigration."
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From the link:
Its investigation found that Virginia removed more than 5,500 noncitizens from voter lists, including 1,852 people who had cast more than 7,000 ballots. The people volunteered their status, most likely when acquiring driver’s licenses. The Public Interest Legal Foundation said there are likely many more illegal voters on Virginia’s rolls who have never admitted to being noncitizens.
Perhaps scrubbing the voter rolls would be a good thing...
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"The Public Interest Legal Foundation said there are likely many more ..."
Why should we consider the numbers from an 'investigation' of a group of conservative lawyers seriously, lawyers who make it their job, and are payed, to promote the idea of voter fraud.
https://publicinterestlegal.or... [publicinterestlegal.org]
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The page you linked is concerning the 2008 election not the 2016 election. What proof or scientifically defensibly study do you have about 2016?
The underlying study by Jesse T. Richman, Gulshan A. Chattha and David C. Earnest found only five non-citizens self reported as voting in 2008 that they could verify out of a study sample size of 32,800 people.
If you are interested in reading the actual 2014 study concerning the 2008 election based on polling 32,800 people in 2008 and 55,400 in 2010 here is a link:
h [odu.edu]
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When I got my latest voter registration card, the county agent seemed to be pretty careful about checking my residency info, but I don't think she got my SSN. Of course, the state has my SSN and other info, and they _could_ put it together and publish it if they wanted. I don't think they would, but... so what?! My SSN is just a number. And as I will answer below, my party "affiliation" is fodder for the genuinely stupid. I did NOT vote for "my" party candidate.
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I am not "new" by an means. But to feed your story, the answers are "hunt" and 6443. Have fun with that.
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DOB and SSN would let you add/drop classes on the phone system at college. DOB + SSN (name not even needed), and you could waste thousands of dollars of someone's money. Or cause them to fail out of college, dropping the classes they are in, enroll them in ones they don't know about, for solid F's for the year.
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"If you want my personal information, you can go look at Goatse"
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Perhaps the Republicana should.look at the current t office holder for the source of most of their problems. Of late they could also look at the idiot eldest son of his