Conspiracy theories have been a Big Deal with humans since they first saw lightning and couldn’t figure out what caused it, so they said it was from some non-existent Sky Guy whose powers no one could understand.
Way back the last eon of 2016 election campaigning I reupped my acquaintance with theories ABOUT conspiracy theory. I've been studying them all my life since I first heard of the Protocols of the Elder of Zion, which was early on. I had grade school friends who were BORN in the Japanese camps, and there was no way I was going to believe that all Japanese living here were plotting against the US, no matter how often I watched Victory at Sea.
It is an absolute TRUISM that any of us can fall for conspiracy theories of one sort or another, and most of us do. Most of the time, the intelligent person toys and forgets even benign ones. But don't YOU deep down believe that DMV employees have to go through Marine Boot Camp training?
The place to stop toying is when you start not just believing but ACTING as if your pet conspiracy is true and actually explains something true about the world and causes you to DO something stupid. Your example is a good one: the answer to Wisconsin is not hovering over the computers, but simply getting everyone you know to vote.
Newsom is taking the right approach to the multiple conspiracy theories going on about the CA wildfires--he has ordered people to look into any that might have a glimmer of truth. WAS there anything fishy about choosing to fix that reservoir? Of course not: the non-fire season is when you do that even if the reservoir being "down" doesn't have much to do with fighting fires. But someone is going to come up with the receipts.
I doubt he will have to spend any taxpayer funds looking into those green, waterfilled tumbleweeds. Like the rapture, tumbleweeds only happen after death, as Tiedrich has pointed out.
maybe I should have said have to be trained to TRAIN Marines at Boot Camp? Growl, power, connect the dots. (Actually I haven’t BEEN at at DMV for years—car and driver license all renew on line).
Money buys advertising that spews propaganda lies. Social media promoted the development of algorithms that target specific groups. Laser focus on target audiences using AI generation fear messages seems to be the crux. All it takes is unlimited funds to pay for
Democrats will be in the wilderness for a while if they can't figure out how to get a message across that fits on a bumper sticker. There were plenty of opportunities in 2024 for the DNC to create a "Daisy" or a "Willie Horton" commercial and go into attack mode. As one gentleman put it, "Beyonce ain't paying my bills!" Once again, the party poohbahs didn't pay enough heed to Carville. So, where the Democratic Lee Atwater when we need him?
The problem is that the Dems have a fractious coalition, and many of the short, bumper sticker messages will turn off one or more of the cohorts of the coalition, bleeding votes.
Look at the damage that the Muslims pissed at Biden for his support if Israel did to the re-election. Now they are all freaking out because Trump is 10X worse. As if a blind man couldn't have known that.
One of Dearborn's local imams was supposed to be invited to the Inauguration based on local Muslim support of Trump over Harris. It didn't happen. Surprise. Surprise. And now the imam is "disillusioned".
I think we’re past the “bumper sticker” point. I don’t know how to counter the mis and dis information that the MAGAt world consumes. They believe Hegseth is “good” for our military, the photo of classified documents in the bathroom at Merde a Lardo is at Biden’s Delaware house, and that tcfpos has disavowed Project 2025.
Carville? Hell, nobody listened to Tom, Barry, Charlie Pierce or anyone else last fall. I'm sure that plenty of people were suspicious when Mendacious Orange won every swing state by an 'outside the recount' margin, but even Jocelyn Benson in Michigan put that conspiracy down before it got legs. Axios Detroit even showed a graphic of the vote share since 2000. Trump got more votes in Detroit since Bush the Lesser. https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/news
You hit the nail on the head. Dems (or Dims) only speak in complex sentences (I need a new "phrase' been using that too long)---they don't comprehend "one liners". Until they do, the comeback will be on the far horizon.
Thanks, Tom. I hadn't heard that particular conspiracy "theory" [as a science major I resent the term theory being applied to half witted conspiracies - theories are based on probabilities that need more proof] What I did read that should have been illegal was Muck offering money for votes - there used to be laws forbidding that.
The thing I find most disheartening about the Greg Palast/ Hartman article is that they clearly show ways (and name locations, processes and degrees of contribution) the right engaged in voter interference, and yet I have yet to read a single article taking on any one of these methods, broadly, or any one of these locations. I cannot number the articles (and comments) I do run into discussing how the Ds failed to get our message across and believed.
Well, we do need better simpler stronger messages, and sent repeatedly. We do need those messages to go out over channels that have penetration. But even so, if we don't somehow address the ways the rules of the game have been bent against us, we'll have the same result in two years, and we desperately need to eat into the GOP grip on power, and as soon as possible. And it seems like no one is taking that on in a systematic way.
I’m not saying he hacked the computers but they did suppress the vote and according to Greg Palast on Thom Hartman, if they hadn’t, Kamala would have won! That is stealing the election,
TC, While I don't subscribed to conspiracy theories - I do consider data driven and well reasoned analysis.
We all know that Republicans will stoop to whatever level is necessary to win. We can put nothing past them. Our voting systems are extraordinarily diverse, State by State and sometimes, County by County based. At the same time, Trump and his ass-lickers have had 8 years and the the Big Lie to probe, test, and pry into voting systems. They have also had a direct line to the #1 voting manipulator in the world: former KGB agent, Putin. And finally, they know that they need not affect all voting systems - just those in specific districts that matter under our fucked up Southern compromise called the Electoral College. (We gave these fuckers an inch and they've taken it a million miles). And so with this, I point you to the following organization which is just beginning the data analysis to determine if any anomalies exist. Their first case is Clark County, NV where the data for early voting shows telltale signs of a "Russian Tail" - an anomaly in the data graphic that does not reflect standard voting process. Whether this analysis is real or BS, I can not tell - yet. Like most scientific analysis, it will need to be reviewed by unaffiliated parties. And whether their data could ever result in resolve the question of voting manipulation or other malfeasance, we may never know. But the analyses will be interesting to follow. Below is the link to the organization and the Clark County, NV analysis.
I will never believe there was not election interference, even if it was only ballot dumping for manufactured reasons. As Jeff Tiedrich would say, there was fuckery.
"There was fuckery" has been going on at a national level at least since Nixon fucked up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968. The "fuckery" is different from the conspiracy theories.
I'm quite surprised! But I think I caught TC in an error. <gulp!>
TC said: "... one-third of [Pennsylvania counties] don’t use computers; they use paper ballots and scan them in."
What happens to your votes after the ballots are scanned in? Scanning *digitizes* the ballots, generating election data made of ballot images and CVRs (Cast Vote Records). The ballot scanners are computers. Almost no jurisdictions in the US hand-count their paper ballots.
Uh-oh, I found another. Take a look at Verified Voting's map of Pennsylvania:
All the nice green counties (about 47) use hand-marked paper ballots. The others (about 18) don't. That's roughly 3/4.
There are 5 election equipment vendors in Pennsylvania. Again from Verified Voting: ClearBallot, Dominion, ES&S, Hart InterCivic, and Unisyn.
OK, so there are claims that something is amiss with vote counts in PA.
Given that there are 67 counties in PA, and one office of the Secretary of State, if you wanted to, where would you try to suborn officials, or tinker with the data? Maybe messing with the 47 counties. Maybe mucking with the office of the Secretary of State.
It's important to suspect that some of these assertions are wild-ass guesses. But it could be that investigations would reveal real evidence one way or another, especially in counties that use hand-marked paper ballots.
The point is we don't know. We should not rely on heartfelt statements of belief.
And, we have motive: Autocracy, Inc. (the many powerful nation states run by autocracies who want Trump to take a wrecking ball to U.S. institutions) would have plenty of reason to mess with our elections. (My thanks to Anne Applebaum for naming that threat.)
And the means. Remember that Putin was a KGB colonel in East Germany. And the KGB's methods involve years- or decades-long campaigns to study their targets, find their weaknesses, and suborn them quietly but surely.
And, supply chain attacks can be mounted, given enough time, starting with election equipment vendors. (Remember the Solar Winds attack? Remember the Salt Typhoon attack?)
I, for one, am going to look to evidence-based research. Please check out "So Clean" by Lulu Friesdat of SMARTElections:
It's enough, I think, for serious further investigation, looking at the evidence.
BTW, what recently happened to CISA? Our head cybersecurity agency has been decapitated. See
"Under Trump, US Cyberdefense Loses Its Head"
Chinese hacks, rampant ransomware, and Donald Trump’s budget cuts all threaten US security. In an exit interview with WIRED, former CISA head Jen Easterly argues for her agency’s survival.
Details, details. All of which you're right. My point is the likelihood of finding a way to hack all that. Out-organizing - voter suppression and intimidation, etc. - beforehand is how the "hacking" is done. Had Democrats fought that battle, rather than telling themselves Elmo didn't know anything, had they gone to court over this stuff, things could have been different.
Yes, the "hacking" is a multitude of steps, all of them, I think, necessary to push Trump over the line. I wouldn't put it past the Russians and the Chinese, and perhaps other well-funded foreign interests, to give assistance to domestic actors.
I'm focused on the possibility that, with all the best politicking the Dems can muster -- and we're starting now -- if there is indeed some nefarious vote manipulation then there's no way the Dems can win the midterms.
We, the major pro-democracy party in the U.S., need to turn to. We need to refine our messages, get out the vote, and, perhaps -- perhaps!! -- in a few select counties get a hand recount of hand-marked paper ballots. And show that the machine counts were wrong in those counties. Then conduct rigorous testing of the voting equipment (open-minded vulnerability testing, followed by rapid correction of problems, then re-testing). Focus, of course, on the swing states.
In 2022, in upstate NY, in the race for NY Senate District 50 between John Mannion and Rebecca Shiroff, on election night, Shiroff had a 396-vote lead. After court-ordered hand recounts conducted by the Onondaga and Oswego County Boards of Election, Mannion won by 10 votes. For public reporting on this, see “Why John Mannion has a shot at catching Rebecca Shiroff in state Senate race,” published Nov. 11, 2022, and a later report, “Mannion beats Shiroff by 10 votes in 50th NY Senate district; judge orders election certified,” published Dec. 19, 2022, both at syracuse.com (links below).
This 406-vote change in election results is evidence that *the initially reported machine counts were not correct.* The hand recount was accepted by the court, and both campaigns.
I've never been involved in conspiracy spreading -- don't listen to it, don't follow it. But I have been following the data from smartlections (https://smartelections.us/2024-election-update), and they raise some good points / questions. Personally, I hope TC is right. I'd rather Trump win, as painful as that is to say, than have our elections hacked. And, Dems for sure have lots of opportunities on messaging and GOTV, but think it's in everyone's interests to keep a critical eye on the data and analysis coming out from this past election.
Way back the last eon of 2016 election campaigning I reupped my acquaintance with theories ABOUT conspiracy theory. I've been studying them all my life since I first heard of the Protocols of the Elder of Zion, which was early on. I had grade school friends who were BORN in the Japanese camps, and there was no way I was going to believe that all Japanese living here were plotting against the US, no matter how often I watched Victory at Sea.
It is an absolute TRUISM that any of us can fall for conspiracy theories of one sort or another, and most of us do. Most of the time, the intelligent person toys and forgets even benign ones. But don't YOU deep down believe that DMV employees have to go through Marine Boot Camp training?
The place to stop toying is when you start not just believing but ACTING as if your pet conspiracy is true and actually explains something true about the world and causes you to DO something stupid. Your example is a good one: the answer to Wisconsin is not hovering over the computers, but simply getting everyone you know to vote.
Newsom is taking the right approach to the multiple conspiracy theories going on about the CA wildfires--he has ordered people to look into any that might have a glimmer of truth. WAS there anything fishy about choosing to fix that reservoir? Of course not: the non-fire season is when you do that even if the reservoir being "down" doesn't have much to do with fighting fires. But someone is going to come up with the receipts.
I doubt he will have to spend any taxpayer funds looking into those green, waterfilled tumbleweeds. Like the rapture, tumbleweeds only happen after death, as Tiedrich has pointed out.
I’m stoned too.
DMV employees have to go through Marine Boot Camp training?!?!?
#themoreyouknow
maybe I should have said have to be trained to TRAIN Marines at Boot Camp? Growl, power, connect the dots. (Actually I haven’t BEEN at at DMV for years—car and driver license all renew on line).
I’m still at the ranting stage so my reply would be so ugly I would piss off everybody. LOL
One of my many neighbors who voted for Trump tried to be friendly today.
It did not go well for her. SCORCHED earth would be accurate.
Good for you Gloria.
Her third grader called me a faggot right after the election. He learned the word from her Trumper boyfriend.
He hasn’t told his mother what I said to him. Hopefully, he has nightmares.
"Fagots are the small bundles of twigs that wiches burn when they roast rude, foul-mouthed little boys jn their oven to eat for Sunday dinner!" ??
Ooh. I adore that. I really do. Thank you. You made me giggle about something about hurtful.
Money buys advertising that spews propaganda lies. Social media promoted the development of algorithms that target specific groups. Laser focus on target audiences using AI generation fear messages seems to be the crux. All it takes is unlimited funds to pay for
John Roberts broke Democracy
Its now The Handmaid’s Tale vs Kitness
Are you referring to Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games?
Democrats will be in the wilderness for a while if they can't figure out how to get a message across that fits on a bumper sticker. There were plenty of opportunities in 2024 for the DNC to create a "Daisy" or a "Willie Horton" commercial and go into attack mode. As one gentleman put it, "Beyonce ain't paying my bills!" Once again, the party poohbahs didn't pay enough heed to Carville. So, where the Democratic Lee Atwater when we need him?
I definitely do not agree with Carville's most recent idea - let Trump "punch himself in the face" and then have something to say after he fails.
The problem is that the Dems have a fractious coalition, and many of the short, bumper sticker messages will turn off one or more of the cohorts of the coalition, bleeding votes.
Look at the damage that the Muslims pissed at Biden for his support if Israel did to the re-election. Now they are all freaking out because Trump is 10X worse. As if a blind man couldn't have known that.
Single issue zealots believe they are pure of heart
What they are is “void of strategic thinking
One of Dearborn's local imams was supposed to be invited to the Inauguration based on local Muslim support of Trump over Harris. It didn't happen. Surprise. Surprise. And now the imam is "disillusioned".
That dumbass can follow Elmo's order to "fuck yourself in your face."
I think we’re past the “bumper sticker” point. I don’t know how to counter the mis and dis information that the MAGAt world consumes. They believe Hegseth is “good” for our military, the photo of classified documents in the bathroom at Merde a Lardo is at Biden’s Delaware house, and that tcfpos has disavowed Project 2025.
They are fucking nuts.
Carville? Hell, nobody listened to Tom, Barry, Charlie Pierce or anyone else last fall. I'm sure that plenty of people were suspicious when Mendacious Orange won every swing state by an 'outside the recount' margin, but even Jocelyn Benson in Michigan put that conspiracy down before it got legs. Axios Detroit even showed a graphic of the vote share since 2000. Trump got more votes in Detroit since Bush the Lesser. https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/news
You hit the nail on the head. Dems (or Dims) only speak in complex sentences (I need a new "phrase' been using that too long)---they don't comprehend "one liners". Until they do, the comeback will be on the far horizon.
Nicely done TC. GOTFV.
Yes, the Hartmann post was illuminating(not be confused with the Illuminati) 4.75 million voters purged from the rolls !
https://hartmannreport.com/p/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won-c6f?
Thanks for the reminder. Greg Palast is the one. Read everything he writes---See Amazon/Kindle for his books. Great investigative reporter
Thanks for the wake-up post, TC.
Thanks, Tom. I hadn't heard that particular conspiracy "theory" [as a science major I resent the term theory being applied to half witted conspiracies - theories are based on probabilities that need more proof] What I did read that should have been illegal was Muck offering money for votes - there used to be laws forbidding that.
That's just another Standard Republican Fuckery. Nothing new there other than the amounts.
The thing I find most disheartening about the Greg Palast/ Hartman article is that they clearly show ways (and name locations, processes and degrees of contribution) the right engaged in voter interference, and yet I have yet to read a single article taking on any one of these methods, broadly, or any one of these locations. I cannot number the articles (and comments) I do run into discussing how the Ds failed to get our message across and believed.
Well, we do need better simpler stronger messages, and sent repeatedly. We do need those messages to go out over channels that have penetration. But even so, if we don't somehow address the ways the rules of the game have been bent against us, we'll have the same result in two years, and we desperately need to eat into the GOP grip on power, and as soon as possible. And it seems like no one is taking that on in a systematic way.
Thank you Tom! I live in a
deep RED state. I know the
lengths the red party goes to
here to squash dem voting
and to try to keep the
electorate dumb and dumber.
I am disgusted with our dem
party here. Crickets from
them. The DNC at this point,
the same. Conspiracy
theories run rampant here,
especially at voting times.
Be smart! Do your own
research and read trusted
sources.
I’m not saying he hacked the computers but they did suppress the vote and according to Greg Palast on Thom Hartman, if they hadn’t, Kamala would have won! That is stealing the election,
Yes, it is, but it's the kind of theft we can deal with, assuming the DNC gets its act together.
But they didn't deal with it and I have no confidence the DNC will in time for the midterms.
Gawd I love you. Thank you.
Thanks Tom.!
TC, While I don't subscribed to conspiracy theories - I do consider data driven and well reasoned analysis.
We all know that Republicans will stoop to whatever level is necessary to win. We can put nothing past them. Our voting systems are extraordinarily diverse, State by State and sometimes, County by County based. At the same time, Trump and his ass-lickers have had 8 years and the the Big Lie to probe, test, and pry into voting systems. They have also had a direct line to the #1 voting manipulator in the world: former KGB agent, Putin. And finally, they know that they need not affect all voting systems - just those in specific districts that matter under our fucked up Southern compromise called the Electoral College. (We gave these fuckers an inch and they've taken it a million miles). And so with this, I point you to the following organization which is just beginning the data analysis to determine if any anomalies exist. Their first case is Clark County, NV where the data for early voting shows telltale signs of a "Russian Tail" - an anomaly in the data graphic that does not reflect standard voting process. Whether this analysis is real or BS, I can not tell - yet. Like most scientific analysis, it will need to be reviewed by unaffiliated parties. And whether their data could ever result in resolve the question of voting manipulation or other malfeasance, we may never know. But the analyses will be interesting to follow. Below is the link to the organization and the Clark County, NV analysis.
https://electiontruthalliance.org/eta
https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county,-nv
I will never believe there was not election interference, even if it was only ballot dumping for manufactured reasons. As Jeff Tiedrich would say, there was fuckery.
"There was fuckery" has been going on at a national level at least since Nixon fucked up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968. The "fuckery" is different from the conspiracy theories.
"But the analyses will be interesting to follow."
You bet!
Needed this Tom! Am sharing with everyone on my list.
I'm quite surprised! But I think I caught TC in an error. <gulp!>
TC said: "... one-third of [Pennsylvania counties] don’t use computers; they use paper ballots and scan them in."
What happens to your votes after the ballots are scanned in? Scanning *digitizes* the ballots, generating election data made of ballot images and CVRs (Cast Vote Records). The ballot scanners are computers. Almost no jurisdictions in the US hand-count their paper ballots.
Uh-oh, I found another. Take a look at Verified Voting's map of Pennsylvania:
https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEquip/mapType/normal/year/2024/state/42
All the nice green counties (about 47) use hand-marked paper ballots. The others (about 18) don't. That's roughly 3/4.
There are 5 election equipment vendors in Pennsylvania. Again from Verified Voting: ClearBallot, Dominion, ES&S, Hart InterCivic, and Unisyn.
OK, so there are claims that something is amiss with vote counts in PA.
Given that there are 67 counties in PA, and one office of the Secretary of State, if you wanted to, where would you try to suborn officials, or tinker with the data? Maybe messing with the 47 counties. Maybe mucking with the office of the Secretary of State.
It's important to suspect that some of these assertions are wild-ass guesses. But it could be that investigations would reveal real evidence one way or another, especially in counties that use hand-marked paper ballots.
The point is we don't know. We should not rely on heartfelt statements of belief.
And, we have motive: Autocracy, Inc. (the many powerful nation states run by autocracies who want Trump to take a wrecking ball to U.S. institutions) would have plenty of reason to mess with our elections. (My thanks to Anne Applebaum for naming that threat.)
And the means. Remember that Putin was a KGB colonel in East Germany. And the KGB's methods involve years- or decades-long campaigns to study their targets, find their weaknesses, and suborn them quietly but surely.
And, supply chain attacks can be mounted, given enough time, starting with election equipment vendors. (Remember the Solar Winds attack? Remember the Salt Typhoon attack?)
I, for one, am going to look to evidence-based research. Please check out "So Clean" by Lulu Friesdat of SMARTElections:
https://smartelections.substack.com/p/so-clean
It's enough, I think, for serious further investigation, looking at the evidence.
BTW, what recently happened to CISA? Our head cybersecurity agency has been decapitated. See
"Under Trump, US Cyberdefense Loses Its Head"
Chinese hacks, rampant ransomware, and Donald Trump’s budget cuts all threaten US security. In an exit interview with WIRED, former CISA head Jen Easterly argues for her agency’s survival.
https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-jen-easterly-cisa-cybersecurity/
Details, details. All of which you're right. My point is the likelihood of finding a way to hack all that. Out-organizing - voter suppression and intimidation, etc. - beforehand is how the "hacking" is done. Had Democrats fought that battle, rather than telling themselves Elmo didn't know anything, had they gone to court over this stuff, things could have been different.
Yes, the "hacking" is a multitude of steps, all of them, I think, necessary to push Trump over the line. I wouldn't put it past the Russians and the Chinese, and perhaps other well-funded foreign interests, to give assistance to domestic actors.
I'm focused on the possibility that, with all the best politicking the Dems can muster -- and we're starting now -- if there is indeed some nefarious vote manipulation then there's no way the Dems can win the midterms.
We, the major pro-democracy party in the U.S., need to turn to. We need to refine our messages, get out the vote, and, perhaps -- perhaps!! -- in a few select counties get a hand recount of hand-marked paper ballots. And show that the machine counts were wrong in those counties. Then conduct rigorous testing of the voting equipment (open-minded vulnerability testing, followed by rapid correction of problems, then re-testing). Focus, of course, on the swing states.
In 2022, in upstate NY, in the race for NY Senate District 50 between John Mannion and Rebecca Shiroff, on election night, Shiroff had a 396-vote lead. After court-ordered hand recounts conducted by the Onondaga and Oswego County Boards of Election, Mannion won by 10 votes. For public reporting on this, see “Why John Mannion has a shot at catching Rebecca Shiroff in state Senate race,” published Nov. 11, 2022, and a later report, “Mannion beats Shiroff by 10 votes in 50th NY Senate district; judge orders election certified,” published Dec. 19, 2022, both at syracuse.com (links below).
This 406-vote change in election results is evidence that *the initially reported machine counts were not correct.* The hand recount was accepted by the court, and both campaigns.
https://www.syracuse.com/politics/cny/2022/11/why-john-mannion-has-a-shot-at-catching-rebecca-shiroff-in-state-senate-race.html
https://www.syracuse.com/politics/cny/2022/12/mannion-beats-shiroff-by-10-votes-in-50th-ny-senate-district-judge-orders-election-certified.html
I've never been involved in conspiracy spreading -- don't listen to it, don't follow it. But I have been following the data from smartlections (https://smartelections.us/2024-election-update), and they raise some good points / questions. Personally, I hope TC is right. I'd rather Trump win, as painful as that is to say, than have our elections hacked. And, Dems for sure have lots of opportunities on messaging and GOTV, but think it's in everyone's interests to keep a critical eye on the data and analysis coming out from this past election.