#AuditTheElection

While I have long thought (scroll to the bottom) that our elections were, to use the adverb of the cycle, 'rigged', particularly in the Democratic primary to the disadvantage of Bernie Sanders by the DNC, and have long considered our voting machines to lack proper transparency and should be dispensed with in favor of a paper ballot that can be verified by both voter and auditor ... it seems to me like this won't be going anywhere, as with Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.

 You've probably noticed the story and the Tweeting and all by now.  Emphasis in bold is mine.

Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump, New York has learned. The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private.

Last Thursday, the activists held a conference call with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Marc Elias to make their case, according to a source briefed on the call. The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30,000 votes; she lost Wisconsin by 27,000. While it’s important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review — especially in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic National Committee.

Couple of things to note before we continue: it's been a week and this is just now leaking out, the deadlines for recounting are fast approaching, and ... you know ... the Russians.

The Clinton camp is running out of time to challenge the election. According to one of the activists, the deadline in Wisconsin to file for a recount is Friday; in Pennsylvania, it’s Monday; and Michigan is next Wednesday. Whether Clinton will call for a recount remains unclear. The academics so far have only a circumstantial case that would require not just a recount but a forensic audit of voting machines. Also complicating matters, a senior Clinton adviser said, is that the White House, focused on a smooth transfer of power, does not want Clinton to challenge the election result. Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri did not respond to a request for comment. But some Clinton allies are intent on pushing the issue. This afternoon, Huma Abedin’s sister Heba encouraged her Facebook followers to lobby the Justice Department to audit the 2016 vote. “Call the DOJ…and tell them you want the votes audited,” she wrote. “Even if it’s busy, keep calling.”

A circumstantial case.  The White House is not encouraging -- indeed may be quietly discouraging -- the effort.  And the highest authority on the record so far is Huma Abedin's sister. 

Rick Hasen explains the situation and the nuances best, but if you like conspiracy theories, this guy -- who claims to dislike them himself (that has an "I'm not a racist, but" ring to it) -- is there for you.  I'm more of an Occam's Razor man myself: the polls screwed the pooch.  Don't expect the Department of Justice to respond to your phone calls urging an audit of the election, either.

Before the election, the department promulgated extensive, real information on the topic and asked those with complaints to report them. They would investigate voter intimidation, election practices that discriminated or other violations of federal law, and would still do so.

But they would do it based on actual evidence of violations, rather than intensity of griping over the result.

I suspicion we'll have all moved on by this time next week.  And don't forget that there are a lot of bars open on Thanksgiving.

Update: Vox and Pajiba are both likewise skeptimistic. And Gadfly in the comments points to Philip Bump, who closes the case.

Update II: (Thanksgiving morning, about 3:43 a.m. CST): Well, I'll be goddamned.  Looks like we will be talking about this next week.

'Mad Dogs' and Argentinians

-- I'll lightly gloss over the latest media-talking-about-the-media spanking from President Hair Furor yesterday.  No More Mister Nice Blog thinks Trump's people are the 'anonymous sources speaking off the record', and as I posted yesterday, you have to be careful about being distracted by Trump while Trump is doing something he doesn't want the media to actually focus on.

Like this.  It's one more example of how important it will be to read media outside the US over the next four years in order to get the real news.

-- Nothing like having a Mad Dog running your War Department.

The saying is “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” and if President-elect Donald Trump picks retired Gen. James Mattis for secretary of defense, he is still too much a Marine in the eyes of the law.

Mattis retired in 2013, leaving him four years short of the requisite seven years after active duty before commissioned officers may serve as secretary of defense.

Experts say the reason for the mandatory break between active service and heading the Defense Department is to ensure that any incoming secretary has had time to adjust to being a civilian leader rather than a military officer.

“That’s an important principle in democratic politics just because sometimes the military itself is not the best judge of American foreign policy,” said David E. Lewis, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.

Trump met with Mattis on Saturday at the president-elect's estate in New Jersey and on Sunday tweeted that he was considering the retired Marine Corps general for the top defense post.

The law?!  What conservative ever let a quibble with the law stop him?

Update: This is good news, from the perspective of its potential of convincing Trump that torture does not work, and presumably muzzling CIA-designate Steve Pompeo (although the spooks report to DNI and not SecDef).

-- Keep an eye out for wherever it is that Kris Kobach -- who inadvertently showed his own papers before his meeting with Trump over the weekend -- lands in the new administration.  In addition to his extensive propaganda ministry work, he is also the father of Crosscheck, the system used by almost half of the states to disenfranchise millions of their right to vote this year.  (As an aside, it remains a mystery to me why Greg Palast's long history of exposing this kind of election fraud goes completely unnoticed by the mainstream media.)

-- And keep an eye peeled for this guy, who keeps an extraordinarily low profile for an American billionaire, but like Trump, lets his daughter do all the hard work.  Robert and Rebekah Mercer are, together, one of the true powers behind this throne.

'Hamilton' is a distraction. Mitt Romney is, too.

One of the ways Trump has worked the media via Twitter is to throw them off the real story, as with his settling of the Trump U lawsuits.  He used the smoke and mirrors to appoint a torture advocate as head of the CIA.

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo, an open aficionado of torture practices used in the “war on terror,” to be CIA director shows that Trump was serious when he said he would support “waterboarding and much worse.”

Earlier there had been a sliver of hope that that while on the campaign trail Trump was simply playing to the basest instincts of many Americans who have been brainwashed – by media, politicians, and the CIA itself – into believing that torture “works.” The hope was that the person whom Trump would appoint to head the agency would disabuse him regarding both the efficacy and the legality of torture.

But such advice is not likely from Pompeo, who has spoken out against the closing of CIA’s “black sites” used for torture and has criticized the requirement that interrogators adhere to anti-torture laws. He has also opposed closing the prison at Guantanamo, which has become infamous for torture and even murder.

After visiting Guantanamo three years ago, where many prisoners were on a hunger strike, Pompeo commented, “It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight.”

Almost twelve years ago, when the first reports began to filter out of an Iraqi prison named Abu Ghraib, I believed that America had shredded whatever remained of our national morality as a result of the 'collateral damage' that occurs as unintended consequence when you use false pretenses to start a war on the wrong country in your search of revenge for 9/11.  And because the Obama administration abdicated serving justice to the war criminals, we somehow managed to lose even more.  And despite former chief spook Michael Hayden declaring that no CIA agent would ever again carry out an order to torture someone ... it appears we're back at square one.

Congressman Pompeo is living proof that you can get all A’s at West Point, graduate first in your class, and still flunk the Constitution with its quaint Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Not knowing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights apparently makes you a good pick to head the CIA.

As member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Pompeo also was protective of the National Security Agency’s systematic abuse of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against illegal searches and seizures.

The selection of Pompeo came a few days after Vice President-elect Mike Pence told ABC that he would model his handling of the job after former Vice President Dick Cheney under President George W. Bush.

All that stands between us and ethical oblivion now is Sen. John McCain.  The bad news is that a large majority of 'Muricans believe torture is a good idea.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans asked in March about their views on torture said they believe the practice can be justified to extract information from those suspected of terrorism, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. That level of support is on par with Nigeria and other countries where attacks are common ...

Please use caution when opening the overhead bins, as some items may have shifted during flight.

The Turkey-Elect Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving as it brings you this week's blog post roundup.

Off the Kuff analyzes Hillary Clinton's performance in Harris County and why we should be careful about using her numbers to project forward.

Socratic Gadfly offers a state and national Green Party post-mortem along with suggestions for the future.

President Trump's first cabinet picks are shaping up as unexpected and unconventional, writes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme proudly stands against the tyranny of Trump rule. He does NOT have permission...

Neil at All People Have Value noted that the organizers of an anti-Trump march in downtown Houston this past week were two college students. The work of opposing Trump is going to be up to each of us. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

jobsanger conjures the ghost of George McGovern in suggesting the Democratic Party resist pressure to move to the left.  (Ted's still not seeing things too clearly in the wake of Hillary Clinton's upset loss.)

Texas Vox asks what's next for Waste Control Specialists, the company that holds a permit for storing low-level nuclear waste in Andrews County, which has applied for a license to store high-level waste while negotiating a merger with its rival, EnergySolutions.

After some voting machine errors and a co-mingling of counted paper ballots with uncounted ones, Denton County finally completed its recount of Election Day's results, reports the Lewisville Texan Journal.

And Texas Leftist posted regarding Houston's new police and fire chiefs that were tapped last week by Mayor Sylvester Turner.

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More great blog posts from around Texas!

The Texas Observer attended a rally at the Presidio-Ojinaga international bridge, where West Texans and Mexicans joined hands in solidarity and declared "Viva la Frontera!"

Somervell County Salon has the second part of "Post-mortem reflections on the 2016 election: "Who'd you vote for?"

The WAWG Blog offers a guideline on understanding your authoritarian right-wing neighbors.

The Texas Moratorium Network wrote about two Texas lawmakers, Reps. Terry Canales and Harold Dutton, who have filed bills to abolish the death penalty, to be considered in the coming legislative session.

Grits for Breakfast wonders what new Houston police chief Art Acevedo, formerly of the Austin PD, thinks about body cams and transparency.

Daniel Williams sounds the alarm about a dangerous bill for LGBT youth.

Paradise in Hell looks at some pot-related legislation.

Priscilla Dominguez urges everyone to push back against Donald Trump's hate speech.

Scott Braddock says that we may now finally find out what Greg Abbott's agenda for governing is.

And Very, Very Urban illustrates the mood for the next four years.