Friday, June 30, 2017

How do you know if you haven't checked?

I feel like a mom telling a child to look in his room for his missing shoes.

This article is very concerning.  Govt official say there is no evidence, but what evidence has been gathered?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/dhs-doesnt-want-to-know-about-vote-hacks

DHS officials from former secretary Jeh Johnson to acting Director of Cyber Division Samuel Liles may be adamant that machines were not affected, but the agency has not in fact opened up a single voting machine since November to check.

“Although we continue to judge all newly available information, DHS has not fundamentally altered our prior assessments,” the department told TPM.
Computer scientists have been critical of that decision. “They have performed computer forensics on no election equipment whatsoever,” said J. Alex Halderman, who testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week about the vulnerability of election systems. “That would be one of the most direct ways of establishing in the equipment whether it’s been penetrated by attackers. We have not taken every step we could.”

David Dill, a voting systems expert and professor of computer science at Stanford University quoted in the report, said hackers can easily breach election systems regardless of whether they’re able to coordinate widely enough to alter a general election result.
“I don’t know why they wouldn’t try to hack voting machines and I don’t know what would stop them,” Dill told TPM. “Any statement that says ‘We haven’t see evidence of X’ also means ‘We haven’t lifted a finger to investigate.’”

Why do we have to consistently ask our government to do their job?!

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

And then there's this!

I'm interested Rep. Beyers.

http://www.salon.com/2017/06/27/make-democracy-great-again-rep-don-beyers-revolutionary-bill-could-transform-how-we-elect-congress/












Whoa. Ha!  Yes>>>
How do you evaluate the health of our democracy in this moment, in this . . . era?
I choose to look at the . . . phenomenon as a blip. One of those historical outliers and explained by many, many different things. Some of it is just the coarsening of our culture. Look at how many penises are chopped off on “Game of Thrones” or “House of Cards” — pushing reporters in front of the metro. But also it’s the fact that in an economy that’s doing very well, there are people that aren’t.












Were the Democrats to take back the House, do you feel there is an appetite to take on these kinds of small-D democratic reforms? Or would it be the same thing you saw in Virginia: Our turn to be in control!
There’s going be some of that, too. I can see the leadership right away saying, “Beyer, play this out! If we pass this, do we still have control of the House?” I think that would be the first question. They would say this, too: “We have a lot of other important, good things we want to do first.”
It reminds me of John Tanner, the former Tennessee Democrat, who introduced a comprehensive redistricting bill when Republicans had the House, then again when the Democrats took it back in 2006 — and met with the same indifference from leadership both occasions.
Well, there will be a lot of good ideas that come forward. One of them may be that we pass this with an effective date six years or eight years down the road, so that it won’t affect the people that are there. It won’t affect most of them. Perhaps there’s some way to slow it down.  
At least part of the argument for Republicans who are in charge is to say, Well, someday you’re not going to be in power. So let’s think long term about this. It’s going to take vision and also a certain amount of self-sacrifice. But how different the country could be over 20 or 30 years if we enacted this!

I want to know what this power gives them.
I'd like a list.
party pooper









It’s broken; it’s too partisan; it’s hyperpolarized. But you think it’s fixable.
Yes. We can do multimember districts and get rid of the tyranny of gerrymandering. We can do instant runoff so that minorities are really reflected in Congress. We can get rid of a lot of negative campaigning and a lot of the role of money — which everybody hates. People hate having to make call after call asking for money. And if it takes 20 years, it’s worth it.
I’m trying to have modest expectations and a real sense of humility. We’re not just going to flip on light switches for everybody. But little by little, we can make this change.
Multi-partisan for the future?

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Barbra Streisand is Nuts

This is what I have become.  I am now sending rambling emails grappling with my gut feeling.

I really wish that movie guy's voice said "Barbra Streisand is Nuts" in this trailer

BURR: Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered?
COMEY: I'm confident. When I left as director I had seen no indication of that whatsoever.
                        -from here

Later in the hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) asked Clapper, “the intelligence community says, ‘It would be extremely difficult for someone – including a nation-state actor to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyberattack or intrusion,’ and you say to that earlier today as well that we have no evidence that vote tallies were altered or manipulated in anyway?”

“That’s correct,” Clapper said.

                        -from here

Jeh Johnson: "I know of no evidence that through cyber intrusion, votes were altered or suppressed in some way."  -this particular quote is only quoted in rightwing online presence??  I just noticed this.  I got it from the Hill opinion blog below (spin link)

Oh good!  Here’s a spin that Republicans are taking…Obama’s Homeland Security was trying to hack into voter registration systems in some states… Cybersecurity experts have confirmed…oh really?  So vague.  However…this WSJ story might be interesting if I could read it..well, it looks like it was a nothingburger (can’t believe I'm using that term-Twitterhead)

Ok, so this is why I still have reservations after three different people in the federal government claim that no votes were altered.  God, this is insane…
From what I have read, some of these machines did not have the security features turned on –such as an auditing function.  How much jurisdiction and authority does the federal government have over state elections systems?  How do they check or verify the votes?  I don’t know if I should believe, but via @mikefarb I have seen places in Wisconsin and I think Georgia where the tallies were inconsistent.  The federal government is doing an audit on all of these machines???  How did they have the time?  How can they if the feature is turned off?  So yes, Feds can say with confidence they have seen nothing to indicate altered votes, but what measures have they taken to investigate each county/state?  They have information already with 50 states and however many counties?  I’m fully for mail in/paper ballot at this point.

Also…another thought.  Maybe the question of whether Kremlin hacked is the problem.  Maybe Kremlin helped, but maybe someone inside the US hacked.  That’s a little wacko, but just a thought.  Why did Republican voter data firm leave 198 million voter data exposed online for three days?

Why did Jeh Johnson’s attempt to designate our elections systems as critical govt infrastructure meet with opposition (and why was it not that already? I think I saw due to view of too much federal intrusion).  Johnson said he did it anyway. ? 
Also this exchange is weird, but only because I don’t understand it (at 33:02, Schiff, but more specifically around 33:44 and something about pollsters and social scientists) This article states that said designation would have given states priority if they sought help in possible cyberattacks.. huh??  Our voting machines are not a priority?

I’m considering becoming a poll worker.  I don’t know if I should be a democrat or republican election judge.  Do the democrats oversee the republicans and vice versa or do democrats sign up to be republican election judges because they think they are corrupt and the same for republicans?  Why is there a partisan distinction?  

I need to research this Senate Intelligence Committee hearing


Saturday, June 17, 2017

Observation #444

Hello!  Summer's greetings! Well, almost!  This Wednesday is the Summer Solstice and the official first day of Summer!
With that, I herald my first sightings/sounds of my favorite bugs of summer.

On our walk this evening my family heard our first sounds of cicadas!  
Side note, at the beginning of our walk, my son said he hoped to see some owls.  We have never seen owls on our walk before, but at the last stretch of our walk we heard a Great Horned Owl hoot!  He/She even answered our return hoot!  Summer sounds abound!

My mom saw her first lightning bug on May 28.  I hardly go out at night at this point in my life and am usually so sleepy after finally getting the kids to bed that I don't even look outside.   So my first lightning bug sighting was about a week ago.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Call to expel McConnell

Senate Major "Leader" Mitch McConnell is a threat to the health of our Nation.
He must be expelled from his position and Congress.
He did not tell the people of the U.S.A. that our election process was under attack when he became aware of it in late 2016.
His obstruction during his time in Congress has earned the previous Congress the worst in recorded history.
He receives dark money that must be investigated.
He is now working in secret to pass a health insurance bill for our nation.  We will not know what is in the bill until it is signed.  Our elected Democratic leaders will not be privy to information contained in this bill nor be allowed to add a single remark.
This is not Democracy, only kleptocracy.

This expulsion of McConnell should be akin to those Congressman that were expelled for supporting the confederacy.
Or perhaps similar to Senator William Blount of Tennessee?
Maybe the man who said his worst day of his career was when a bill that had to do with Campaign Finance Reform was signed into law will succumb to the fate of Senator James Simmons of Rhode Island.

Either way, it needs to be done.  And as you can see it has been done.
Congress, take out the trash.

Lying snake charm


















May you get bit Jefferson Beauregard Sessions the third.

Friday, June 9, 2017

vIndicator

vendetta vendatta vendetta vendatta
veni vidi vici
vindicate
In two zero one 8
we all rotate
vengeance
vendetta vendatta vendetta vendatta
veni vedi vici
vindicate
In two zero one 8
we all rotate
vengeance

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Saturday, June 3, 2017

birthday too

Happy Birthday bubbly child!
You are two!
The rainbows reflect your wild
side
and all that's within you
I love you!








































http://rainbowstudy.blogspot.com/


Thursday, June 1, 2017

current thoughts that make me laugh

Human family members edition:

My husband's threats to gift me a shelter dog with a hair-pin trigger

My son whispering and laughing silly stories in my ear before bedtime

My daughter's sudden change from crying/whining "mommy" to "hi mommy!" happy, smiling face when I open the door to the bathroom

If you pull out of the Paris

Agreement, Donald Trump, you better stay out of the Rose Garden when you announce it.  Instead, it better come from the SHITTER.