Election Hacking Hoax

When someone claims that an election was hacked, what does that mean?  The most reasonable interpretation would be that someone either changed the votes or altered the counting of the votes via a computer.  Did the Russians access computers in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania?  No.  Did they somehow hack into the machines that tally the vote counts and transfer some Hillary votes to Trump?  No.  So, the most reasonable interpretation of "The Russians hacked the election" is completely wrong.  What did the Russians do?

The Russians managed to hack DNC servers and also access John Podesta's email.  They released this data to WikiLeaks (WikiLeaks denies that Russians were the source, but they would be required to deny anyone to protect their sources).  WikiLeaks then started posting it and it had an impact on the election.  The Clinton Campaign did not respond to the veracity of the leaked emails but rather attacked the source of them.  So, it's all true but you shouldn't have them.

 

However, if you are going to get all huffy about another country trying to fiddle with your elections, maybe you shouldn't be doing the same.  For instance, Obama helped fund the opposition to Netanyahu in Israel.  His administration was transparently hostile to Netanyahu.  This is how we were treating an ally but we should demand that a foe not do something similar to us?  Was the election hacked when the New York Times published Trump's 1995 tax return or was that just good reporting?  If something harming a Republican - say the Pentagon Papers - is released, the leaker is celebrated.  But if information harmful to Democrats is released, let's attack the source - WikiLeaks, Russia, Ed Snowden, etc.

 

As a geopolitical foe, we should expect Russia to attempt to influence our elections to best benefit them.  I trust that our intelligence agencies are doing their best to influence our foes' politics for the best interests of America.  It is the governments' job on both ends to prevent the other.  Who was on watch for us during this recent hacking?  Rather than blaming Trump and declaring his election illegitimate, should we not be looking squarely at our failed cyber security strategy?

Birth of the Birther Story

I was listening to the radio on Friday when the top of the hour news announced that Trump had accused Hillary Clinton of starting the Birther issue during the 2008 primary.  Intriguing though that was, the more interesting bit followed.  The newsreader then announced that there was no evidence for this claim.  I cannot recall the last time I heard fact-checking as part of the newsfeed.  Basically, the news is that Trump is lying about Hillary and now here's the weather.  Huh.

Later that day, evidence that the 2008 Clinton campaign had considered a strategy to paint Obama as less American because he spent a considerable chunk of his childhood in Indonesia.  Of course, Hillary says they never used that tact.  But then it comes out the Sid Blumenthal, a Hillary intimate who is coincidentally also involved in the interminable email scandal, is reported to have handed the Birther story to the McClatchy News Service.  McClatchy sent a reporter to Kenya to check it out.  Then there is the picture of Obama in Muslim garb that was released by the Clinton Campaign.

 

I am now annoyed that the newsreader offered that fact-check.  Whether you agree or not, there is evidence for the claim that questions of Obama's birth started in the Clinton campaign.  Well, in truth, the birther debate started with Obama himself.  Snopes confirms that in 1991, Obama was shown on the bio page of a booklet as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia."  In fact, some have claimed that Obama gamed the system to get into more prestigious schools than his grades would have allowed by claiming to be a foreign exchange student.  Thus, Obama has refused to release his college transcripts that would reveal such.  Maybe.  More likely, his grades are mediocre and that would not have helped his campaign.

Why is this in the news again?  Hillary has attacked Trump for his participation in the Birther debate in 2011.  Trump hammered the topic sufficiently that Obama finally released his long form birth certificate which ended - for most - the debate.  Thus Trump's claim that he "finished it."