Yesterday’s hearing was a relatively sober presentation of 2020 election issues as — I imagine — most Americans understand them. I imagine most Americans view the election as flawed in concerning ways that require attention, but not as an immediate crisis that needs to be resolved by reversing the outcome.
I found Chris Krebs’s testimony disturbing in several ways. For one, he kept insisting that paper ballots provide a foolproof audit trail. This, of course, ignores the reality that the audit trail itself can be fabricated. He also repeated his claim that the 2020 election was the most “secure” in history. On questioning he had to admit this claim was limited; it referred only to cybersecurity of the garden-variety Internet kind, not to general security against attempted fraud. I wish someone had asked him whether his claim was based on his knowledge of the design of the infrastructure before the election (in which the agency he headed played a role), or his forensic knowledge of how the infrastructure performed during the election. All in all, Krebs’s testimony did more to obscure than enlighten.
Ken Starr made several important points in his testimony:
- The Constitutional issue of state officials changing the election process rules without the approval of their legislatures is a valid one.
- Standardized “best practices” based on experience (as opposed to “theoretical constructs”) need to be adopted in every state, especially for the processing of mail-in ballots.
- The 60-odd lawsuits the courts have entertained since Nov. 3 have done little to address the substantive allegations which have been raised. Starr seemed to me to be resigned to the fact the judiciary cannot provide the level of election transparency the public expects.
Despite being relatively sober as a deliberative exercise, the hearing was not without flare-ups or the usual dosage of placebo-like speechifying. Still, in the sense of admitting a problem so that it can be addressed, the hearing struck me as a mostly productive event.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
“I imagine most Americans view the election as flawed in concerning ways that require attention”
As always, you gave a very vivid imagination. Most Americans do NOT see the election as flawed in concerning ways. Beyond that, most Americans see these absurd claims of massive fraud for the desperate lies that they are. My statements are based on the fact that most Americans are not hooked on propaganda outlets such as Fox News and most of talk radio that dutifully repeat Dear Leader’s seditious falsehoods.
What has really happened is that the massive ugly efforts by Republican to make voting more difficult have backfired – BIGLY. Millions of people decided that they were as mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore. So they went the extra mile, stood in endless lines and/or did the extra work to vote by mail. And hundreds of thousands of patriotic citizens risked their health and even their lives to make the election system work. You lost. Get over it.
By the way, Ken Starr? Really?
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Blah, blah, blah.
It is literally impossible for you to have personal knowledge of what most Americans see or don’t see.
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“It is literally impossible for you to have personal knowledge of what most Americans see or don’t see.”
Same applies to you, but that does not stop you from asserting that most Americans buy Trump’s lies about the election. Now, does it? I will take the fact that most Americans are not idiots and extrapolate from that fact that most Americans are not being fooled by these desperate con man tricks. Then there is the evidence coming from Republicans, Democrats and Independents acting at local and state level election officers and as Judges in state and federal courts is that the election was free and fair.
You are, of course, free to believe all the silly and dishonest lies you want. Knock yourself out, but do not expect a pass when you choose to spread these lies.
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I don’t think Trump is even mentioned in the video. My comments on the video don’t mention him, either. Why don’t you try posting relevant, on-topic comments?
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Do you really think that this Senate charade would have even taken place without direct orders from the ma Republicans fear the most?
“I want the list…”.
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RE: “Do you really think that this Senate charade would have even taken place without direct orders from the man Republicans fear the most?”
I have no way of knowing, so I’m not inclined to make conspiracy-theory type assumptions about it.
The hearing itself is a fact. It actually occurred, and I find the substantive content worthy of comment.
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My comment IS relevant and on-topic. You may not have mentioned Trump by name, but just like a not-too-bright parrot you have reinforced his seditious self-pitying claims of election fraud. Sorry if you are too dim to understand the topic YOU started with your nonsensical claims about what “most Americans” think about this past election. But there it is.
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I listened to Starr’s top Lieutenant during the Clinton investigation(?) and he was non-plussed over the seeming dementia Starr exhibited during that appearance and some other of his recent pronouncements. As a life long Repub himself he was embarrassed and saddened by his former boss’s. decline.
However, I found Ron Paul’s bald faced lies more egregious and concerning.
Throwing gas on this fire is Sedition, plain and simple…IMO.
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What lies did “Ron Paul” tell?
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Ken Starr is still trying to find wrongdoing in the Whitewater investigation. Out side of the misuse of a Casa Blanca cigar.
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Maybe just a cigar?
John’s question distraction fail is unworthy of response. IMHO.
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Most Americans.
Let’s at least check data.
Disclaimer: Numbers approximate and subject to error due to my math skills.
About 155 million voted. 2/3’s of the electorate. That means we had about 230 million eligible voters.
About 70% of Republicans think the election was rigged. That would be about 52 million Americans who voted. And if they didn’t vote, too bad.
That is 33% of the voters, and 22% of eligible voters or about 15% of our population.
(Even allowing for non-voting Republicans, that would be 70% of about 110 million eligible voters or 77 million out of 230 or 330 millions.)
So how does any of this nonsense perpetuated by you and other Trump fans amount to “most Americans”?
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“So how does any of this nonsense perpetuated by you and other Trump fans amount to “most Americans”?”
What nonsense are you referring to? The Senate had a hearing yesterday on the topic of election irregularities. That’s what the thread is about.
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The “nonsense” I am referring to is your assertion that “?..most Americans view the election as flawed in concerning ways that require attention”.
If anything, most Americans believe the vote was not rigged and that access to voting should encourage voting, not discourage it.
“There was no testimony from state or local election officials who conducted extensive checks to ensure the accuracy of the election before certifying the results.“
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-senate-holds-hearing-on-2020-election-security
If this hearing were truly about election concerns, why not have election officials testify under oath?
Answer: because this was political theater so Johnson and friends can say “see, daddy, I tried so please be nice to us…pretty please…”.
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It sure will be nice if Wisconsinites recall how one of their Senators spent his time during a pandemic that was having major effects in that state. The ads almost write themselves.
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People are dying at 3,000+ per day now and Republican supporters of Trump are following the Alfred E. Neuman advice with respect to the virus and turning the conversation to “suitcases under the table”.
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RE: “If this hearing were truly about election concerns, why not have election officials testify under oath?”
Possibly because more hearings are planned.
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Wanna bet?
OK, maybe there are. But here is the Libertarian viewpoint of the hearing.
https://reason.com/2020/12/17/senate-hearing-on-election-irregularities-highlights-trumps-reckless-disregard-for-the-truth/
“Johnson is now ready to close the book on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, although he still has concerns about some of the ways in which it was conducted. Those concerns were detailed by several witnesses at the hearing, only one of whom alleged fraud sufficient to give Biden electoral votes that Trump should have received. That witness, Trump campaign lawyer Jesse Binnall, relied on evidence that was decisively rejected by Nevada courts.”
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The idea that the election was “stolen” can only be proven if the over 80 million people who voted for Biden are all charged with fraud.
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I wonder how much fraud was scrutinized in the red states that Trump won. Texas was only a handful of votes, relatively speaking, in a state that is redder than a monkey’s ass in heat.
I say that there was some last hour scrambling to make sure Republicans won. We know that one ballot box for 5 million voters in Harris County (Houston) must have been one huge container. Yet, Trump won.
Fraud, I say, fraud.
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It could easily be said that there are several hundred thousand missing BIDEN votes somewhere in a closet in Houston (or in a suitcase under a desk). But then I could be accused of whattaboutism. Or spreading lies and conspiracies. We are talking about Texas.
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Trump fans want Democrats to prove there was no fraud. Which, of course, Trump’s lawyers already did.
So why not demand the red states that were close prove that Republicans did not riff the election?
Seems reasonable.
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RE: “The idea that the election was “stolen” can only be proven if the over 80 million people who voted for Biden are all charged with fraud.”
OK. I charge the 80 million people who voted for Biden with fraud. Not that it matters.
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You’re finally right about something. What you charge DOESN’T matter. But it hasn’t stopped you from saying it.
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