On today’s BradCast: Bad hombres! Nasty women! And SUSPENSE! Real coverage of the final Presidential Debate of 2016, some of which is almost guaranteed to piss off just about everybody in one way or another. You’re welcome! [Audio link to show posted below.]
For our analysis of the final — and, by our count, 25th! — debate of the 2016 cycle, I’m joined once again by award-winning journalist Heather Digby Parton of Salon and the Hullabaloo blog, and by David Dayen, of Fiscal Times and author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud
As you probably expect, we spend some time focusing on Trump’s dishonest claims that the election is being “rigged” and his refusal to promise a peaceful transfer of power. But we also discuss the, at times, disingenuous outrage about it all from the media as well as both Republicans and Democrats, each of whom seem to have developed more than a bit of convenient amnesia about recent elections, about the mechanics of our electoral system, and even very recent assertions about all of the above.
Yes, election fraud and election integrity are topics about which we have some familiarity around here. And, while nuance and complexity and facts may not play well in the corporate media or among angry partisans near the end of an insane election cycle, no small amount of each are called for today. We do our best.
“Digby” and Dayen also bring insight on a number of the other surprisingly substantive issues raised at the debate (as well as important issues that, once again, were not), many of which have been largely overlooked in the wake of Trump’s latest embarrassing tantrum(s)…
CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_DigbyDayen_FinalPresDebateLasVegas101916_102016.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Hi Brad! The other day I was listening to (somebody else’s podcast) and David Brin was the featured guest. They were talking about astronomy or something, but it reminded me that in addition to being a famous science-fiction writer, he is also a Libertarian Party activist who says a lot of smart things about elections and voting machines and stuff like that.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2016/10/buckle-your-seatbelts-october-surprises.html
It is not like we are all on the same page is it?
(Military Prophets speak out)
Brad do you know if the Sequoia voting machines “IP” aka Intellectual Property is still owned by Smartmatic?
And what do you think of claims posted at Reddit that Soros controls Sequoia voting machines.
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/58m37q/its_not_just_smartmaticsoros_has_ties_to_dominion/
The reddit thread links to a 2010 article you did about the issue of IP
http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/90265-on-heels-of-dieboldpremier-purchase-canadian-firm-also-acquires-sequoia-lies-about-chavezties-in-announcement
I’ll check back hoping for a reply. thanks.
The reason that people can continue the lies about our voting systems is because they are not transparent. If our elections were truly transparent and regularly verified/authenticated then everyone would laugh at the claims that our elections are rigged or that millions of people are voting illegally. Since we don’t really want to thoroughly dispute/prove these allegations are false, we will continue have suspicion about unbiased elections.
Nemo @ 1 said:
He seems like a smart enough fellow, based on the link you sent, but he’s got a few things wrong on voting systems and doesn’t NOT appear to be a Libertarian, as based on his comments in that article anyway! Seems a liberal and the opposite of a Libertarian.
LauraRoslin7 @ 3 asked:
I cannot confirm, but I would presume that it is. It remained their intellectual property (largely secretly) when their tech was used by Sequoia and then later when Sequoia was purchased by Dominion (and the folks at Dominion lied about it.) So, I’d presume that Smartmatic still retains the IP rights.
Short of any evidence to the contrary, the claim would be pretty much absurd. As I noted in reply to your similar question on Twitter…
That said, the idea that foreign companies still own U.S. voting systems (whether Venezuala in the case of Smartmatic, or Canada in the case of Dominion) is shameful. More disturbing is the fact that the systems are not transparent and publicly owned.
The Reddit author seems to believe that only touch-screen systems are a problem, ignoring the fact that the Sequoia systems he’s complaining about are also paper ballot optical scanners, which can be as easily manipulated and full of bugs that lead to losers being declared winners, etc. (as was the case in Palm Beach, FL in 2010, after which the company admitted that the bug that caused it was in all of their systems. Last week, the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections told me the firmware in their optical-scanners has since been updated. FWIW.)
It should also be noted here that this same lack of transparency is true — and shameful — for ALL of the other systems used throughout the U.S., whether owned by foreign or domestic companies. Even the systems that are in much wider use as owned by companies with Rightwing owners (like ES&S, the much larger vendor, and the others).
Alex said @ 4:
Correct.
thank you for your answers, Brad. Sorry to put you through a twitter hassle.