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[Sergarr]

The article seems to be very heavily biased, but if true, then looks like Republicans have found a way to solve the "election problem".

[smjjames]

The Nordstrom company said the decision was made based on business factors (sales slump) and not politics. Nordstrom is what's called a "Fast Fashion" outlet - they change their line up rapidly, so it's natural that designer brands are a revolving door. Trump overstep conflict of interest but he also fails to understand the fashion industry. Probably not a surprise that Ivanka Trump sales are dropping.

It's also pretty openly corrupt to exploit the office of President so brazenly for profit.  It's the kind of thing you expect from a kleptocratic failed state.

Are you talking about Nordstrom exploiting it or Trump? Anyhow, regardless of the reason why they did it, the timing certainly looks like an attack at the WH policies, and naturally, Trump took it extremely personally and thought it was an attack at him and his family.

Anyways, Jeff Sessions got confirmed as Attorney General, 52-47 (with an absentation from someone, Sessions himself maybe) and Joe Manchin of West Virginia is the only Dem to back Sessions.

[origamiscienceguy]

Why are people worried that election machines can be hacked? That has never happened. And I don't think they are even connected to the internet.

[Frumple]

In other news, the Trumpet fucked a duck with his "hey team let's quickly decide on something that a President would take lengthy consultation sessions with experts for", a member of Seal Team 6 died, a bunch of Yemeni civilians died, and now Yemen nixed us running counter-terrorism ops in their territory.

Apparently haven't nixed them, actually. Not really entirely sure, though. Seems like every other news article flips on if they have or haven't. Does kinda' look like the more recent ones lean towards saying there's not actually a ban of any sort.

[i2amroy]

Why are people worried that election machines can be hacked? That has never happened. And I don't think they are even connected to the internet.

Machines don't necessarily have to be connected to the internet at large, as long as they've got some sort of wireless capacity (which the majority of voting machines do, because collecting voting machines from every town to get your count would be even more of a hassle than collecting ballots would). If it can take wireless communications all you have to do to hack it is spoof a legitimate wireless transmission and then hack in through any potential security vulnerability. In an example from two years ago, one particular expert in Virgina described their (now replaced) machines by saying that "anyone within a half mile could have modified every vote, undetected" without "any technical expertise" and then went on to say that if it hadn't been hacked before then it was only because "no one had tried", not because it was in any way difficult.

[Sergarr]

Why are people worried that election machines can be hacked? That has never happened. And I don't think they are even connected to the internet.

The Republicans, having control over the federal government and the majority of the state's ones, could potentially make some alterations for the voting machines by abusing their total and absolute power.

They could not do that, of course, but they don't have a good track record with not abusing their power when doing that would be beneficial to them.

[smjjames]

In other news, the Trumpet fucked a duck with his "hey team let's quickly decide on something that a President would take lengthy consultation sessions with experts for", a member of Seal Team 6 died, a bunch of Yemeni civilians died, and now Yemen nixed us running counter-terrorism ops in their territory.

Apparently haven't nixed them, actually. Not really entirely sure, though. Seems like every other news article flips on if they have or haven't. Does kinda' look like the more recent ones lean towards saying there's not actually a ban of any sort.

I think I saw that it was more like 'not without their approval' or something. Either way, it's screwed up relations with Yemen.

Why are people worried that election machines can be hacked? That has never happened. And I don't think they are even connected to the internet.

The Republicans, having control over the federal government and the majority of the state's ones, could potentially make some alterations for the voting machines by abusing their total and absolute power.

They could not do that, of course, but they don't have a good track record with not abusing their power when doing that would be beneficial to them.

Only problem though, as far as tampering with the votes themselves, is that the election system is extremely decentralized, the largest 'center' is a precinct, so, it would take a huge, concerted, and coordinated effort to do that.

The CIA warns that designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group could make things worse

Carnegie article that I found off of RCP that gives a more analytical view on it.

Can anybody say 'Muslim Scare' McCarthyism?

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Directly after his Tweets, Nordstrom stocks dropped, only to recover, and become the best performing stock on Wall Street.

My god, considering the viewership spikes on CNN and the subscription boost to the Times mentioned a while back that seemed to occur after Trump insulted them combined with this, does this mean Trump is trying to make the economy great again though his insults driving people to buy from those companies?  If so, that is hilarious.

[misko27]

Why are people worried that election machines can be hacked? That has never happened. And I don't think they are even connected to the internet.

The Republicans, having control over the federal government and the majority of the state's ones, could potentially make some alterations for the voting machines by abusing their total and absolute power.

define absolute power and you'll find that whatever republicans have, it's not that.

There exist real and serious threats to the security of elections and election machines in particular. I say this as a person who works with them during elections, and in particular accounts for scanner where voting actually occurs in NYC. But this isn't news, it's been a long time coming (I mean for fuck's sake look at how the last Republican President won; if you remember anything of that time at all, you'll know that for many, Bush stole the election). There's no evidence that it was ever abused (or at least to the point of changing results), for as said by smjjames it's a very, very big undertaking. That said this election should show the vulnerabilities of the system.

[Baffler]

Directly after his Tweets, Nordstrom stocks dropped, only to recover, and become the best performing stock on Wall Street.

My god, considering the viewership spikes on CNN and the subscription boost to the Times mentioned a while back that seemed to occur after Trump insulted them combined with this, does this mean Trump is trying to make the economy great again though his insults driving people to buy from those companies?  If so, that is hilarious.

5 D  C H E S S

[nenjin]

It'd fit his MO to date. Trump is the kind of guy that would add "hatred of me drove people to spend to spite me" to his list of business achievements and acumen. You're a special kind of loser when you preemptively try to cast your own faults as victories.

[muldrake]

The Nordstrom company said the decision was made based on business factors (sales slump) and not politics. Nordstrom is what's called a "Fast Fashion" outlet - they change their line up rapidly, so it's natural that designer brands are a revolving door. Trump overstep conflict of interest but he also fails to understand the fashion industry. Probably not a surprise that Ivanka Trump sales are dropping.

It's also pretty openly corrupt to exploit the office of President so brazenly for profit.  It's the kind of thing you expect from a kleptocratic failed state.

Are you talking about Nordstrom exploiting it or Trump? Anyhow, regardless of the reason why they did it, the timing certainly looks like an attack at the WH policies, and naturally, Trump took it extremely personally and thought it was an attack at him and his family.

How on Earth could a department store exploit the Presidency when it isn't President?  That makes no sense.  Of course I meant Trump.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

It'd fit his MO to date. Trump is the kind of guy that would add "hatred of me drove people to spend to spite me" to his list of business achievements and acumen. You're a special kind of loser when you preemptively try to cast your own faults as victories.

What I would find interesting is if, by the end of his first term, his actions wound up managing to discredit the stances he was taking and cause things to head in a positive direction.  Bonus if it's intentional.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm sure Trump supporters would praise him for it.

They seem convinced he's some kind of genius... they just haven't decided which kind yet.

[muldrake]

Why are people worried that election machines can be hacked? That has never happened.

Yes it has.  There have even been convictions.

http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article44027145.html

I'll note this wasn't even enough to qualify as hacking.  It was crude trickery, simply lying to voters about the user interface in such a way that they'd think they cast a vote when they hadn't.  Actually hacking the machines, though, is barely more difficult.

And there is exhaustive evidence that hacking voting machines is trivial, especially in the work done by Prof. Andrew Appel of Princeton, who has both testified before the House about it and demonstrated it, as well as produced extensive reports on the vulnerabilities of these machines.

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-09-28-Appel-Princeton-Testimony.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxM_QNGF1dE
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2008/10/17/report-sequioa-avc-advantage/

Also, if it had been done, we wouldn't know about it, because the vast majority of voting machines are so-called Direct Recording Electronic or DRE machines, which keep no independent audit trail that can be used to assure the count was accurate.  You just have to accept whatever the machine says.