Trump seeks a 'major investigation' into voter fraud

That isn't what "free speech" means. The EPA is a department of the Executive Branch and they are his direct employees, not private citizens. They are required to say what he tells them to say. Best case is they don't want to work for him so they knowingly blew themselves up. Worst case, they are just idiots. Same goes for the recently fired Secret Service agent who tweeted before the election she'd rather go to jail than take a bullet for Trump.

 

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Every election time, there is a call, by Republicans, for voter ID, as well as removing deceased people from Democratic party voter rolls. This seems reasonable, but it is always resisted by the Democrats who argue that such actions, will limit minority voting; fewer dead people will be willing to vote.

The end game, in my opinion, will be less about last election fraud from the last election, but about recommendations and rules to limit voter fraud in the future. These will include voter ID's, and using super computers to make sure only live citizens vote in one place, and all absentee ballets are valid.

For example, say someone never votes and I know that because I work in government and have computer access. I could theoretically fill in an absentee ballet, on their behalf and nobody would ever know, including the person who never votes.

 

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I would laugh if he was just a drinking buddy, but he is the fucking POTUS. Damn, I threw up in my mouth again. I just can't say president and Tru.. in the same sentence with becoming physicall ill.

 

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As a bleeding heart liberal I have to agree with you on this. In an ideal situation the POTUS would not tell them what to say, without getting their input though...

 

Ah OK thanks for the correction. I did not realise they were part of the Executive Branch. (We don't have this distinction over here, we just have the Civil Service, which serves "government", legally "the Crown", as does the prime minister.)

Let's hope there are some high-profile resignations then, at least.

 

The thought of dying for Trump (a first class chickenhawk*) makes me ill.

* ---> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenhawk_(politics)

 

LOL.... I'm always impressed by your lack of cognitive skills or dishonesty. I'm not sure which, but it is impressive. First, there is only one voter roll in each voting place. There isn't a separate roll for Democrats, Republicans, or anyone else as you have asserted. Show me one case in which Democrats have argued for not removing dead people from the voter rolls. You can't, because it's fiction. Dead people are routinely removed from voter roles. No one opposes removing dead people from voting rolls.

There will always be dead people on voting rules, because people die Wellwisher...sorry to burst your bubble. And it takes time to purge voter rolls of dead people. How long that process takes is a matter of money. How much money do you want to spend purging rolls of dead people, just so you can say you have a clean voting roll?

Contrary to your assertion, Democrats don't oppose purging voting rolls of dead people. They object to voter suppression efforts, i.e. intentional efforts by Republicans to prevent qualified voters from voting by making the process more difficult and time consuming, and by illegally purging voter rolls of people who are most likely to be Democrats and doing so without adequate recompense. That's what Democrats object to.

And her is the thing, not that it matters to you Wellwisher, dead people aren't voting. There is no evidence dead people are voting. Seriously Wellwisher, are you really that stupid?

Well, here's the problem Wellwisher, you and your Republican cohorts haven't proven there is significant voter fraud. At best, there have only been a handful of cases. In Kansas, a solid red state whose Secretary of State, Kobach, has zealously pursued his allegations of massive voter fraud even getting the legislature to grant him the authority to directly prosecute voter fraud, found only one case of voter fraud, and the perpetrator was a Republican who voted in 2 states.

In a state with nearly 3 million people spanning the course of 3 years, he was only able to find one case of voter fraud, and the perpetrator was a Republican. And here's the thing, nothing Republicans have proposed to curb their alleged massive voter fraud problem would have prevented this kind of voter fraud. The guy voted in 2 states. Voter ID wouldn't have prevented him from voting twice, and he was a Republican, not a Democrat.

It appears that being on the voter rolls in 2 states isn't uncommon for Republicans. Mnuchin, Trump's cabinet pick, is on multiple voter rolls. Trump's daughter is on multiple voter rolls. Why does that not bother Republicans? Republicans are so worried about mythical dead people voting and for which they have absolutely no evidence, while totally ignoring Republicans who are on multiple voting rolls and for which evidence exists.

If you work in government, God help us all. Here is the thing about absentee ballots, and you should know this because, you know, you work in government, an absentee ballot requires a signature. Can you to that too? If you can alter the election results and swing an election as you have alleged and are concerned about voter fraud, then why haven't you done something to fix the problem? Remember, you are suppose to be concerned about the integrity of our electoral process. If there is a fault in your electoral process you have an obligation to do something about it as a government employee and as a citizen. But apparently, you have not. Why?

 

While portions of that are true; it's not entirely true. There is a civil service which prevents politicization of our government. While the EPA is managed by the POTUS, he doesn't have the ability to tell squelch free speech. Trump can control what the agency publishes through his political appointees, and it appears he has every intention of doing so. But he cannot control what agency employees say. Agency employees are also protected by whistle blower laws.

Trump can't force agency employees to secretly fudging data. He can control what data is released and what data isn't released. That he can do.

 

Yes, a good leader listens to those who work for them.

 

Haha yes. This term always make me recall the words of General Gregory Newbold apropos the Iraq Invasion. Something about the commitment of US forces to this fight being done "with the casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results". This from a 3 star General in the Marines, i.e. as far from a chickenhawk as it is possible to be.

 

That doesn't parse: what is the name of this "civil service"? Are you referring to the Hatch Act or is there a typo somewhere in there?

For added clarity, we're talking about separate cases with separate issues:

The SS agent likely violated the Hatch Act by essentially campaigning against Trump and probably could have been fired for it before the election (but such things take time...). But now that Trump is President, it is also a direct statement of a possible intent not to do her job, and clearly is firable. This was on her private twitter account.

Things said on government twitter accounts are government communications and are not covered by freedom of speech at all. In other words: you can say things on your personal twitter account that the government can't fire you for, but there's no protection for an insubbordinate government communication.

You didn't specify a difference between personal and government statements in your objection, so that needed to be clarified.

Also, the fact that this even happened and is news is mostly just more media-bashing nothingburgers. Trump's "gag order" and changing webpages are standard procedures for a new administrations, as they adjust official government positions/policies to match their own. So the "gag order" and website changes should not have been news at all. The Badlands National Park Service tweets violated that order and are firable offenses regardless of what their content was.

Once the Trump administration gets organized and the "gag order" is lifted, a tweet of "The pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide...." would still be firable if there is a policy in place forbidding discussion of AGW. But such a tweet by an NPS employee would not be firable if made from their personal twitter account...and it also probably wouldn't make the news for "going rogue".

 

There is a large percentage of chickenhawks* in the Republican Party.

* ----> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenhawk_(politics)

"a political term used in the United States to describe a person who strongly supports war or other military action (i.e., a war hawk), yet who actively avoids or avoided military service when of age."

 

I actually don't think one has to want to actively participate in war in order to advocate it. It's a policy decision.

 

No, I was referring to the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and subsequent legislation which led to the current civil service. It does parse. I'm amazed that someone who is suppose to be an American is totally unaware of the US civil service system. You should have learned this in grade school American history class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_civil_service

Even if true, what doses that have to do with Trump's ability to control what EPA employees can say? Nothing; it has nothing to do with the freedom of speech afforded EPA employees. The Secret Service agent may have violated the Hatch Act. But it's a difficult argument to make given that her statements were not well known and only made known after the election. So it's difficult to see how they might have influenced the election.

One cannot say the same for Comey's very public statements which occurred before the election.

You do realize the Secret Service has responsibilities other than provide personal security for the POTUS? While her statement would disqualify her from protecting Trump; it wouldn't disqualify her from performing any of the other tasked to the Secret Service.

Federal employees can be fired for not doing their jobs. There is a difference. It has less to do with speech and more to do with doing your job as instructed. But there is a process which must be followed. It isn't like private industry.

You didn't get the part where I wrote, "Trump can control what the agency publishes through his political appointees, and it appears he has every intention of doing so. But he cannot control what agency employees say." I think that's pretty clear.

Well, I don't think freedom of speech is a "nothing burger". Suppressing information as the Trump administration has attempted to do and the politicization of agencies of government which have traditionally been non partisan aren't "nothing burgers". Sure, new administrations fill agency leadership with their own appointees. But they don't usually try to suppress and politicize. They don't go back and destroy information or replace it with false data. And that's what EPA employees are concerned about. What Trump is doing is unprecedented.

The "gag" order may never be lifted while Trump is POTUS. They control what happens during work hours and on agency assets, and they can forbid the release of certain information. But they cannot forbid people from exercising their freedom of speech rights.

 

In the case of the USDA and EPA researchers, their normal functioning has always involved communicating with the public directly - this is going to be interesting. EPA research findings and the assessments of EPA scientists on things like water contamination, USDA research findings on things like water shortages, are no longer public information unless cleared by - probably - Steve Bannon's staff.

 

Voter Fraud?
In today's climate it is effectively impossible to find out the truth of the matter.

The most likely outcome will be Trump declaring that the investigation found that there was significant voter fraud and that he had indeed won the popular vote by many millions, many beautiful millions.
Of course he will have to get people to lie to support his alternative truth and that's one of the reason he is doing this.. to force people (employees) to lie about what would normally be considered a triviality so that they become further and more deeply enmeshed in Trumps machinations and guilty of lying to the public thus extorting their future loyalty.

 

That's a given. Trump never backs down. He can't. His personality, his narcissism, won't allow it. When you are perfect, you have no faults, and Trump clearly believes he is perfect.

Trump has said that he received none of the alleged illegal votes. He has said they all went to Hillary. Now how he can know this is more than a little perplexing. He offers to proofs to back up his claims. And he only wants to investigate states which voted for Hillary. I think there is an intimidation effort underway too. He wants to silence any dissent.

 

I notice the USA psychiatric and health organizations (private and public) are totally silent... why is that?
There mustn't be a health professional in the world that is not concerned about Trumps clinical mental state.
Why are they silent?

 

I think they, like the media are on untested grounds. It wasn't until after the election did the media begin to identify Trump's lies as lies or even comment on his overwhelming blatant dishonesty. They feared being labeled as biased - Fox News excepted. It was a failed strategy;
Trump still called them biased both during and after the election.

The main stream media had to find a set of balls. The same applies to those professional organizations.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Trump nuke some country, e.g. North Korea. That would be so very Trumpian.

 

Because real doctors are too smart to try to diagnose someone over the net (or over TV, or from across the room.) And if there are doctors out there who are aware of his mental state - they are under an obligation to not talk about it.