
Conspiracy theory for the day - rossdavidh
Recent attacks on Internet infrastructure, are somebody getting ready to shut down internet news on the day of&#x2F;day after the election.  So, who would want to do that, and why?
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AnimalMuppet
(Dons tin-foil hat.)

Two good possibilities that I can think of. First, Russia seems to definitely
prefer Trump. They might want to create some kind of chaos/disturbance to make
the vote "invalid" in some way. But that attack might be early on the day of,
trying to create enough insanity that people didn't go to the polls.

Second, Trump has made noises about not accepting the results of the election.
He has the potential to trigger a civil war (or at least widespread unrest and
violence) by his choice of words immediately after the polls close. The US
government might want to slow the propagation of inflammatory words at that
time; shutting down the internet seems like a reasonable step in that
direction.

~~~
stray
Or _maybe_ so a rigged election can be completely stolen if Trump wins in a
landslide despite the rigging.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
_If._

I don't think that's going to happen, though - either the rigging or the Trump
landslide.

~~~
stray
The Trump landslide is nearly guaranteed.

There is _far_ more excitement today for Trump than there was for Reagan back
in 1980. The only difference is that the news media were not trying to hide
the fact 36 years ago.

It may not be obvious to you if you live in one of a few echo chambers like
SV, but drive around anywhere else and you'll see _very_ little excitement for
the other side.

As for the rigging -- believe what you want to believe -- it's going to fail
anyway.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'm in Utah. I was at the Republican caucus for my area. The opposition to
Trump was extremely high.

I don't know where you are and where you get your information, but I'm pretty
sure that Trump is not winning in a landslide.

I was visiting Scotland just a couple of weeks before the vote to leave the
UK. I correctly predicted that "No" would win, though I was off on margin of
victory by 6 points. As an outsider, and knowing nothing of the issues, I
could see that the "Yes" people were more vocal and the "No" people were more
quiet, and therefore that if you got the sense of where the vote was going
based on the amount of noise, you were going to over-rate "Yes".

I think it's the same thing here. The Trump supporters are _vocal_. Hillary
supporters are more "Meh, at least she's not Trump". Don't mistake the amount
of noise for the number of votes.

~~~
stray
I've driven just short of 45,000 miles this year -- over most of the country.
And there are easily 30 trump signs for every hillary sign.

The hillary "support" is mostly fake. Just like the fake Carter support in
'80.

You'll see.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
We'll see, certainly.

A question for you: Suppose that Trump loses. Are you going to believe that it
had to be rigged? Or are you going to decide that you were wrong in how you
read the country?

(BTW, for whatever it's worth: Here in Utah, there's plenty of political
signs, but very few for either Trump or Hillary. Nobody feels enough in favor
of either of them to put up signs. I've seen more signs for Gary Johnson than
for anyone.)

~~~
stray
It has been rigged. That won't change if Trump wins. It will still have been
rigged, but the people will have overcome that handicap.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Evidence?

~~~
stray
The _system_ is rigged as evidenced by outrageously lopsided support verging
on Soviet level propaganda. And at least some electronic voting machines
manufacturers have clear conflict of interest because of association with
Clinton Foundation.

Not to mention the emails (verifiable through DKIM) released by Wikileaks
outlining the rigging of the Dem primaries -- as well as Project Veritas
videos some of which are corroborated by FEC filings, CNN video, and other
mainstream media sources.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Most of the media is on one side. I accept that statement. (Though I'm not
sure that Fox is "fair and balanced", either.)

DNC was clearly on Hillary's side, which is not what they're supposed to be
doing. I accept that as well.

To most people, though, "the election is rigged" means "the votes are not
counted honestly". Do you have evidence of _that_?

~~~
stray
You mean like Chambers County, Texas?

They pulled electronic voting machines and switched to paper ballots because
the machines were switching the presidential votes from Trump to Clinton for
people who had voted all-republican?

[http://www.12newsnow.com/news/local/programming-issue-
briefl...](http://www.12newsnow.com/news/local/programming-issue-briefly-
forces-chambers-county-voters-back-to-paper-ballots/341655957)

[http://www.fox26houston.com/news/local-
news/213659018-story](http://www.fox26houston.com/news/local-
news/213659018-story)

I think machines that change votes to favor Clinton -- and _ONLY_ Clinton --
counts as votes not counted honestly. Would you agree with that?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, it counts as votes not being counted _accurately_. It's only not being
counted _honestly_ if it's deliberate.

Also, one county in Texas is not going to hand Clinton the election. Is there
any evidence that this is systematic and country-wide? Or is it just one
incident in Texas?

Look, all votes should be counted accurately. But it's going to take probably
more than a million votes changing to change this election. Anything less than
that is still a problem, still needs fixed, but isn't going to change the
result.

~~~
stray
So we're just going to keep moving the goalposts?

I don't believe you're arguing in good faith.

What does it take to convince you? Does video evidence of people involved in
the Clinton campaign bragging about voter intimidation suffice? Or do you not
think voter intimidation counts as rigging an election?

So what's good enough? We've got some pretty damning emails that can be proven
not to have been altered (DKIM) -- is that good enough?

Clearly, voting machines supplied by companies with ties to the Clinton
foundation having "glitches" that always work in favor of Clinton isn't good
enough.

Do we consider Clinton having received debate questions beforehand to be
rigging? Or do we just ignore that a candidate for President of The United
States has just been proven to have _CHEATED_ \-- because that cheating wasn't
dishonestly counting votes with _PROVABLE INTENT_?

I could bring up the _" coincidence"_ of the Democratic Party bus caught
illegally dumping raw sewage on the side of a road in my hometown --
miraculously coinciding with an unprecedented early voter turnout. But why
bother? We'll just move the goalposts further.

Whatever. It doesn't matter. Because even with a completely rigged system --
we're going to elect Trump anyway.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'm not moving the goalposts at all. I told you several posts upthread what
the word "rigged" meant to me. (That was your word, but you didn't define it,
so I did, because I suspected that we didn't share the same definition. So if
I'm moving the goalposts, I did it then, and it's taken you until now to
notice :-)

~~~
stray
I defined the rigged election as comically lopsided MSM support for Clinton
and conflict of interest regarding voting machines -- but you wanted to define
it instead, as "the votes are not counted honestly".

I didn't think it completely reasonable to restrict the definition that way,
but accepted it.

You asked for evidence of your more restrictive definition -- and I provided
it. There's plenty more now. And Pennsylvania State Police seem to be in the
middle of a raid that'll likely provide yet more.

You decided that machines removing or changing votes was "votes not being
counted accurately" (apparently in your world, changing votes after they've
been cast is only inaccurate -- not dishonest) -- and continued "It's only not
being counted honestly if it's deliberate."

So first we moved the goalposts to establishing evidence of votes not being
counted honestly.

Then when that evidence was provided, suddenly the goalposts move to proving
it was deliberate?

But not only that, you nudge the goalposts further by asking "Is there any
evidence that this is systematic and country-wide? Or is it just one incident
in Texas?"

Let's review the movement of goalposts:

\- move from my assertion that the _system_ is rigged to your more limited
"the votes are not counted honestly"

\- move from there to "It's only not being counted honestly if it's
deliberate."

\- move from there to "Is there any evidence that this is systematic and
country-wide? Or is it just one incident in Texas?"

There is in fact, evidence from the Dem primaries that voting machines with
paper audit trails matched pretty closely to exit polls -- but machines
without a paper audit trail disproportionately voted for Clinton.

Widespread.

Country-wide.

So where shall the goalposts move now? Do we have to get video of somebody on
team Clinton erasing and changing votes on paper ballots? (you _do_ realize we
have video of that too during the primaries, right? -- you know, the very
recent rigged election where the nomination was stolen from Bernie Sanders)

------
stray
Same people trying to silence Wikileaks?

