Trump fires cybersecurity director for calling election "most secure in American history"

midian182

midian182

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What just happened? Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), has been fired from his position by Donald Trump after stating that the 2020 Presidential Election was "the most secure in American history."

Krebs was appointed director of CISA by Trump when the agency was founded on November 16, 2018.

According to Reuters, Krebs drew Trump's wrath for setting up and running a website dubbed "Rumor Control," in which experts debunked the election fraud claims pushed by the president and his administration.

The White House is reported to have been especially angry about CISA rejecting one conspiracy theory that claimed an intelligence agency supercomputer and program, purportedly named Hammer and Scorecard, was able to switch votes nationally.

Yesterday, Krebs tweeted that, according to 59 election security experts, allegations of election systems being manipulated were "unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent."

In a pair of tweets yesterday, Trump wrote that Krebs' recent statement on the security of the 2020 election was "highly inaccurate."

"Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency," tweeted Trump.

In a recent post retweeting Mark Hamill, Krebs let his geek flag fly with a couple of Star Wars quotes: "In defending democracy, do or do not, there is no try. This is the way."

Many in the cybersecurity industry have rushed to defend Krebs. "From my view on the election frontlines, Krebs was a great partner and deserves accolades for his work," wrote Gregory Crabb, chief information security officer for the U.S. Postal Service.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/87655-trump-fires-cybersecurity-director-calling-election-most-secure.html

 
#1 The Auto Fack Checks, to me, are absolute LULZ

#2 Elections in America will continue to be wrought with suspicion until we link voting to ID such as enhanced Driver's Licenses or Passports.

Everyone should have a State ID. Even people without cars should have a Birth Certificate which leads to a State ID which doubles as a Work ID which doubles as a flying ID/ Passport.

But we have a "secret ballot" and many people disagree.

What's odd is the exact same people who don't want registration for guns absolutely demand registration for voters.


In reality, voter fraud is less than 1%.

Trump got destroyed by mail-in ballots which effectively allowed more people to participate despite the Covid-19 restrictions.

Over 70 Million voted for him, but more than 75,000,000 voted for Biden, which is not unlike the 2016 election where he still lost to Hillary by 3 million...and comparable to 2008 and 2012 where McCain lost by nearly 10,000,000 and Romney lost by 5,000,000.

These elections are so big and expensive that "do-overs" really aren't necessary and simply recounting the ballots still means that you're gonna come up with similar results. Auditing the vote for irregularities is even more expensive which is why Wisconsin said it will cost him $10,000,000... which he'll never pay himself and can't get from his supporters who are slowly realizing he's done. Even with the recount in Georgia, he's still way behind and can't win.

So now we can see the electorate is close to 150,000,000 (or around half of America's population) More people came out to vote than ever before and we can see that the left has significantly more power (just as we did in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020) in terms of vote count . Given time, the big cities will push enough people into the urban areas to flip red states like Texas, Ohio and PA.

Firing officials is irrelevant. He was right. The election was secure.

You just lost because I came out to vote against you.
 
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Shadowboxer said:
I mean anyone with a brain can see that there is something fishy going on somewhere. Who knows who did the tampering but claiming it was really secure was a bit of a dumb move.
Click to expand...


Once Fox news called Arizona and the backlash started, I knew it was over. I went to bed and woke up to see Trump trailing in over 5 states. The only thing fishy I saw was how magically all the "irregularities" were happening in minority areas. Judging from what happened to Stacey Abrams, I don't trust Georgia either.

Atlanta is to Georgia what NYC is to NY and what Detroit is to Michigan.

Densely populated minority areas which overwhelm the surrounding state and control the electoral votes.

Till the week of elections, the Long Island and Staten Island Trumpers wouldn't dare wear that MAGA stuff inside NYC. They got a boost of confidence, rode it to show themselves off, got into confrontations and now they are nowhere to be seen.
 
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What’s particularly ironic is the fact that those who in 2016 were calling for the “abolishment of the electoral college” because Trump won - are now posting memes on social media tagging Trump in “show me where the Electoral College hurt you”.

I’m not disputing the called results, simply pointing out the irony of how a system is “corrupt and broken” only when your party isn’t the victor, or a court case didn’t go a certain way.
 
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Jobs like this are too important to allow a President to dismiss on a simple whim. While a president must have power over appointed positions there still needs to be a better system of evaluation and review before such dismissals. A simple review of the facts shows that Chris Krebs has always been regarded as a stand up guy with impeccable credentials. He did precisely what his job description required and specifically called for. Such positions are so critical there needs to be a better system in place to prevent arbitrary dismissal without a review and recommendation from an unbiased committee ....... of course, finding one these days would be nothing short of a miracle!
 
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Hexic said:
What’s particularly ironic is the fact that those who in 2016 were calling for the “abolishment of the electoral college” because Trump won - are now posting memes on social media tagging Trump in “show me where the Electoral College hurt you”.

I’m not disputing the called results, simply pointing out the irony of how a system is “corrupt and broken” only when your party isn’t the victor, or a court case didn’t go a certain way.
Click to expand...

The party that said "F your feelings" got f in the feelings. Biden is also up by 5mil in popular votes.
 
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This is a very frightening new aspect of the United States, people who are willing to believe ANYTHING. Trump's so-called "legal challenges" are getting struck down and thrown out left and right. The White House makes all of these claims but backs it up with ZERO evidence and ZERO methodology of how they came to their "conclusions". It's like the people who claimed that the RX 6000 series would match the RTX 2080 Ti AT BEST. Using proper methodology, several people managed to accurately speculate what the performance of the new Radeons would be. This is no different.

The number of people who thoroughly believe that the election was rigged just because the biggest liar in US presidential history says so shows that the USA is not the stable and intelligent republic that it used to be. As a Canadian, I'm finding the fact that I'm also a citizen of both the UK and the EU extremely comforting right now because it means I can escape if the USA devolves into utter chaos.

I suppose that the Americans' insular way of not seeing what's going on outside of their borders has a lot to do with it. This problem is only compounded by the US corporate media and their public education system that focuses almost entirely on the USA. When your citizens can't find their own country on a globe, that's a serious problem. When a non-insignificant number of those people claim that the globe itself is invalid, you get a large enough base of people whose belief systems aren't based on evidence, but on how much they like the message and the person delivering it.

During the Democratic primary, I saw so many lies that Americans believed about universal healthcare spouted by the so-called "Left-Wing Media". Canada, a country that has a GIGANTIC undefended border with the USA, has had it for my entire life (I'm over 40) and yet Americans know NOTHING about it. The only way to normalise the way people think in the USA is for the American collective psyche to start thinking of the USA as a part of the world, not another world altogether. Not all Americans think this way of course, but enough of them do to create situations like this. A country can't be constantly reducing taxes by cutting their public education budget and expect to remain viable. The collective consciousness must be an educated one that values provable facts and evidence. In the USA right now, many people are under the impression that opinions are as valid as facts. They're not.

Until then, people like Trump will continue to rise because their "Us vs. Them" rhetoric won't ring as hollow as it does in the rest of the developed world.
 
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Uncle Al said:
Jobs like this are too important to allow a President to dismiss on a simple whim. While a president must have power over appointed positions there still needs to be a better system of evaluation and review before such dismissals. A simple review of the facts shows that Chris Krebs has always been regarded as a stand up guy with impeccable credentials. He did precisely what his job description required and specifically called for. Such positions are so critical there needs to be a better system in place to prevent arbitrary dismissal without a review and recommendation from an unbiased committee ....... of course, finding one these days would be nothing short of a miracle!
Click to expand...
He wasn’t sacked on a whim though was he. He was sacked for going to the press and asserting that the election was very secure whilst court cases proceed behind him with evidence to the contrary. And he clearly did this to cause PR harm to the Trump campaign. He didn’t have to do anything, or he could have stated that we should wait until the court proceedings are finished before making comments. He’s been a bit stupid if you ask me.
 
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Hexic said:
What’s particularly ironic is the fact that those who in 2016 were calling for the “abolishment of the electoral college” because Trump won - are now posting memes on social media tagging Trump in “show me where the Electoral College hurt you”.

I’m not disputing the called results, simply pointing out the irony of how a system is “corrupt and broken” only when your party isn’t the victor, or a court case didn’t go a certain way.
Click to expand...
Hopefully, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will render the Electoral College impotent and irrelevant. That would effectively turn the USA from a Republic that claims to be democratic into a real Democracy.
 
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He got fired for not being a Trump boot-licker.

that being said, I'd fire him too. I don't want to hear equally unsubstantiated hyperbole like "most secure in history". that's just id1otic. our elections are fundamentally unverifiable on purpose and practically designed to be insecure.
for example - if you voted - are you able to individually verify that your vote counted and that it was properly counted? huh, me either.
Judicial Watch regularly sues states to try to *force* them to clean their voter rolls. I don't know about you, but I would love all voter rolls to be clean and accurate. I think it's critically important just psychologically that we all think our elections are above board and secure - but they simply are not.

edit: "id1ot" is censored? who knew
 
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Shadowboxer said:
I mean anyone with a brain can see that there is something fishy going on somewhere. Who knows who did the tampering but claiming it was really secure was a bit of a dumb move.
Click to expand...
Trump commissioned an investigation into voter fraud after the 2016 election - claiming that there were 3 million illegal votes. IMO, it is very interesting that the number he claims is the number of votes by which he lost the popular vote. Is there a link there given Trump's narcissistic personality? Only you can decide, but IMO, there is a link - he could not stand to lose even the popular vote when he won the electoral college.
More so, that same commission, made up of a bipartisan group of representatives from the states, basically told Trump, then already, that there was no evidence of fraud. But here we are, four years after Trump was told that, and Trump is still clinging to voter fraud as the reason that so far, he seems to have lost this election.

IMO, Trump is a wannabe dictator. This firing shows that he is. The DHS official went against his claims and Trump fires him. That is the action of a dictator / despot, not a president of the US. Trump is no protector of the constitution as I see him. He lost, and he is doing anything and everything to stay in power. As I see it, the US as a democracy, is done if he does find some way to stay in power.
 
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messy said:
He got fired for not being a Trump boot-licker.

that being said, I'd fire him too. I don't want to hear equally unsubstantiated hyperbole like "most secure in history". that's just id1otic. our elections are fundamentally unverifiable on purpose and practically designed to be insecure.
for example - if you voted - are you able to individually verify that your vote counted and that it was properly counted? huh, me either.
Judicial Watch regularly sues states to try to *force* them to clean their voter rolls. I don't know about you, but I would love all voter rolls to be clean and accurate. I think it's critically important just psychologically that we all think our elections are above board and secure - but they simply are not.

edit: "id1ot" is censored? who knew
Click to expand...
Well, Trump cannot prove any evidence of wrong-doing, and I doubt you can provide any either. People like the DHS official do not say stuff that they cannot back up in some manner. Only Trump does that. I bet that at least some of what the DHS official was saying was based on classified intelligence - that Trump should be privy to.

One instance of fraud I heard of was a Trump supporter attempting to vote twice - probably because Trump told him so. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-vote-idUSKBN25U0KK
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-vote-twice-north-carolina/


Off-topic - TS starting another firestorm.
 
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wiyosaya said:
Trump commissioned an investigation into voter fraud after the 2016 election - claiming that there were 3 million illegal votes. IMO, it is very interesting that the number he claims is the number of votes by which he lost the popular vote. Is there a link there given Trump's narcissistic personality? Only you can decide, but IMO, there is a link - he could not stand to lose even the popular vote when he won the electoral college.
More so, that same commission, made up of a bipartisan group of representatives from the states, basically told Trump, then already, that there was no evidence of fraud. But here we are, four years after Trump was told that, and Trump is still clinging to voter fraud as the reason that so far, he seems to have lost this election.

IMO, Trump is a wannabe dictator. This firing shows that he is. The DHS official went against his claims and Trump fires him. That is the action of a dictator / despot, not a president of the US. Trump is no protector of the constitution as I see him. He lost, and he is doing anything and everything to stay in power. As I see it, the US as a democracy, is done if he does find some way to stay in power.
Click to expand...
Yeah I got the impression you don’t like Trump don’t worry pal 😊. Personally I don’t care that much but from where I am in the U.K. the numbers are a bit fishy, such a high postal vote turnout and general turnout altogether but only in the swing states? Trumps general trend being that he increased his vote share but also not in the swing states?
Maybe both parties engaged in Fraud, maybe Trumps side engaged in it and it backfired. Or maybe the democrats interfered. I don’t care, I don’t want to start a democrats vs republicans argument. But for this cyber security chief to just go out there and say nothing is wrong whilst your courts hear evidence is just stupid and actually probably only serves to make it look like he’s trying to cover things up as he has made the statement before due process.
 
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Shadowboxer said:
Yeah I got the impression you don’t like Trump don’t worry pal 😊. Personally I don’t care that much but from where I am in the U.K. the numbers are a bit fishy, such a high postal vote turnout and general turnout altogether but only in the swing states? Trumps general trend being that he increased his vote share but also not in the swing states?
Maybe both parties engaged in Fraud, maybe Trumps side engaged in it and it backfired. Or maybe the democrats interfered. I don’t care, I don’t want to start a democrats vs republicans argument. But for this cyber security chief to just go out there and say nothing is wrong whilst your courts hear evidence is just stupid and actually probably only serves to make it look like he’s trying to cover things up as he has made the statement before due process.
Click to expand...
Certainly, Trump gave every voter that exercised their right to vote inspiration to vote this year whether or not the votes were for him or against him.

Interestingly enough, Trump hired a supporter of his for the head of the Postal Service in the US, and the postal vote turnout was substantial. I think that is because of COVID fears - rightly so, IMO.

Prior to the election, all the election watchers were saying that it would appear that Trump won the election on Election night, however, that would change as absentee/ mail in votes were tabulated. Why? Because voting in that manner favors people who vote democratic. IMO, this is the prime reason Trump is fighting against mail in /absentee votes - he knows that the part of the electorate that votes in that manner typically votes democratic. As I see it, Trump is trying to suppress votes from that part of the electorate - which could also be considered "tampering with the election process". Trump does not GAF as long as he wins somehow.

There is a very interesting program called "Frontline" on US public broadcasting. IMO, Anyone looking for more understanding of Trump's personality, though I doubt most of his supporters would believe it, should watch this particular episode of that program if possible. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2020-trump-vs-biden/
 
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Shadowboxer said:
Yeah I got the impression you don’t like Trump don’t worry pal 😊. Personally I don’t care that much but from where I am in the U.K. the numbers are a bit fishy, such a high postal vote turnout and general turnout altogether but only in the swing states? Trumps general trend being that he increased his vote share but also not in the swing states?
Click to expand...
The high voter turnout happened literally everywhere in the states, not just the swing states. https://time.com/5907062/record-turnout-history/
 
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Shadowboxer said:
He wasn’t sacked on a whim though was he. He was sacked for going to the press and asserting that the election was very secure whilst court cases proceed behind him with evidence to the contrary. And he clearly did this to cause PR harm to the Trump campaign. He didn’t have to do anything, or he could have stated that we should wait until the court proceedings are finished before making comments. He’s been a bit stupid if you ask me.
Click to expand...

what evidence? Trump's lawyers were forced to say they had no evidence.


on top of that his lawyers are now saying they're not claiming fraud, but procedural technicalities.

Trump's attempt at a coup will fail this time, but what he will do is normalize this behavior and make a coup easier the next time there is a close election.
 
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Avro Arrow said:
Hopefully, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact will render the Electoral College impotent and irrelevant. That would effectively turn the USA from a Republic that claims to be democratic into a real Democracy.
Click to expand...

Hopefully others will see the importance of the electoral college, and critically think their way through why it was established, and why it’s not the perfect system but it still holds 1 person 1 vote just as popular vote would.

But hey, critical thinking is hard to come by so let’s go for it.
 
Hexic said:
Hopefully others will see the importance of the electoral college, and critically think their way through why it was established, and why it’s not the perfect system but it still holds 1 person 1 vote just as popular vote would.

But hey, critical thinking is hard to come by so let’s go for it.
Click to expand...

Critical thinking alert: The electoral college is not 1 person= 1 vote. It's literally the opposite of that.
 
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