This analogy is unfair. In 04, exit polls suggested Kerry had won, and the Bush administration itself had helped fund exit polls in Ukraine that year & supported a Ukrainian election re-do based in part based on the exit polls. In 2020, exit polls favored Biden, not Trump. 1/

2/ US State Dept commentary re the 2004 election in Ukraine and the discrepancy between the exit polls (which suggested a pro-West Yuschenko victory) and official results (which suggested a pro-Russia Yanukovych victory). https://t.co/dwWaTvL8aF
3/ The 2004 election in Ukraine was re-done and produced the opposite result, consistent with the exit polls.
4/ Exit polls in the US around the same time as Ukraine’s 2004 election suggested a solid Kerry victory. Voters had every reason to question why the Bush administration considered exit polls reliable in Ukraine but not in the US at the same time. https://t.co/SwUPeRnGtf
Discussion of Ohio 2004. 5/ https://t.co/PQ50iq5Dv0
Ohio’s Secretary of State that year, Ken Blackwell, was also a co-chair of Bush’s reelection campaign in Ohio. 6/ https://t.co/YGEhK65yxG
Ken Blackwell had also tried unsuccessfully to ban exit polls in Ohio in 2004. 7/ https://t.co/C7MXKm2H5K
Ken Blackwell is a fundamentalist Christian who opposes same sex marriage and abortion even in the case of rape or incest. 8/ https://t.co/xM8nil6vuQ
This discusses Blackwell’s position on abortion. 9/ https://t.co/pt1Tydenlq
Blackwell ran for Governor in 06. But on the morning of the election, EPluribus published proof that GOP operatives w/ ties to Blackwell had routed Ohio’s reported results in 04 to a server in TN owned by Smartech, which also hosted the Bush WH emails. 10/ https://t.co/RlyZtCaKCh
To be clear, this did not prove fraud. But it was shocking to some nonetheless. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but Blackwell then lost his race for Governor. 11/
Here’s a Wired article confirming what EPluribus proved in 2006, while noting that reported results are not the vote tallies themselves. 12 https://t.co/GWjBjEznYS
But a Republican-owned company named Triad also had remote access to at least some of the county tabulators in Ohio, which compiled precinct totals. (Triad provided voting equipment to about 1/2 of Ohio’s counties in 04.) 13/ https://t.co/vvzcGIS284
Triad is owned and run by the Rapp family, including Brett Rapp and Todd Rapp. I found this My Life profile for Todd Rapp, which says his interests include the Second Amendment and “pro-life.” 14/
Mike Connell, who built architecture that routed Ohio’s reported results to Smartech apparently thought abortion was murder. He died in a private plane crash b4 the trial in the case alleging the 04 election was rigged in favor of Bush, an evangelical. 15/ https://t.co/4lYuSXS3DN
None of this suffices to prove fraud. But if provides more than enough cause for concern, and a whole lot more than anything the current pro-Trump faction has come up with. 16/
This statement by @Spoonamore could not be corroborated, but also provided much legitimate cause for concern. 17/ https://t.co/YWua0MsAf8
When Connell was deposed, he acknowledged building the architecture that allowed Ohio’s results to be re-routed to Smartech in TN in the event the main server failed. He said he did not know why the Smartech server kicked in bc he saw no indication the main server had failed. 18/
Connell denied having knowledge of wrongdoing during his deposition, but was then subpoenaed for trial. He died before the trial. Spoonamore had been speaking with him in the interim period & thought his conscience was getting to him. A tragic event all around. 19/
Here’s a link to Connell’s deposition transcript via @TheBradBlog. 20/ https://t.co/arKBv6Tgom
I just noticed that an article about Connell and Ohio 2004 has been tagged by Twitter as potentially “spammy” and “unsafe”. This is the danger of equating Trump’s lies about 2020 w/ legitimate concerns about 2004. 21/
Here are just a few of Team Trump’s lies and misleads. 22/
More. 23/
And by the way, Ken Blackwell is trying to help Trump stay in office. He recently appeared on Steve Bannon’s war room podcast. 24/
Ken Blackwell also co-chairs the International Foundation for Electoral Systems w/ Tad DeVine who worked w/ Paul Manafort to help Pro-Russia Yanukovych make a come back after the 2004 election re-do. They promote “democracy” by assisting other countries w/ election tech. 🙄24/
Isn’t this rich? 25/ https://t.co/an5EU7ctlO
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. Again, Ken Blackwell chairs this group. 26/
Exit polls favoring Biden, not Trump. via @tdmsresearch 27/ https://t.co/rZFnvO1XuE
The greatest disparities [between exit polls and official results in 04] were concentrated in battleground states—particularly Ohio.” 28/

Quote from Harper’s article: https://t.co/WBkz0Kla5I
Article about DeVine working with Manafort to help the pro-Russia Yanukovych (discussed in post 1). 29/ https://t.co/xvGaE7RfWY
BTW, during the 2004 race between pro-Russia Yanukovych and pro-West Yuschenko, Yuschenko was poisoned with dioxin. According to the investigation, the poison was added to the rice which was served at the table."
30/ https://t.co/U2LR85AE0n
“Replying to the question if he believed the Russian leader Vladimir Putin was behind the poisoning Yushchenko replied: ‘I have an answer, but I cannot voice it.’” 31/

More from Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢

IMO, the #SAFEAct is better on election security than HR1 bc it wld ban most touchscreen voting machines currently available. HR1 wld allow them as a primary in person system bc vendors call the paper they spit out a “paper ballot.” Pen & paper is safer #HandMarkedPaperBallots 1/


I have not looked at other aspects of HR1. It addresses more than election security. The #SAFEAct shld be the starting point for election security reform in my opinion. 2/

HR1 requires that all voters have the option to mark their ballots by hand. But it does not specify that, for jurisdictions with in person voting, the hand marked (pen & paper) option must be available for in person voting (vs it only being an option w/ vote by mail). 3/

HR1 may still be a good start. But it does not go nearly far enough on election security. Here are my suggestions for election security. Maybe these could be addressed in a later bill, but we shld keep them on our radar. 4/ https://t.co/mNdHrvwHcN


The key section is 1502. IMO, it shld add the following. “For jurisdictions that offer in person voting, the option to mark a paper ballot by hand must be offered at the in-person polling location; giving this option only for vote by mail won’t suffice for such jurisdictions.” 5/
Good news! The New York State Board of Elections voted yesterday to REJECT certification of ES&S’s ExpressVote XL all-in-one barcode ballot marking device (BMD), a glitchy & hackable touchscreen that ES&S has hoped officials would stupidly buy in lieu of pen and paper. 1/


I’m still trying to find out @NYSBOE’s reasoning, but I know one problem was that the ExpressVote XL runs on Windows 7 and can only mark ballots in English. If the XL were a person, it would be a MAGA. 2/

The XL has other problems. It runs the barcode “paper ballot” back under the printout AFTER the voter reviews it, which experts say means it could be maliciously programmed to eff with the barcode that is the only part of the “paper ballot” counted as your vote. 3/

Unfortunately, Philadelphia did choose the ES&S ExpressVote XL all-in-one ballot marking device (BMD), ignoring expert advice. I wrote about that unfortunate decision here in 2019. 4/

Here, for @NYRBooks, I also discuss problems involving the ES&S ExpressVote XL in PA in 2019. ES&S lobbyists had secretly donated to the two decision makers who then chose this system in Philly in lieu of #HandMarkedPaperBallots (pen & paper). 5/

More from Politics

We’ve been getting calls and outreach from Queens residents all day about this.

The community’s response? Outrage.


Amazon is a billion-dollar company. The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here.

When we talk about bringing jobs to the community, we need to dig deep:
- Has the company promised to hire in the existing community?
- What’s the quality of jobs + how many are promised? Are these jobs low-wage or high wage? Are there benefits? Can people collectively bargain?

Displacement is not community development. Investing in luxury condos is not the same thing as investing in people and families.

Shuffling working class people out of a community does not improve their quality of life.

We need to focus on good healthcare, living wages, affordable rent. Corporations that offer none of those things should be met w/ skepticism.

It’s possible to establish economic partnerships w/ real opportunities for working families, instead of a race-to-the-bottom competition.
1/ Imagine that as soon as the referendum result the EU announced that it was looking forward to the end of free movement of UK citizens in the EU


2/ Imagine if the EU said finally all those retired Brits in the EU27 could go home

3/ Imagine if the EU said finally all those Brits in the EU could stop driving down wages, taking jobs and stop sending benefits back to the UK

4/ Imagine if the EU said it was looking to use UK citizens as “bargaining chips” to get a better trade deal

5/ Imagine if the EU told UK citizens in the EU27 that they could no longer rely on established legal rights and they would have to apply for a new status which they have to pay for for less rights
THREAD

1)
@SidneyPowell1 reflects on #Iran’s meddling in the U.S. in a recent tweet to U.S. President Donald Trump.

This thread focuses on Iran’s dangerous influence in the U.S., especially through its DC-based lobby group


2)
Why is this important?

@DNI_Ratcliffe "told CBS News that there was foreign election interference by China, #Iran & Russia in November of this year [2020]."

All Americans should be informed about how Iran & its lobby group NIAC are meddling in the


3)
#Iran has been increasingly aiming to interfere in U.S. elections specifically through NIAC.

DNI John Ratcliffe had previously shed light on this vital


4)
NIAC is a lobby group in the U.S. pushing Iran’s talking points.

Listen to this Iranian regime insider explain that NIAC was established by @JZarif, the foreign minister of


5)
@tparsi is the official founder of NIAC in the U.S.

Listen to how Trita Parsi parrots Zarif’s talking
What does "patriots in control" mean?
What would that "look like" in reality?


So a massive adult film star in all his glory is included in an official FBI government filing


Hunter Biden's book is categorized as "Chinese


TIME admits to "conspiracy" to "not rig, rather


A "pillow guy" has military-grade intercepts detailing the IP addresses and device MAC IDs of EVERY incursion into every county in the

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I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹