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ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

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Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#61
post #32

US politics is cooked. I wonder if polymarket will start taking bets on mid-terms being canceled.

Why would you wonder that: https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-2026-midterm-elections... Of course they are.

Wow, 97% that there will be elections. That's high, but if you handed me a gun with a 3% chance of being loaded and offered me a billion dollars to point it at my head and pull the trigger, I would not. My foot on the other hand...

Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#63
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not counting the SAVE Act as an “initiative”? Even if it doesn’t pass, it’s certainly keeping the idea of election uncertainty front and center going into the midterms. Which gives cover to the local officials who have been inserted all over the country to mess things up.

I’m not sure what you’re asking. All I’m saying is they keep saying they’re “going to prove it” and when they find no evidence, they don’t stop acting like they’re going to solve the problem that they know doesn’t exist. The investigations are a waste of time and money because they already decided it’s true. They don’t care what the results are.

I’m responding to the “quietly disbanded” part. Neither is true; they continue to loudly come up with new initiatives. I don’t even know that they “decided it’s true”, as that’s irrelevant to the strategy, which is just to maintain a continuous atmosphere of loud uncertainty.

Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#64

This process has been carried out, publicly, a few times. Every time the results not only fail to support the current regime's narrative, they actively goes against it. So, the question becomes: "Who is getting kickbacks for this 'deal'?" More importantly, how in the hell it this under the purview of ICE? Agencies and units have strictly outlined mission statements they are not supposed to go outside of. What kind of…

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Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#65
post #7

Pretty sure you're supposed to get a warrant to access private information. I don't know how we ended up in this place where somehow paying for info precludes the necessity to get a warrant a la flock, cell tower data, etc.

The legal argument is that we gave this data "voluntarily" to the data broker so the government no longer needs a warrant. This is an area that desperately needs new laws to catch up to the reality of what is going on, but I don't really see much motion toward that goal in the near future.

agreed. The sale of data is effective a run around existing law that forbids govt to collect it.

This is a huge issue. Privacy is dead as long as the government can buy its way around it.

Sheriffs depts and FLOCK, Ring Cameras, FBI , etc.

Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#66

This process has been carried out, publicly, a few times. Every time the results not only fail to support the current regime's narrative, they actively goes against it. So, the question becomes: "Who is getting kickbacks for this 'deal'?" More importantly, how in the hell it this under the purview of ICE? Agencies and units have strictly outlined mission statements they are not supposed to go outside of. What kind of…

ICE is Trump's private army, and their only loyalty is to him (and Stephen Miller, who's actually the puppet master here).

All of this is a painful lessons that institutions are not things, they are agreements and if someone with enough power does not agree than the institution is reshaped by that disagreement.

Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#67
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boring truth is they’ll find nothing and the admin will pretend it never even looked. They’ve done this already with all the “very real and provable voter fraud” they investigated in previous elections. All the initiatives quietly disbanded after saying they found nothing. They can’t even say they’ve found evidence when pressed https://newrepublic.com/post/213185/trump-election-fraud-guy...

Are you not counting the SAVE Act as an “initiative”? Even if it doesn’t pass, it’s certainly keeping the idea of election uncertainty front and center going into the midterms. Which gives cover to the local officials who have been inserted all over the country to mess things up.

Indeed. If the law passes they can use it. If the law doesn't pass, they can run against it not having passed.

There is a non-trivial chance that Trump prefers the latter and he'd end up vetoing SAVE because it has some small amendment he claims to hate.

Worth remembering that there was strong bipartisan immigration reform on the table in 2024 that Biden would have signed, but Trump told its own GOP co-sponsors not to pass it because it was easier for him to run against "open borders".

Drummed-up fear from the absence of the SAVE act might be the one thing that gets Trump's disillusioned base out to vote for him. By contrast, getting the SAVE act passed might be a dog-catches-car thing.

Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government never needs a warrant merely to ask for info, and a private entity doesn't need a warrant to voluntarily hand over info that they have. If we had decent privacy protections then a private entity couldn't decide to just hand over whatever data they have on others, but, well, we don't.

Increasingly it's becoming necessary to disclose data to private entities just to survive and live a reasonable approximation of a normal life. Why have constitutional protection against search if in practice nothing can be shielded from such searches?

> Why have constitutional protection against search if in practice nothing can be shielded from such searches?

Now you begin to understand.

And it is extremely unlikely we ever get a constitutional amendment to fix it. We're more likely to simply fall apart as a nation first.

Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#69

This is shocking and scary amount government over reach, to fabricate evidence of something that everyone knows is false... We are really through the looking glass here, folks. Watch the confirmation hearings where potential appointees are asked to simply state factually who won the 2020 residential election. The amount of dissembling, avoidance, and inability to say that the emperor has no clothes..... it's just sho…

The problem is that everyone doesn't know this to be false. A substantial portion of the population "knows" it to be true.

Because California has systematically made it impossible to audit elections there.

You have to be disinformed to think elections there are secure, you can't possibly know they are.

Re: ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud

#70
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that everyone doesn't know this to be false. A substantial portion of the population "knows" it to be true.

Because California has systematically made it impossible to audit elections there. You have to be disinformed to think elections there are secure, you can't possibly know they are.

Are you seriously suggesting that Trump would have won California if not for cheating?
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