In letters to Kamala Harris, voting-security experts Duncan Buell and Stephen Spoonamore point to signs the 2024 election was "willfully compromised"

Stephen Spoonamore (right) greets a voter (Mother Jones)

 

Part One of Two

A widely respected election-security expert named Stephen Spoonamore has informed Vice President Kamala Harris via a "duty to warn" letter that the 2024 presidential election has shown strong signs of being hacked, and he recommends she do the following: 

(1)You should reverse your concession, call for both a full investigation of criminal activity, and demand hand recounts in all seven swing states; 

(2) Spoonamore obviously is taking peculiar data surrounding the election seriously. Why? He explains: "In my professional view there are multiple and extremely clear indications the Presidential vote was willfully compromised."

(3) "I wholly agree with the public letter of Duncan Buell, et. al. of Nov. 13 stating they believe there is a possibility of hacking and calling for hand-recounts.

https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/letter-to-vp-harris-111324.pdf

This letter’s clear call to action  is commendable, but its cautious tone may belie the severity of what I believe has happened. In my view it is a near certainty the results have been changed at a scale which reversed the US Presidential Election. They imply there is a chance a hand recount will show you won more votes. I am stating a hand recount will most likely show you did win.  Both letters call on you to act.

The contents of the Duncan Buell letter dated Nov. 13, 2024, and referenced at the link above contains insightful information, and we will run that immediately below, highlighting key segments in parenthesis.

After that, we will begin Spoonamore's letter, highlighting the material we believe is most important for the American people to understand at this time.

----------------------------------------

November 13, 2024
The Honorable Kamala Harris
The White House
Office of the Vice President
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Vice President Harris,
We write to alert you to serious election-security breaches that have
threatened the security and integrity of the 2024 elections, and to identify ways to
ensure that the will of the voters is reflected and that voters should have confidence
in the result. (The most effective manner of doing so is through targeted recounts
requested by the candidate. In the light of the breaches, we ask that you formally
request hand recounts in at least the states of Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and
Pennsylvania. We have no evidence that the outcomes of the elections in those
states were actually compromised as a result of the security breaches, and we are
not suggesting that they were. But binding risk-limiting audits (RLAs), or hand
recounts, should be routine for all elections, especially when the stakes are high and
the results are close. We believe that, under the current circumstances. when
massive software breaches are known and documented, recounts are necessary and
appropriate to remove all potential doubt and to set an example for security best
practices in all elections.)

(In 2022, records, video camera footage, and deposition testimony produced
in a civil case in Georgia1 disclosed that its voting system, used statewide, had
been breached over multiple days by operatives hired by attorneys for Donald
Trump.2,3 The evidence showed that the operatives made copies of the software that runs all of the equipment in Georgia, and certain other states, and shared it
with other Trump allies and operatives.4

(Subsequent court filings and public-records requests revealed that the
breaches in Georgia were part of a larger effort to take copies of voting system
software from systems in Michigan,5 Pennsylvania,6 Colorado7 and Arizona,8 and
to share the software in the operatives’ network. According to testimony9 and
declarations10 by some of the technicians who have obtained copies of the
software, they have had access for more than three years to the software for the
central servers, tabulators, and highly restricted election databases of both Election
Systems & Software (ES&S), and Dominion Voting Systems, the two largest
voting system vendors, constituting the most severe election-security breach
publicly known.

(Combined, their equipment counts nearly 70% of all votes nationwide.
Ninety-six percent of Arizona voters use Dominion and ES&S equipment; 100% of
Georgia voters vote on Dominion machines; 98% of Nevada votes on Dominion machines and the remainder uses ES&S; 69% of Michigan voters’ ballots
are counted on Dominion or ES&S equipment; 89% of Pennsylvania voters ballots are counted on Dominion or ES&S equipment; ES&S counts 92% of North
Carolina ballots; and either ES&S or Dominion counts 97% of Wisconsin votes.11

1 No. 17-cv-02989-AT (N.D. Ga. filed Aug. 8, 2017).
2 Emma Brown, Jon Swaine, Aaron C. Davis, Amy Gardner, “Trump-allied lawyers pursued voting
machine data in multiple states, records reveal,” The Washington Post, (August 15, 2022). Available
at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/08/15/sidney-powell-coffee-county-sullivan-
strickler/
3 Kate Brumback, “Video fills in details on alleged Ga. election system breach,” The Associated Press,
(September 6, 2022). Available at: https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-technology-
donald-trumpthat runs all of the equipment in Georgia, and certain other states, and shared it
with other Trump allies and operatives.
4 Emma Brown, Jon Swaine, “Inside the secretive efforts by Trump allies to access voting machines,”
The Washington Post, (October 28, 2022). Available at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/10/28/coffee-county-georgia-voting-trump/
5 Clara Hendrickson, “Did data from Georgia voting machine breach play a role in alleged Michigan
election plot?”, The Detroit Free Press, (August 31, 2023). Available at:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2023/08/31/michigan-and-georgia-voting-machine-breach-
connection/70702597007/
6 Jeremy Duda, “Group led by ‘kraken’ lawyer Sidney Powell hired the firm recounting AZ’s election
to probe election in Fulton Co.” Pennsylvania Capital-Star, (May 24, 2021). Available at:
https://penncapital-star.com/government-politics/group-led-by-kraken-lawyer-sidney-powell-hired-
the-firm-recounting-azs-election-to-probe-a-pa-election/
7 Christina A. Cassidy, “Georgia election indictments highlights wider attempts to illegally access
voting equipment,” Associated Press, (August 15, 2023). Available at:
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-trump-indictment-voting-machines-conspiracy-theories-
bc3db57cabd25fd8e335f85ed299e79c
8 Maritsa Georgiou, “Arizona voting system data sent to Montana lab as part of the latest audit,”
NBC Montana, (June 3, 2021). Available at: https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/arizona-voting-
system-data-sent-to-montana-lab-as-part-of-latest-audit
9 See eg., Lenberg Dep. No. 17-cv-02989-AT Document 1613, page 101-102. Available at:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t9pkebeb44dg3it/Ex%2024%20%201613%20Depo%20Jeffrey%20Lenberg.
pdf?dl=0
10 Michigan 6th Circuit Court Oakland Case No. 2023-285759-FH, MTN to Quash, Sep. 30, 2024.
Pages 188, 240-241, 295 and 298. Available at: https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-
content/uploads/2024/11/20240930_motion_fld_to_quash_indictment

(Possessing copies of the voting system software enables bad actors to install
it on electronic devices and to create their own working replicas of the voting
systems, probe them, and develop exploits. Skilled adversaries can decompile the
software to get a version of the source code, study it for vulnerabilities, and could
even develop malware designed to be installed with minimal physical access to the
voting equipment by unskilled accomplices to manipulate the vote counts. Attacks
could also be launched by compromising the vendors responsible for programming
systems before elections, enabling large scale distribution of malware.

(In December 202212 and again in 2023,13 many of us, concerned by the
security risks posed by these breaches, wrote to the Attorney General, FBI
Director, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director
outlining the security concerns and urging an investigation. Though there have
been limited, localized investigations,14 there is no evidence of a federal
investigation15 to determine what was done with the misappropriated voting
software.

(Other relevant parties have pointed to the serious risks posed by the
misappropriation of the voting software. Before it was known that partisan
operatives had taken the software, Dominion Voting Systems objected vehemently
to providing its software to the same partisan actors who ultimately got copies
through voting-system breaches, stating that to give its software to biased actors
would cause “irreparable damage” to the “election security interests of the
country.”16 

(Before the breaches in Georgia had been confirmed, the Georgia Secretary
of State’s chief information officer testified that having copies of the software
would provide a “road map” to the ways the system could be accessed.17 The
Georgia Attorney General opposed providing copies of the software to lawyers for
the Trump campaign in a late 2020 election challenge, arguing that images of the
voting system software would provide “the keys to the software kingdom.”18
Notably, U.S. elections are potentially resilient because there are paper
ballots recording the voters’ intent in most states, meaning that even if the voting
system is at risk, the will of the voters can be determined reliably by recounting the
paper ballots by hand (although we are aware that not all paper ballots are verified
by the voter, and not all states take adequate care to protect the ballot chain of
custody.

(Audits will be conducted in some of the most scrutinized states, but in key
states they will not be conducted in a timely way that could reveal any concerns
with the vote count. In addition, in most states the audits are insufficiently rigorous
to ensure any potential errors in tabulation will be caught and corrected, and they
cannot be considered a safeguard against the security breaches that have occurred.
Specifically, Georgia’s audits are non-binding, and Michigan, Nevada and
Wisconsin laws do not provide that the audit be conducted before certification.
Therefore, it would be impossible to know for these critical states if the audits
uncovered errors or miscalculations before the state deadlines to seek recounts.19

(Among swing states, only Arizona’s audit laws ensure that, if enough
discrepancies are identified, the audit hand count will be expanded to correct a
potentially incorrect result. In other words, aside from Arizona, in contested states,
there is no legal mechanism for the audit to correct the outcome, no matter how
much error the audit uncovers. Given these facts, the only guarantee for rigorous,
effective audits of the vote in the swing states will be through candidate-requested
statewide hand recounts.

(The facts around the voting-system breaches are not disputed; it is well-
documented that there were severe, multiple voting security breaches before the
2024 election. To ensure that voters can have confidence that the breaches in security did not taint the results of the 2024 election, we recommend pursuing hand
recounts in, at minimum, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania as they
will provide insufficient safeguards against threats posed by the breaches of the
election software and will not provide important information in a timely way.)

Thank you for your time and consideration of this important matter.

17 See:. No. 17-cv-02989-AT Beaver Dep Document 1368-3 Page 157-158.
18 No.1:20-cv-04809-TCB (N.D. Ga filed Nov. 30, 2020), Document 23, page 13. Available at:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xlvuqfqroogx7vg1sa4p9/Pearson-transcipt-
gov.uscourts.gand.284055.23.0-Clean.pdf?rlkey=aghdw5w34rwqxugdxhnk8ij5b&e=1&dl=0
19 See: Verified Voting Audit Law Databasesecurity.

Sincerely,
Duncan Buell Ph.D.
Chair Emeritus — NCR Chair in Computer Science and Engineering
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering
University of South Carolina*
David Jefferson Ph.D.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory* (retired)
Election Integrity Foundation*
Susan Greenhalgh
Senior Advisor for Election Security
Free Speech For People
Chris Klaus
Founder
Internet Security System*
William John Malik
Malik Consulting, LLC*
Peter G. Neumann Ph.D.
Chief Scientist,
SRI International Computer Science Lab*
John E. Savage
An Wang Professor Emeritus of Computer Science
Brown University*
*Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply
institutional endorsement.

(To be continued . . . 

(Our next post will focus on Stephen Spoonamore's "duty to warn" letter to Vice President Kamala Harris. The letter provides significant detail on how the 2024 election was hacked -- It raises this question: Did Donald Trump really win, and did Kamala Harris really lose -- and if Trump did not secure a victory under honest and lawful circumstances, how could such a breach happen? 

(Spoonamore's letter suggests Donald Trump might not lawfully be America's president-elect, and he indicates there is more than enough evidence of hacking to demand, at a minimum, a through investigation of the vote-tabulation procedures. The Spoonamore letter is the most detailed analysis we have seen so far of the 2024 presidential election -- and we believe every American, regardless of political affiliation, should read it. Key points in the letter will be revealed in our next post, and we invite you to stay tuned. The future of our democracy might depend on informed and caring Americans becoming intimately familiar with the evidence spelled out in the letter.)

Iran insists it is not trying to kill Donald Trump over his first-term order to launch a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassim Suleimani

(Sky News/YouTube)

 

Iranian officials are telling their U.S. counterparts that they are not trying to assassinate President-Elect Donald Trump, according to a report at The Evening newsletter, of The New York Times (NYT). Under the headline "Iran Told U.S. That It’s Not Trying to Kill Trump; The Biden administration had warned that the United States would consider any Iranian attempt on Mr. Trump’s life to be 'an act of war,' officials said," Reporters Julian E. Barnes and Farnaz Fassihi write:

Iran sent a message to the Biden administration in October saying that it was not trying to kill Donald J. Trump, as Tehran attempted to ease rising tensions with Washington, according to U.S. officials, as well as an Iranian official and an analyst.

The message, sent to Washington through an intermediary, came after a note from the Biden administration in September that warned that the United States would consider any Iranian attempt on the life of Mr. Trump, then the Republican candidate for president, to be “an act of war.”

Since Mr. Trump won the Nov. 5 election, many Iranian former officials, pundits and media outlets have been publicly advocating for Tehran to try to engage with the president-elect and pursue a more conciliatory approach, despite vows from Mr. Trump’s allies to renew a high-pressure campaign against Iran.

Iran's anger toward Trump can be traced to his first term as president and a drone strike that claimed the life of a prominent Iranian military figure. Barnes and Fassihi report:

U.S. officials have said that Iran sought to kill Mr. Trump in revenge for ordering the 2020 drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander who directed Iran’s militias and proxy forces. The Department of Justice has issued two indictments that officials said were related to Iranian plotting against Mr. Trump.

American officials have also accused Iran of plotting to assassinate other Trump administration figures.

The officials interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic messages.

The message exchange was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The message from Iran repeated Tehran’s contention that the killing of General Suleimani was a criminal act, the two U.S. officials said. But it also said that Iran did not want to kill Mr. Trump, according to the U.S. officials, an Iranian official and an Iranian analyst who talks with both sides.

The Iranians said the message to the United States indicated that Iran sought to avenge the killing of General Suleimani through international legal means.

The U.S. officials said the Iranian message was not a letter from a specific official. But the Iranian official and analyst said it was from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the message exchange. But it said in a statement that Iran was committed to responding to General Suleimani’s killing “through legal and judicial avenues.”

During the presidential campaign, American officials warned that Iran was plotting to kill Mr. Trump.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said last week that Iranian plotters had discussed a plan to assassinate him, which Iran’s Foreign Ministry called baseless.

The conflict involving Trump and the death of Suleimani has sparked legal action in the United States. From The Times' report: 

In July, Asif Raza Merchant, a Pakistani man who had visited Iran, was arrested in New York and was later charged with trying to hire a hit man to assassinate American politicians. Investigators believe his potential targets included Mr. Trump.

Intelligence about Iran’s intentions was provided to the Secret Service, which added counter-sniper teams to Mr. Trump’s protective detail ahead of the assassination attempt on him in July, in Butler, Pa., by a lone gunman with no ties to Tehran, according to U.S. officials.

Iran had considered Mr. Trump to be a difficult target because of his Secret Service protection. But after the attempted assassination in Pennsylvania and another near Mr. Trump’s golf course in Florida, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran grew more confident that the former president could be successfully targeted.

That assessment of a growing threat, combined with the attempts on Mr. Trump’s life, prompted both an intense security review and a diplomatic campaign to convince Iran that it was making a grave miscalculation, according to officials.

Elon Musk, who has become a close ally of Mr. Trump, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, at Mr. Musk’s request, the Iranians said — a sign that it is not only the lame duck Democratic administration that is looking to avoid a direct clash, but also the Trump camp. The Iranians said the meeting with Ambassador Amir Saied Iravani, at a secret location in New York City, was about defusing tensions between Iran and the United States under the Trump administration.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

The United States and Iran have not had official diplomatic relations since Iran’s 1979 revolution, when 52 Americans were taken hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and held for more than a year.

The Swiss embassy in Tehran is the official diplomatic liaison between the two nations, but American and Iranian officials have held direct and indirect negotiations in recent years on a host of issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, regional tensions and swapping detainees.

The U.S. and Iranian messages were sent through the Swiss, according to the Iranian official and the analyst.

"Private" Trumpers come out of the closet after their guy "wins," but I suggest they stay hidden because Trump is a reckless guy who already is causing messes

(Axios)

"Secret" Trump voters are "coming out of the closet" after having a major impact on the 2024 presidential election, according to a report from Axios. Are writers Mike Allen and Erica Pandey  on target with their article? I'm not sure about that. In fact, we are working on a number of posts about information that could provide an alternative explanation for some of the peculiar voting data, most of which wound up favoring Trump. I invite readers to check out the Axios piece below, and we would like to know what you think of their conclusions. We welcome your input, either in the comments section of this post or on my Facebook page.

Under the headline "Secret Trump voters have post-election coming out party," Allen and Pandey write:

They're donning MAGA hats in cafes, celebrating on social media and flying Trump flags: Supporters of President-elect Trump in deep blue cities and states are no longer keeping it to themselves, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.

• Why it matters: Trump improved on his 2016 and 2020 margins in almost every state and in most big, blue cities — even New York, L.A. and Chicago.

Many Trump voters in those cities saw his victory as validation, and are acting accordingly. Some residents of liberal enclaves tell Axios they've seen more Trump yard signs go up after the election than before it.

• Many supporters of Vice President Harris are grappling with the fact that their neighbors might not have voted the way they did.

The "secret" Trump vote is not new to this year's election. It has happened before, Allen and Pandey write:

Flashback: The "secret" Trump vote has been a phenomenon for the past few election cycles.

• A study from Columbia Business School found that among those who kept their choice a secret leading up to the 2016 election, two out of three went for Trump.
• "I think people recognize there is some kind of reputational cost of supporting Trump," says Columbia's Michael Slepian, who co-authored the study.

 Zoom in: According to Slepian's research, people primarily keep their votes secret because they're concerned about their reputation, about conflicts with family and friends, and about feeling like they don't belong in their neighborhood or city.

• And while many people who supported Trump will continue to keep mum due to those concerns, others are seeing the rightward shift in blue cities and the broader support for Trump and deciding to go public.
• "There's such a stigma still with being a Trump supporter ... I'm not sure it's gonna be like that anymore," says Jonathan Alpert, a Manhattan-based psychotherapist who says patients told him they were keeping their support for the former president quiet before the election.

It sounds like some of the "private" Trumpers are embarrassed about their choice of a presidential candidate. Given the reckless manner in which Trump is filling out his cabinet and staff, plus dire predictions many experts have made about a second Trump term -- and those experts include historian Allan Lichtman, who has become known as America's "Nostradamus" after correctly picking nine of 10 presidential elections, until Trump broke that streak this year -- "private" Trumpers might want to be deliberate about coming out of hiding to take credit for the president they helped create -- and the messes he already is creating.

Write Allen and Pandey:

On TikTok, Instagram and beyond, some influencers who'd kept their political preferences hidden are going full MAGA, The Cut reports.

My advice? Cool your jets  and chill a bit before going "full MAGA." My sense is that events are coming that you might not want to be associated it. Trump is known for creating chaos, and that is likely what we are going to get early in a second term.You might decide that being a "secret" Trump supporter wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Why did Trump pick RFK Jr. to head HHS? Maybe it's because they both like to deal in debunked conspiracy theories and are unfit for the jobs they have sought

Trump and RFK Jr.

 

Donald Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). And if Kennedy is confirmed, he likely will have doubters watching his actions closely. That might be because Kennedy, according to his bio at Wikipedia, has little if any experience in biomedical science, research, public health, medicine, or any scholastic endeavors in fields you might expect his new position to require. At least one Congressional leader has flatly said Kennedy is the wrong person for the job.

So, why did Trump choose Kennedy and his extremely thin resume? That is not clear at the moment, although both men have histories of spreading misinformation about vaccines, the implementations of masks, and other measures that mitigate the damage viral threats can cause to the human population. Kennedy has spent years touting debunked theories that vaccines cause autism, and that likely has not won him many friends in the scientific community. How did Kennedy, who clearly is not a man of science, take over leadership of the No. 1 health agency in the world?

Meredith McGraw and Chelsea Cirruzzo, of Politico, provide insight into another of Donald Trump's bizarre, unqualified picks to hold a high-level government position. It's to the point that some political observers have written that it appears Trump is making nominations for their "shock value," almost daring Senate Republicans to defy him in the confirmation process. Perhaps RFK Jr. will wind up being a pawn in Trump's political games, which indicate Trump is not serious about running an effective government. Perhaps that should be our biggest concern of all. From the Politico report:

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

The pick, which will roil many public health experts, comes after Trump promised to let Kennedy “go wild” with health and food policy in his administration after Kennedy dropped his own presidential bid to endorse the now-president-elect. It’s also a sign of the opening Trump sees after he scored a decisive electoral victory and Republicans won a comfortable majority in the Senate.

“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump posted on X. “The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.” (This comes from a president-elect whose diet seems to be built around the three major food groups -- Big Macs, pizza, and Coca-Cola.).

Kennedy, 70, thanked Trump for choosing him Thursday night.

“I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,” he posted on X. “Together we will clean up corruption, stop the revolving door between industry and government, and return our health agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science. I will provide Americans with transparency and access to all the data so they can make informed choices for themselves and their families.”

Is it a sure bet that Kennedy will wind up leading HHS? No, it is not, as McGraw and Cirruzzo report:

Kennedy may still face a steep slope to confirmation after his years of touting debunked claims that vaccines cause autism, writing a book accusing former National Institutes of Health official Anthony Fauci of conspiring with tech mogul Bill Gates and drug makers to sell Covid-19 vaccines and said regulatory officials are industry puppets who should be removed.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Kennedy will be treated like all other nominees.

“I don’t have any preconceived notion about it,” Cornyn said.

When asked if vaccine positions might make confirmation difficult: “I’m sure it will come up.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said it’s up to the Senate to confirm or reject Kennedy but was skeptical that he was the right choice.

“Is RFK Jr. the best qualified person in the United States of America to lead us forward as we grapple with an enormous amount of health challenges in this country? The answer is clearly he is not,” Jeffries said.

In recent weeks, Kennedy has hit the media circuit to say he isn’t taking vaccines away from anyone.

“I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacy are out there, and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them,” he told MSNBC the day after Trump’s win.

He also claimed the Trump administration would recommend against fluoride in drinking water, which is added to prevent cavities. Kennedy has said it’s “almost certainly” causing a loss of IQ in children, as some studies have found. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), over which Kennedy could soon be presiding, has compiled a report on the issue that appears to view Kennedy's conclusions as suspect:

Since 1945, the use of fluoride has been a successful public-health initiative for reducing dental cavities and improving general oral health of adults and children. There is a concern, however, that some pregnant women and children may be getting more fluoride than they need because they now get fluoride from many sources including treated public water, water-added foods and beverages, teas, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash, and the combined total intake of fluoride may exceed safe amounts.

Therefore, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) conducted a systematic review of the published scientific literature on the association between fluoride exposure and neurodevelopment and cognition. The NTP released their findings in a State of the Science Monograph (available below under Documents). A corresponding meta-analysis on children’s IQ has been accepted by a scientific journal for publication later in 2024. . . . 

The NTP monograph concluded that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. The NTP review was designed to evaluate total fluoride exposure from all sources and was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoridated drinking water alone. It is important to note, however, that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.

The NTP uses 4 confidence levels - high, moderate, low, or very low - to characterize the strength of scientific evidence that associates a particular health outcome with an exposure. After evaluating studies published through October 2023, the NTP Monograph concluded there is moderate confidence in the scientific evidence that showed an association between higher levels of fluoride and lower IQ in children.

The determination about lower IQs in children was based primarily on epidemiology studies in non-U.S. countries such as Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico where some pregnant women, infants, and children received total fluoride exposure amounts higher than 1.5 mg fluoride/L of drinking water. The U.S. Public Health Service currently recommends 0.7 mg/L, and the World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5 mg/L. The NTP found no evidence that fluoride exposure had adverse effects on adult cognition.

Many substances are healthy and beneficial when taken in small doses but may cause harm at high doses. More research is needed to better understand if there are health risks associated with low fluoride exposures. This NTP monograph may provide important information to regulatory agencies that set standards for the safe use of fluoride. It does not, and was not intended to, assess the benefits of fluoride.

Trump's choice of Matt Gaetz as AG suggests he is serious about retribution, while Tulsi Gabbard pick for intelligence role provides an odd tie to Russia

Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump (center) (WaPo)

Did a solid majority of Americans go to the polls on Nov. 5 with the intention of burning down our country? If so, it is working. After making a string of abominable choices for important positions -- think RFK Jr. over health-care policy, Elon Musk over "government efficiency," Kristi Noem (the "puppy killer") as Secretary of Homeland Security, Pete Hegseth, of Fox News, as Secretary of Defense (heck, even officials at the Pentagon, and with our European allies, had never heard of him. "This is not an entry-level position for a TV-commentator," one of them said."), and Lee Zeldin as Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency, whose voting record in Congress indicates his idea of protecting the environment involves consistently voting AGAINST us having clean air and clean water (not joking!). Speaking of joking, one could call Trump's parade of nincompoops jokes, bad jokes. 

But the real toppers came yesterday when he picked U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) as Attorney General and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (R-Hawaii) as Secretary of National Intelligence. Gaetz' background includes a federal sex-trafficking investigation and an ongoing House Ethics Committee probe for sexual misconduct. Allegations of illicit drug use also cloud the picture. Sounds like just the guy we want to be the "people's lawyer."

An article at The New York Times suggests Trump's choice of Gaetz as attorney general likely is driven by the president-elect's desire to seek retribution against his perceived political enemies -- and he wants Gaetz to be the point person in that effort, knowing Gaetz almost certainly will do as he's told, without asking any uncomfortable questions. From the article:

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Wednesday named Representative Matt Gaetz, the firebrand Republican from Florida, as his nominee for attorney general, a provocative move to install a compliant ally at the helm of the Justice Department as he seeks retribution against those who prosecuted him.

The pick reflected Mr. Trump’s determination to choose as the nation’s top law enforcement official a fierce defender who would not resist his directives or question his claims, as William P. Barr, his last confirmed attorney general, did in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Gabbard is a former lt. colonel in the U.S Army reserve and served in Iraq. But she also met with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria who is known in international circles as a mass murderer. Gabbard has a tendency to embrace Russian talking points, which tend to emanate from, you know, the Kremlin. In short, she has a tendency to tout Russian propaganda. Will that help you sleep at night? Probably not.

What does this say about the American electorate? Well, anybody who was paying attention knew Trump was going to pick loyalists, with barely a concern about competence. Voters should have known Trump was going to produce a clown car of an administration, one that likely will have to function in an environment of unrelenting chaos.

But was that what voters really wanted? Well, maybe not. In recent days, news outlets have been producing a deluge of stories about why Trump won and Harris lost. In so doing, they might be putting the "proverbial cart before the horse." After all, do we know that Trump actually won and Harris actually lost? I have doubts about that. And given that I try to think well of my fellow Americans, I find it hard to believe they went to the polls meaning to vote for a man who was the subject of numerous stories about him being unfit for the job, who admires Adolph Hitler and hopes to replace our democracy with a dictatorship.

More importantly, an election-security expert named Stephen Spoonamore has written that the 2024 presidential election shows signs of being hacked. He spelled this out, primarily, in a "duty to warn" letter to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.  If you take Spoonamore seriously -- and his background indicates he's a serious fellow -- you don't know that Trump won an election that was conducted in a fair and lawful fashion. He might have won by cheating, or having several someones cheat on his behalf. Spoonamore makes it clear that the activities of Nov. 5 need to be investigated. Does anyone in authority have the guts to take on such a task? We need to find out -- soon.

With every nomination of a Matt Gaetz or a Tulsi Gabbard, a sense of legitimacy and inevitability grows around Donald Trump, and it's not because his nominees are qualified. But the more presidential actions he takes, the more he looks like a legitimate president -- even though Stephen Spoonamore tells us he might be an imposter.

As for the Gaetz and Gabbard nominations, how did staff members of The New York Times react to them? Let's say they were underwhelmed. This is from a Times article titled "Trump Transition Updates: President-Elect Wants Matt Gaetz for Attorney General":

President-elect Donald J. Trump continued his flurry of personnel announcements by making his most surprising decision yet, saying on Wednesday that he would nominate Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida to be his attorney general, putting one of his fiercest defenders in line to be the country’s top law enforcement official. And hours later, Republicans cemented their House majority, giving the party full control of Congress when Mr. Trump takes office.

The announcement on attorney general came as Mr. Trump made a triumphant return to the seat of American power that he grudgingly left four years ago, meeting in the Oval Office with President Biden and observing a decades-old tradition that he defied four years ago when he refused to accept his 2020 loss.

Mr. Gaetz, who has already submitted his letter of resignation from the House to Speaker Mike Johnson, is a provocative choice for attorney general, a position that will have direct oversight of the department that Mr. Trump has railed against for prosecuting him in a pair of cases: for retaining government documents after leaving office and for attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 election. Mr. Gaetz was himself the subject of a sex-trafficking investigation that concluded in 2023 when Mr. Biden’s Justice Department declined to bring charges.

Earlier in the afternoon, Mr. Trump said he wanted Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who became one of his most enthusiastic backers, to serve as the director of national intelligence, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida to be his secretary of state.

In their meeting, Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden were gracious to each other in brief remarks in front of a roaring fire inside the Oval Office. After a brief handshake, Mr. Biden said he would make sure Mr. Trump had what he needed for a smooth transition. “Welcome back,” he concluded — an acknowledgment of his failure to prevent Mr. Trump’s return to power, which he had long said was a threat to the core of American democracy.

The president-elect made his own oblique reference to their differences in his response. “Thank you very much,” he said. “And politics is tough, and it’s in many cases, not a very nice world. But it is a nice world today and I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as you can get. And I very much appreciate that, Joe.”

Shortly after the meeting, Republicans in the Senate chose John Thune, the senior senator from South Dakota and their No. 2 in the chamber, to lead them in the chamber in the next Congress. Mr. Thune will replace Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s longest-serving leader. He defeated Senator John Cornyn of Texas, another well-respected establishment Republican, and Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who had been supported by right-wing allies of the president-elect.

Gaetz, the hard-right Republican provocateur, resigned from Congress on Wednesday after being tapped by President-elect Donald J. Trump to be the attorney general, effectively ending a House investigation into allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Even as Republicans on both sides of the Capitol expressed shock at Mr. Gaetz’s selection and skepticism about whether he could be confirmed, his rapid exit brought to a close an inquiry that has hung over his head for years.

Mr. Gaetz, who led the successful effort last fall to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, is one of the most reviled members of his conference. For two years, the Justice Department looked into allegations that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex trafficking laws. The department closed its investigation last year without filing any charges against Mr. Gaetz.

Still, the House Ethics Committee opened an inquiry in 2021 into the sexual misconduct allegations along with claims that Mr. Gaetz misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, accepted impermissible gifts under House rules, and shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, among other transgressions.

With his departure from Congress, the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate Mr. Gaetz. It was not immediately clear whether it would still release its findings. Tom Rust, the chief counsel and staff director for the panel, declined to comment.

Mr. Gaetz has tried to turn the allegations against him into a badge of honor. “I am the most investigated man in the United States Congress,” Mr. Gaetz said of the ethics inquiry when it began, insinuating that the inquiry was merely punishment for undermining Mr. McCarthy’s leadership.

Earlier in the day, some of Mr. Gaetz’s colleagues made no secret of their joy to see him depart.

“Most people in there are giddy about it. Get him out of here,” said Representative Max Miller, Republican of Ohio, speaking about his G.O.P. colleagues who were gathered to vote in leadership elections. He said Mr. Trump had plenty of other good options for nominees, but probably went with Mr. Gaetz to reward his loyalty.

Before Mr. Gaetz’s resignation was publicly announced, Mr. Miller suggested that if the Senate hearings unearthed new and convincing evidence that the misconduct allegations against Mr. Gaetz were true, his colleagues could expel him, as they did Representative George Santos late last year.

Mr. Miller said he and other House Republicans were shocked that Mr. Gaetz had agreed to participate in the Senate confirmation hearings, which involve rigorous and invasive background checks.

“I’m surprised that Matt would do this to himself,” Mr. Miller said. “I want to go get a big bag of popcorn and pull up a front-row seat to that show.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)  said Gaetz was “not a serious candidate,” and compared him to the disgraced fabulist who was expelled from the House last year, saying, “If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now I’m waiting for George Santos to be named.”

Murkowski added that if Trump wanted to get his nominees through, he needed to pick serious candidates.

“It’s his right to name those who he wants to have serve in his cabinet — we get that. But it is also our role to determine whether these individuals have what it takes in these departments, and it is up to us to confirm them. That’s why I think it is really important that we don’t roll over on that role of advise and consent and we move through the nomination process. If we get good candidates, we will be able to move through the nominations process, hopefully, really readily and that’ll be good for the president, good for him to get his team. But when you put forward picks that are really going to generate controversy, and not just controversy on one side of the aisle, it is going to take longer."

Gabbard's nomination also drew a less-than-enthusiastic response from Times' reporters and editors: 

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Wednesday chose Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who became one of his most enthusiastic backers, to serve as the director of national intelligence.

Ms. Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who served in Iraq, has been a longtime critic of the foreign-policy establishment. Her nomination is another sign that Mr. Trump intends to give top foreign policy jobs to supporters who are deeply skeptical of the effectiveness of U.S. military intervention abroad.

The news of Ms. Gabbard’s appointment was first revealed by Roger Stone on his X account. Mr. Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Mr. Trump who was pardoned by the president in 2020, posted the statement about Ms. Gabbard and said Mr. Trump had just sent it to him.

Along with John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the C.I.A., she would be a top intelligence adviser to the White House. She would oversee 18 spy agencies and would be responsible for preparing the President’s Daily Brief, a written intelligence summary assembled each morning. In his first administration, Mr. Trump did not often read the written summary. But he held in-person intelligence briefings, often twice a week or more, engaging his briefers on world affairs, at least on topics that interested him.

It is unclear whether Ms. Gabbard will have a difficult confirmation, but Democratic senators are expected to ask her about her decision to meet with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and her past embrace of Russian talking points.

“These are extraordinarily serious jobs,” said Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It’s why the Senate has an advise and consent process. I have a lot of questions.”

Ms. Gabbard left the Democratic Party after a failed run for the presidential nomination in 2020. Her subsequent enthusiasm for Mr. Trump made her a celebrity among his supporters.

During her 2019 campaign, Ms. Gabbard sparred with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Clinton had said Russia was backing Ms. Gabbard, and that she was a Kremlin favorite who was supported by its propaganda apparatus. Ms. Gabbard shot back that Ms. Clinton was the “queen of the warmongers.”

After Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Ms. Gabbard posted a video on social media repeating a false claim pushed by the Kremlin that the United States was funding biological weapons labs in Ukraine.

The post prompted Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, to say that Ms. Gabbard was “parroting false Russian propaganda.”

Many questions hang over Trump and his nomination process for top government jobs. The choices of Gaetz and Gabbard indicate the president-elect is looking almost entirely at loyalty, with little or no thought given to competence and qualifications. The Gaetz pick indicates Trump is serious about seeking retribution against a wide range of people he believes have wronged him.

Will these nominees serve the American people well? Is this the kind of slipshod operation voters wanted when they cast votes on Nov. 5? And, of course, we have the most important question of all: Did Trump win a fair and honest election, is he really president-elect? Stephen Spoonamore has doubts, and based on that, I suggest all Americans should, at the very least, support a thorough investigation.

As for retribution, does Trump even have lawful authority to instruct Gaetz to go after perceived enemies? Do our Constitution and other laws allow for such ventures? We will address these issues and more in a series of upcoming posts here at Legal Schnauzer.

Trump bumbles and fumbles on Russia-Ukraine negotiations, leaving Putin fuming and setting up Zelensky, Ukraine, and NATO to fend for themselves

 

Putin: Does this man look happy? (Getty)

Has something gone sour with the bromance between Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin? It looks like the answer is yes at the moment. Less than a week after being re-elected to a second term -- what some have called the greatest comeback in political history -- Trump informed Putin that he should not escalate the war with Ukraine. Putin did not react warmly to receiving a directive from the U.S. leader, even though Trump likely finished the request with a "pretty please," uttered through chattering teeth. Was Putin chastened in the least? Nope. His response was more or less an abrupt, "Go to Hell." On top of that, Russian  state media got down and dirty by playing naughty with nude photos of Trump's wife, Melania So, where does that leave U.S.-Russian relations, which were supposed to be one of Trump's few areas of strength? It's hard to say for sure, but they suddenly seem to have turned frosty. Perhaps Putin, chagrined at the thought of seemingly taking orders from Trump, felt the need to remind Trump who holds the upper hand in this power play. And, by the way, he's not the least bit impressed with Trump's historic achievements of late.

Russian TV seemed to land an egregious low blow by placing nudie photos (from her modeling career) of Melania Trump before the nation's viewers. Here is how the Kyiv Post describes it under the headline "Kremlin Power Games Begin: Exposing Melania Nude Photos on State TV; Russian state-run TV show “congratulates” Trump on election by highlighting once and future First Lady modeling career photos, possibly spelling out the power dynamic of the US-Russia relationship":

Russian TV “congratulated” US President-elect Donald Trump on the election by highlighting once and future First Lady modeling career photos, including nude images – likely with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval, in a possible bid to set the Kremlin’s power dynamic of the Putin-Trump and Moscow-Washington relationships. (See image at the end of this post.)

Russian newscasters celebrated Trump's electoral victory with jokes and jabs about the next first couple on prime-time TV last week. The husband and wife presenter team of Yevgeny Popov and Olga Skabeyeva showed the collage of modeling photos on the nationally broadcast Russian show 60 Minutes, as reported by Newsweek. Melania modeled around the world in the 1990s and early 2000s before marrying Trump in 2005.

“Here is how Melania looked in the year 2000. This is the cover of the magazine GQ.” Many of the photos were from a 2000 GQ photoshoot and show Melania completely nude and in suggestive positions.

“The future first lady lies on top of furs in a negligee. Inside the magazine, Melania’s sexy photos near a private plane and aboard the plane. In one of the shots, the model is wearing only her underwear, lying on a blue carpet with the US seal, as though the editors of the men’s magazine knew something in advance about the future of their model,” the presenters said.

Appearing on a popular TV program sanctioned by the Kremlin, the photos almost certainly had to be approved by Putin for airing before they went live. The show aired after Trump reportedly spoke to Putin on Thursday and warned him not to “escalate” Ukraine.

Sharing Melania’s old photos in the popular show was meant to be an obvious slight to the president-elect that spells out the power dynamic of the US-Russia relationship – or at least how Putin would like it to be.

By publicly shaming Trump’s wife, the Russian leader is demonstrating both that nothing is off-limits and who is in the dominant position. The Russian leader has used misogynistic attacks and rhetoric for decades to demean his enemies and bolster his supporters.

The stunt may also have been meant as a subtle threat that the Kremlin holds other embarrassing or politically damaging material that could threaten the 47th president.

Rumors have circulated for decades that Putin may have held onto some sort of incriminating leverage over Trump from the days he traveled to the Soviet Union and later Russia as a businessman. 

Now Putin appears to be using Melania to make Trump understand that Russia has power in many forms, and is not afraid to personally attack the president-elect to achieve its aims. Putin is attempting to set the stage to welcome his ally back into the White House on Russian terms. The president-elect has yet to publicly respond to the “congratulatory” message.

So much for any notion that Trump will earn respect on the international stage. Heck, he's already been dissed by his No. 1 fanboy. How did the Trump-Putin relationship take a wrong turn so quickly? Under the headline "

Putin Gives Trump Massive Middle Finger, Days After Warning on Ukraine; The Russian leader is making it clear that Donald Trump has zero power to stop Russia’s deadly war on Ukraine," Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, of The New Republic (TNR), provides background, writing:

Less than a week after being elected to a second term, President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be the international strong-arm he claimed he’d be.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already waltzed right past a pointed warning from the MAGA leader, sending tens of thousands of soldiers to the Ukrainian war front after Trump told him not to escalate the situation.

Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, told NBC News that Russian forces are “trying to dislodge our troops and advance deep into the territory we control” in Kursk, a city in southwestern Russia that borders Ukraine. Ukrainian forces “continue to hold back” a “nearly 50,000-strong enemy group” in the occupied region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a Telegram post Monday.

Ukraine has warned of a looming counteroffensive in the embattled region for weeks. Among Russia’s allies on the front line include more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers—confirmed by the Pentagon—who are engaging in “combat against Ukrainian militaries,” according to Zelensky.

“There are losses; this is a fact,” he said.

“The importance of this operational area cannot be underestimated given the number of enemy troops concentrated there,” Syrskyi wrote on Telegram. “If it were not for the steadfastness of our soldiers, these tens of thousands of enemies from the best Russian assault units would have stormed our positions.”

Trump had spoken with Putin over the phone on Thursday, reportedly advising the foreign leader not to escalate the war, reminding Putin of America’s military capabilities in Europe, according to The Washington Post.

Russia immediately turned its back on the discussion, claiming that the report was “pure fiction.”

Trump now looks like an impotent tool for making  the bold claim during the campaign that, if elected, he could resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 24 hours. Did any of Trump's supporters actually believe that, or did they allow their hero to play them for fools? Is this what Trump meant by "peace through strength"? If so, it landed with a thud, which rhymes with dud. Houghtaling picks up on that theme:

One of Trump’s biggest and boldest campaign promises was that he would immediately end the Russian invasion of Ukraine—though his philosophy on how to achieve that was suspiciously scant of details and, at times, veered toward solutions that would invariably aid Russia.

In June, Trump said he would be open to an increase in U.S. weapons aid to Ukraine so long as it shows up for peace talks with Russia, reported Reuters.

Trump’s advisers envisioned that the peace talks—which Trump promised to facilitate upon winning in November—would also quietly include Ukraine ceding part of the country that is currently occupied by Russian forces. The concept was drawn up by retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, both former chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council.

Note that Trump's idea for resolving the conflict involved giving Putin exactly what he wants, rewarding Russia for violating international norms by invading and stealing Ukrainian land in the first place.

Ukrainian President Volodymir Zalensky has repeatedly said there will be no peace until Russian troops are expelled from his country and all land is returned. Trump now is trying to back away from any plan that would involve Ukraine ceding land, but he started with an idea that had no chance to succeed. Is this a form of Trump's"negotiating genius"? Houghtaling writes:

Trump’s ardent opposition to NATO—the Western military and trade alliance—has also raised eyebrows, even sparking condemnation from some of his former allies. In February, Trump claimed he told a European leader that he’d allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies if they didn’t “pay” their “bills.” And while Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton cast doubt on the incendiary story, he didn’t question the MAGA leader’s desire to nix the strategic alliance.

“Look, I was there when he almost withdrew, and he’s not negotiating,” Bolton said at the time. “His goal here is not to strengthen NATO, it’s to lay the groundwork to get out."

If Trump has his way, it appears, both Ukraine and NATO will be tossed overboard, and Putin will be emboldened to invade Poland, Belarus, Romania, or whatever suits his fancy. Does that sound like the makings of WWIII? Did Americans really go to the polls and vote for this?

If U.S. voters aren't having "buyer's remorse" already, they should be prepared for that to set in soon.

Melania nude, as seen on Russia TV (greekreporter.com)