Party Over Country

The Trump camp, they were actively rooting them on. All they cared about was winning. As long as we win, we don't care. That's not America ~ Progressive Talker Stephanie Miller on the 11/23/2016 airing of her show, re Russia hacking the DNC.

With Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead now exceeding 2 million, the evidence continues to pile up that the election was stolen. As I pointed out previously, Donald Trump told us that the election was going to be rigged, and, as investigative journalist Greg Palast has reported, it was. The rigging taking the form of bumping people off the voter rolls via Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's Interstate Crosscheck. A voter disenfranchisement scheme that "purged 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states".

Now there are reports that the vote may have been hacked. The following is an excerpt from the article "Experts calling for recount of presidential ballots in WI, MI & PA due to possible election machine hacking" from New York Magazine.

Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in 3 swing states won by Donald Trump... The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they've found persuasive evidence that results in WI, MI, and PA may have been manipulated or hacked. ... [On 11/17/2016] the activists held a conference call with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Marc Elias to make their case... The academics presented findings showing that in WI, Clinton received 7% fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30k votes; she lost WI by 27k. While it's important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing... that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review — especially in light of the fact that the Obama WH has accused the Russian government of hacking the DNC. The Clinton camp is running out of time to challenge the election. According to one of the activists, the deadline in WI to file for a recount is [11/25]; in PA, it's [11/28]; and MI is [11/30]. Whether Clinton will call for a recount remains unclear. The academics so far have only a circumstantial case that would require not just a recount but a forensic audit of voting machines. Also complicating matters, a senior Clinton adviser said, is that the WH, focused on a smooth transfer of power, does not want Clinton to challenge the election result. (11/22/2016 by Gabriel Sherman).

Also, according to political journalist Bill Palmer the vote totals ending up the way they did are statistically suspicious.

The following is an excerpt from Palmer's DATE You're Not Just Imagining It, The Hillary Clinton Vs Donald Trump Vote Totals Do Look Rigged".

In order to believe that the official vote tallies are legitimate, you have to accept that all of the [following] legitimately happened: African-Americans in the South went from turning out in droves for HRC in the primary to not caring if she won the general election. DJT got 60-something percent of the same-day voting in FL. The polling averages were wrong for the first time in modern history. Trump beat his poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to fall below them. Clinton fell below her poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to beat them. In every state where Trump pulled off a shocking upset victory, he just happened to do it with 1% of the vote. And in an election that everyone cared particularly deeply about [turnout was down]. I can accept any one of the above things happening as an isolated fluke. I cannot accept all the above happening. And so for once in my evidence-driven career, I'm left to believe that the conspiracy theorists are right: the vote tallies are rigged.

I urge you to read the rest of the Palmer article. What I quote above is (a portion of) what Stephanie Miller read on the 11/23/2016 airing of her program (the conclusion). "I'm not a conspiratorial minded person at all" Miller said re the possible hacking of the vote. But the article from Palmer (a "top political journalist") has her convinced the election was rigged.

As am I. And, don't forget that Republicans don't believe in fair elections. They don't believe in making their case to the American people and letting the voters decide. The proof is their efforts to manipulate the vote by disenfranchising as many voters as possible (specifically those who might vote Democratic). As the (now deceased) religious Conservative Paul Weyrich ("notable as a figurehead of the New Right") said "I don't want people to vote... In fact, our leverage goes up as the voting populace goes down".

Further evidence Republicans place Party over Country is their theft of the SCOTUS appointment from Barack Obama. Obama, as the serving president at the time the vacancy occurred (when Justice Scalia died), had the right to select a replacement of his choice. Instead Congressional Republicans stonewalled in the hope that Trump would be elected.

This, even though their internal polling said Trump would likely lose. Prior to election day John McCain announced "I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up". He was talking about obstructing an HRC SCOTUS nomination for 4 years! A clear example of how Republicans put Party before Country.

BTW, as for convincing the Electors to vote for HRC instead of Trump, I read on another blog this would involve "throwing out the rules of the Constitution". An absurd assertion, given the fact that (as per FairVote) "Electors are also generally free agents, as only 29 states require electors to vote as they have pledged, and many constitutional scholars believe those requirements would not stand in a court challenge".

Article 2 does not contain within it a mandate that an Elector MUST vote for the candidate they have pledged they will support. In some states the elector is (by law) required to vote for their pledged candidate, but "the constitutionality of such mandates is uncertain" (as per Wikipedia). In other words, it would be fully Constitutional for an Elector to change his or her vote (although some states fine faithless electors).

As President Obama said, Donald Trump is "uniquely unqualified" to be POTUS. And I, as Obama does, am convinced "the Republic is at risk" if Trump becomes president.

Which is why I strongly believe that every possible legal avenue that exists to prevent Donald Trump from assuming the presidency should be attempted. I pray that Hillary Clinton listens to those who are telling her the election wasn't "free and fair" and that she should call for an audit of the votes in WI, MI & PA. Or that (enough) Electors change their votes so that Trump is denied the presidency.

Denying Trump the presidency is a longshot, but we won't know if it work or not if it isn't tried. I am SICK of stolen elections, and you know Republicans will continue to cheat in future elections. Should the response of the Democrats continue to be only to pump up turnout (in order to overcome the cheating)? Why not attack on ALL fronts? The fear (I'm positive) is that HRC will be painted as a "sore loser" if she contests the results. Which is why she probably won't. And Barack Obama (per the NY Magazine excerpt) doesn't want her to.

So the Dems are just going to roll over and accept the results, even though they almost certainly aren't kosher. But the stakes are just too high. A President Trump will seek to destroy Obama's legacy and roll back rights gained under our first African American president. I say that, FOR THE SAKE OF OUR COUNTRY, we MUST fight to prevent Trump from becoming our 45th president. Because, if Trump becomes president, we will SERIOUSLY be fucked (including the rubes who voted for him).

Also, you KNOW Trump and his supporters would be raising a stink if the election had gone the other way. So why the hell should Hillary supporters stay quiet and accept the results? Because they're afraid of being labeled "sore losers"?! I will never accept that Trump was legitimately elected (SWTD #358). Even if he occupies the White House as the Orange-Buffoon-In-Chief (which he very likely will), that doesn't mean I have to accept it or shut up about the election being rigged.

Petitions You Can Sign
->Call for an audit and recount of the vote. Target: Hillary Clinton (78,160 signatures the last time I checked).
->Demand an Audit of the 2016 Presidential Election. by Verified Voting (66,038 signatures).
->Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President on December 19. Change.org petition. (4,621,738 supporters with a goal of 6,000,000).

See Also
->The NSA Chief Says Russia Hacked the 2016 Election. Congress Must Investigate. [Excerpt] ...the director of the NSA, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release of hacked information during the campaign, and he said, "This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect". ... Russian hackers reportedly targeted state election systems in AZ and IL. ...the Russian deputy foreign minister said after the election that Russian government officials had conferred with members of Trump's campaign squad. (A former senior counterintelligence officer for a Western service sent memos to the FBI claiming that he had found evidence of a Russian intelligence operation to co opt and cultivate Trump).
->Still time for an election audit by Ron Rivest and Philip Stark. USA Today 11/18/2016. [Excerpt] ...if we just want to check whether Donald Trump won the election, an audit might examine even fewer ballots, because it could proceed in stages. First it would check the results in the states Trump won. If auditing confirms those results, there's no need to audit in the states Clinton carried: Trump really won. That means auditing about 700,000 ballots in the 29 states Trump won, about 0.5% of the ballots cast in this election.

SWTD #361