Just say 'thank you'.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Breaking News: Swing States Recounts
On Wednesday November 23rd, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein announced that she will ask for recounts in the three very close swing states if We The People step up and provide the money to do so. (Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania had a difference between Trump & Clinton of less than 100,000 votes.) The first $2.5 million for a Wisconsin recount - Friday deadline - was raised from grassroots donors by the end of the day! The recount costs for Pennsylvania - Monday deadline - and Michigan - Wednesday deadline - total another $4.5 million. As-of Thursday afternoon, the Election Integrity funding webpage has already received $4.1 million!
Just say 'thank you'.
Copyright 2016 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
Just say 'thank you'.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Post-Election Factoids
The American voter has spoken, and they should be ashamed!
The system produced a terrible result, as per election district gerrymandering by the Republican Party back in 2012.
Hillary Clinton won the nationwide popular vote 60,467,601 (47.7%) versus 60,072,561 for Donald Trump (47.4%) – 395,000 more than The Donald.
But Trump-Pence's all-money, no ground-game campaign achieved 306 electoral votes (270 needed to win) versus 232 electoral votes for Clinton-Kaine.
The Democrats needed 73,000 more votes in Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) and 28,000 more votes in Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) and 14,000 more votes in Michigan (16 electoral votes). You could say that the fascists won the election because that many Democratic or independent voters stayed home.
Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson pulled away votes, maybe half from the Democrats and half from the Republicans; in those three states, the Johnson-Weld ticket received 142,653 and 106,442 and 172,073 respectively, enough to alter the electoral result had they not been on the ballot. Johnson-Weld's national total was just over 4 million votes.
The larger picture is that there are 320 million people in the U.S. of A. Of those, there are 230 million eligible voters. Of those, 140 million actually vote in the presidential election cycle. That gives 90 million ungrateful Americans whose self worth is so absent that they threw away this democratic election and surrendered to the fascists.
Plenty of blame to go around. What we need to do now is prevent desecration of the U.S. Constitution by the three branches of the U.S. government now (or about to be) controlled by the fascist Republican Party and the oligarchs who own them.
The next four years could very well be worse – both long-term and short-term – than the eight years of George Dubya.
Copyright 2016 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
The system produced a terrible result, as per election district gerrymandering by the Republican Party back in 2012.
Hillary Clinton won the nationwide popular vote 60,467,601 (47.7%) versus 60,072,561 for Donald Trump (47.4%) – 395,000 more than The Donald.
But Trump-Pence's all-money, no ground-game campaign achieved 306 electoral votes (270 needed to win) versus 232 electoral votes for Clinton-Kaine.
The Democrats needed 73,000 more votes in Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) and 28,000 more votes in Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) and 14,000 more votes in Michigan (16 electoral votes). You could say that the fascists won the election because that many Democratic or independent voters stayed home.
Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson pulled away votes, maybe half from the Democrats and half from the Republicans; in those three states, the Johnson-Weld ticket received 142,653 and 106,442 and 172,073 respectively, enough to alter the electoral result had they not been on the ballot. Johnson-Weld's national total was just over 4 million votes.
The larger picture is that there are 320 million people in the U.S. of A. Of those, there are 230 million eligible voters. Of those, 140 million actually vote in the presidential election cycle. That gives 90 million ungrateful Americans whose self worth is so absent that they threw away this democratic election and surrendered to the fascists.
Plenty of blame to go around. What we need to do now is prevent desecration of the U.S. Constitution by the three branches of the U.S. government now (or about to be) controlled by the fascist Republican Party and the oligarchs who own them.
The next four years could very well be worse – both long-term and short-term – than the eight years of George Dubya.
Saturday, November 05, 2016
Working Minds Essay #110: Voter Suppression 2016
A recent oped by columnist Diane Dimond -- syndicated to small newspapers in New Mexico, New York, Ohio, and other states as well as to many news blogs -- chastises Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg for expressing her opinion; that attack is censorship. While such comments are rare from federal judges, Ginsberg is in full compliance with her First Amend-ment right to free speech.
The editorial policy of these news outlets will, of course, continue to absolve the fascist members of the U.S. Supreme Court from their many impeachable offenses. The secret Powell Memorandum of August 1971 spelled out how to take control of the federal government and that plan is just about fulfilled – except for the pesky matter of citizens still being able to vote. (The millions of dollars spent by the Republican Party on voter suppression is an effort to solve that problem.)
Counting the recently-deceased Justice Scalia, the Fascist Five on the Supreme Court are all members of the Federalist Society and all are signatories to P.N.A.C. (the Project for the New American Century) – each of which alliance is a violation of their oath of office. (It also happens that all five are/were Catholic, but that is not a crime.)
In addition, Justice Thomas worked for Monsanto Chemical for four years, and yet will not recuse himself, saying nothing in court and always voting for Monsanto. He is married to conservative lobbyist Virginia Lamp Thomas, and misses every opportunity to recuse himself whenever issues that she is working on come before the court. Justice Thomas also appears at Republican political fundraiser events.
Justice Scalia served on the Supreme Court for almost 30 years, doing all sorts of damage to civil rights issues. His son Eugene Scalia is a Washington, DC lawyer who has argued before the court; Scalia did not recuse himself on those occasions. Scalia has messed up the court's decision-making even in death, since the Republican Party violates their oath of office by refusing to hold hearings to replace Scalia.
Justice Roberts committed perjury at his confirmation hearings, over the issue of stare decicis (an important judicial term that means ‘bound by precedent’). More importantly, his execrable decision in Citizens United v. F.E.C. declared the United States to be a fascist country. Aside from the wrongness of that decision, he was able to support the decision only with ludicrous legal citations. Any law student knows that citing a dissent in a homework assignment can get you a failed grade; Roberts cited 25 such dissents in Citizens United v. F.E.C., which makes the decision worthless.
But then, here we are. The implementation of the Powell Memo plan has delivered a fascist Supreme Court and Congress, and there is nowhere to seek redress of grievances. The Republican-controlled Senate will not take even the first step toward impeachment of anyone on the Supreme Court (nor of folks like Mitch McConnell within Congress), so the only avenue left to the American citizen (short of violence) is to vote and vote and vote, until Citizens United is reversed.
The national election for President looks like a big win for Hillary Clinton, but congressional and state contests are less certain. Equally important is for every eligible voter to show up for every local election, from city council to school board to dogcatcher.
Your vote matters. If it did not, the Republican Party and its dark money PACs would not be spending millions of dollars to take it away from you.
If the Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.
Copyright 2016 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved
The editorial policy of these news outlets will, of course, continue to absolve the fascist members of the U.S. Supreme Court from their many impeachable offenses. The secret Powell Memorandum of August 1971 spelled out how to take control of the federal government and that plan is just about fulfilled – except for the pesky matter of citizens still being able to vote. (The millions of dollars spent by the Republican Party on voter suppression is an effort to solve that problem.)
Counting the recently-deceased Justice Scalia, the Fascist Five on the Supreme Court are all members of the Federalist Society and all are signatories to P.N.A.C. (the Project for the New American Century) – each of which alliance is a violation of their oath of office. (It also happens that all five are/were Catholic, but that is not a crime.)
In addition, Justice Thomas worked for Monsanto Chemical for four years, and yet will not recuse himself, saying nothing in court and always voting for Monsanto. He is married to conservative lobbyist Virginia Lamp Thomas, and misses every opportunity to recuse himself whenever issues that she is working on come before the court. Justice Thomas also appears at Republican political fundraiser events.
Justice Scalia served on the Supreme Court for almost 30 years, doing all sorts of damage to civil rights issues. His son Eugene Scalia is a Washington, DC lawyer who has argued before the court; Scalia did not recuse himself on those occasions. Scalia has messed up the court's decision-making even in death, since the Republican Party violates their oath of office by refusing to hold hearings to replace Scalia.
Justice Roberts committed perjury at his confirmation hearings, over the issue of stare decicis (an important judicial term that means ‘bound by precedent’). More importantly, his execrable decision in Citizens United v. F.E.C. declared the United States to be a fascist country. Aside from the wrongness of that decision, he was able to support the decision only with ludicrous legal citations. Any law student knows that citing a dissent in a homework assignment can get you a failed grade; Roberts cited 25 such dissents in Citizens United v. F.E.C., which makes the decision worthless.
But then, here we are. The implementation of the Powell Memo plan has delivered a fascist Supreme Court and Congress, and there is nowhere to seek redress of grievances. The Republican-controlled Senate will not take even the first step toward impeachment of anyone on the Supreme Court (nor of folks like Mitch McConnell within Congress), so the only avenue left to the American citizen (short of violence) is to vote and vote and vote, until Citizens United is reversed.
The national election for President looks like a big win for Hillary Clinton, but congressional and state contests are less certain. Equally important is for every eligible voter to show up for every local election, from city council to school board to dogcatcher.
Your vote matters. If it did not, the Republican Party and its dark money PACs would not be spending millions of dollars to take it away from you.
If the Republican Party had anything of value to offer the American voter they would not have to lie and cheat and steal to win elections.
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