Archives for October 2016

With only nine days to go before the presidential election, I woke up today with every intention of writing an open letter to Trump supporters. You know, point out some of the main reasons why their man should never occupy the White House.

But then, shaking the cobwebs from my brain, reality set in. My gut told me it would only be an exercise in futility. If all the news over the last 15 months on why Donald Trump is not suited to be president hadn’t swayed them by now, what made me think I had a prayer of changing minds?

Whatever happens on November 8th, I believe our country has changed in a profoundly sad way. Yet some say Trump’s run for the presidency only showed us who we really are. They point out we are, and have always been, a divided nation along so many lines: racial, ethnic and religious. That old “melting point” myth, they say, is just that. Trump only lifted the rock and welcomed all the slumbering racists and bigots to come see the light of day.

So now we know. Nearly half of Americans would prefer as their leader the least qualified, most temperamentally unstable, presidential candidate in United States history. They know his shortcomings full well … yet don’t care. They would rather roll the dice with Trump than see the country led by the first female president who happens to have a resume making her the most experienced and qualified presidential candidate, man or women, to seek the office.

It doesn’t matter that:

1. Trump is a defendant in an upcoming fraud trial (Trump University)
2. Trump is a defendant in an upcoming rape case of a 13 year old
3. Trump has boasted about sexually assaulting women with impunity
4. Trump has refused to show his tax returns
5. Trump may be in serious debt to Russian oligarchs
6. Trump has zero political experience
7. Trump is a failure at business
8. Trump’s entire adult life has been a giant con

Oh what’s the point? I could go on and on. You know the litany.

Sorry for doing what I set out not to do. It’s just that I’m having a hard time believing this election is even close.

I know that for those regular readers of this site, I am preaching to the choir. Let’s hope we have truly not devolved into nation taken over by fear and hatred.

My belief is that on November 9th, we will have a Madam President-elect, Hillary Clinton.

But I know we will also have a wounded nation that will need a lot of TLC if it is to heal from this traumatic campaign odyssey we’ve been subjected to.

Image courtesy of Just2shutter at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the only thing that has come out of Donald Trump’s mouth recently, which has any connection with the truth, is that our election system is rigged. But he’s right for all the wrong reasons.

No, we do not have millions of dead people and illegal immigrants voting. There is no massive voter fraud. There is massive voter suppression.

Republicans realized long ago that the electoral landscape was shifting below their feet. Our country was becoming less white and more diverse, with large increases in the Hispanic and Afro-American populations. Researchers at the Brookings Institute have shown this trend favors Democrats, not Republicans.

Whites have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968. African-Americans have voted Democratic in every White House contest since 1936, and Hispanics have been strongly Democratic, too.

With the help of a conservative Supreme Court, the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was effectively struck down in 2013 (Shelby County v. Holder) by the Court’s 5-4 decision, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval.

It didn’t take states previously covered by the Act to take advantage of their good fortune. It wasn’t months or even weeks. How about the next day?

North Carolina Republicans, the day after the Court’s decision, passed one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation that restricted access to voting, eliminated same-day voter registration, reduced early voting, instituted a strict photo ID requirement, and ended a program that preregistered 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. That law had been previously struck down in a scathing 83-page opinion that exposed the extent of the law’s racial bias. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, writing for the majority on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, noted that the law’s provisions “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision,” by using race data in the decision-making process.

The defense for all these new laws? We needed to eliminate voter fraud … even though it has been proven to be statistically non-existent. The integrity of our voting system needed to be upheld, we were told!

Despite Chief Justice Roberts’ misguided Shelby opinion that “Our country has changed,” and racial discrimination in voting was a thing of the past, the Court did say Congress remained free to try to impose federal oversight on states where voting rights were at risk.

Fat chance! Not by a congress controlled by the GOP for whom the Court’s decision was every Republican’s wet dream.

Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote. The only way to bring back a level voting playing field is for Congress to act on restoring/revising the Voting Rights Act or for a new Supreme Court to overturn its decision.

Republicans know they have no chance of surviving in the “new” America without well-crafted voter suppression laws firmly in place.

This is where we, Americans who care about, and believe in, equality and fairness come in.

Your mission this election, Vote Blue … no matter who!

Photo | cbc.ca

Here’s a chilling reminder of the things Black people endured in order for us to have the right to vote: http://trib.al/cEDocYS

Its no secret most Republican politicians know Donald Trump will not be our nation’s 45^th president. Yet they are not saddened in the least. They are salivating over the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency and immediate impeachment (making the Clintons two for two). At the very least, they are looking forward to obstructing Hillary’s legislative agenda by tying her up in one House congressional investigation after another.

“It’s a target-rich environment,” said Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, head of the powerful House Oversight Committee. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.”

Yes, even before she is sworn in as the nation’s first female president, talk of impeachment and endless investigations is making Republicans down right giddy!

It doesn’t matter there is precedent for the notion that federal officials cannot be impeached and removed from their current offices for crimes committed before they have assumed those positions. The House’s 1873 impeachment investigation of Vice President Schuyler Colfax has come to represent the general understanding that impeachment is reserved for “high crimes and misdemeanors” a federal official may commit while in office.

To be fair, however, this is not settled law. In the words of Gerald Ford, who as House minority leader spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to remove Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1970, “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

It also doesn’t matter that Republican House members have already spent millions of taxpayer dollars investigating Hillary Clinton to death. But then again, Hillary bashing has become the glue that binds Republicans of all stripes. What better way to unite a splintered party after Trump’s debacle? Party over country forever!

Republicans want to treat Hillary Clinton as they did Barack Obama. With zero respect. With zero interest in uniting the country. With zero concern for passing meaningful legislation that helps ordinary Americans.

But if Republicans follow through on their threats, they may be in for a rude awakening. Hillary Clinton is no Barack Obama. She is not like our mild-mannered president who let Republicans get away with their nonsense, for so long, without cost. No, Hillary knows how to fight fire with fire. She knows how to play dirty.

After all, the first time she and Bill occupied the White House, a certain aide of the Clintons, who might have had the goods on the couple, mysteriously died.

Republicans should think twice before messing with those criminal, murderous Clintons.

Photo | republicbuzz.com

Donald Trump’s main campaign theme during the past few weeks has been that our election system is corrupted. If he loses the presidency, he tells his loyal followers, it will be because the voting was rigged.

In tonight’s third and final presidential debate, moderator, Chris Wallace, asked Donald Trump a direct question – twice – to which he refused to give a direct answer.

After reminding Trump that his running mate, Mike Pence, pledged that both he and Trump would “absolutely” accept the will of the people, Wallace asked him, “Will you absolutely accept the results of the election?”

Trump’s reply, to a question he no doubt was prepared to answer, was, “I will look at it at the time.”

I will look at it at the time?

By refusing to say if he would accept the legitimacy of a Hillary Clinton win, Trump undermined the basic American belief that our election system is fair. By leaving in doubt whether he would concede after a loss, Trump did something no other presidential candidate has ever done… question the entire basis of American democracy.

Wallace did not ask Trump a Bush v. Gore type question, namely, if the election results were close in one particular state, would he question those results if they went against him. No, Wallace was talking about our national election system.

Many analysts are now saying Trump sealed his fate with his unprecedented, conditional answer. They are labeling his refusal to give a “yes” or “no” reply to Wallace’s direct question as one that disqualifies him from office.

So why would Trump answer the way he did?

A Morning Consult survey of nearly 2,000 registered voters found that a strong majority of Republicans, 73 percent, now believe the election could be unfairly taken from Trump.

Trump’s loyal base has heard his message that he can only lose if the election is stolen from him… and they buy it. They have heard talk of massive voter fraud from their Republican leaders for years … and they believe it exists.

Many pundits are predicting Trump will keep pounding this narrative of a rigged election no matter how much pushback he gets from his Republican comrades.

The bottom line? Trump has no regard for any down ballot Republicans he may hurt. He doesn’t care if he loses in a landslide, even if it costs the GOP the Senate and the House.

For the purported billionaire, it’s all about keeping the loyalty, and anger, of his diehard base intact for his next, post-election business venture… whatever that maybe.

Nothing else makes any sense.

Photo | (Joe Raedle/Pool via AP)