Electors #VoteYourConscience

While there are still some legal angles to explore, the electors still have to vote in under a week. I'm hoping/suggesting that they vote their conscience and don't give the Donald the requisite 270 votes to win. Look, I know for many electors it's about party and how they feel about their obligation to it against the constitution.

In those cases, I'm not suggesting they vote for Hillary. But I am suggesting that they should NOT vote for the Donald. Vote for another person, say Rubio or maybe Kasich, or even a fictional one like Captain Kirk. And if you're okay voting for Hillary, then I urge you to do that.

I know some of you may think the election hack is a made up conspiracy. I will continue to argue that it's not. That should be enough to end this debate, but let's say you're right. Look at some of the actions the Donald has taken since winning the "election" - quotes are intentional based on the hack,

* he has gone out of his way to antagonize china
* his embrace of pakistan undermines the relationship with India (a key trading partner)
* his original pick for Secretary of State, one mr patreus, was found guilty of actually having mishandled classified information - the exact crime for which Hillary was accused of, but no evidence supported this claim
* his national security advisor (Flynn) was also convicted of mishandling classified documents.
* his pick for secretary of defense has not been out of the military for more than 7 years, so he is ineligible to hold this position. Unless the senate grants a waiver, which will never happen. So essentially he's wasting time and effort here.
* his new pick for Secretary of State comes with a new set of challenges, primarily related to his business dealings
* most of his cabinet picks are the least qualified people for that particular job; people whose life it was to undermine the agency they have now been picked to represent. I'm not saying some shaking up is bad, but destroying the agencies? Wow. Just wow.
* his potential for conflict of interests re vast and varied and can lead to nowhere good
* he already brokered a deal for his daughter in Japan, and he apparently is working on one in Taiwan for a business of his
* he has created another problem in turkey where his praise for a businessman got the man arrested; and the Turkish government appears to be playing a game to get an Imam extradited in exchange for the release of this guy. Do you honestly think that will ever stop?
* he is down to 73 pending lawsuits. Seventy three.
* he has shown a lack of knowledge about the constitution, and very likely could trample it on day one. It's our most sacred document and one he will swear to uphold and defend.
* there was a sham of a deal for carrier, that got the owners some nice profit in exchange for....raising the stock price, in which the Donald holds a stake...and as for those poor people who lost their jobs they got a "you should have worked harder" message. And the union boss got bullied.
* minutes before he announced his "plans" to cancel the F35, which is made by Lockheed, someone dumped large numbers of shares in the company. A similar occurrence happened weeks ago with Boeing. The SEC will investigate, but there surely has to be a connection.
* he's embraced 140 character attacks and has nothing of substance to say.
* he has told us he's smart, and won't listen to intelligence briefings, but will listen to conspiracy theories because they're interesting to him.
* he is bullying and threatening anyone who opposes him, or his vision. He has even threatened the electors. That can not be acceptable to any rationale person. He simply can not lead this way.
* he has shown no interest in the 330 million people he will represent; rather he spends his time holding self-aggrandizing rallies.
* And oh yeah, he plans to run his companies and executive produce a tv show. Because how hard could it be to run the country?

Stop him. Vote your conscience and keep America great. He is in it for himself and nothing more. We can not let him hold the highest office. And we can not let stand the election interference. You can argue that we do it all the time "so what?" But it is the single. It's important part of our democracy, and we must hold that dear.

Here's my issue for the day

When did we suddenly become friends with Russia? Look I'm not saying we can't be friendly, or we can't find ways to work together. And certainly - as Hillary demonstrated when she was Secretary of State - there needs to be a reset. But clearly W was wrong when he gazed into Putins eyes and saw a good man.

Now there's information about a hacked election that benefited the Donald. Those who back him or the republican agenda brush it off as "something made of nothing" and rush in with name calling. And I can see in this age of disinformation (again thank you Russian hackers!) its hard to get to the truth.

But no matter where you fall in this issue consider for a moment: how would you feel if it were on the other side? Suppose a hack benefited Hillary. Would you feel different?

Now back to the larger issue. There is a shift in our stance with Russia. But not in a way that necessarily supports US interests. Look at the people the Donald has put around him. From Manaford to Tillson. Many have strong ties to Russia. And either have or would benefit from allying us more closely with Russia.

Then listen to the (ever changing) words of the Donald. While some of his positions have changed, his position on following Russia's lead in foreign policy has not. Leave NATO? Not protect Europe? Support Assad in Syria? Antagonizing china?

I find it interesting that the shift has gone that far. It doesn't support American exceptionalism.

So you can believe the hacking story or delude yourself there's nothing to it. His position on Russia should make you realize there's something to the connection.

And the day he takes the oath of office is the day that America stops being America.

We need to hold up and wait for the investigation to conclude. And really, a new vote is the only way out. And if he wins again, then so be it.

The way I see it....

The CIA shared that they found some anomalies in the election, based on Russian interference.  As they are precluded from working within the US, they have little to gain (or lose) by playing partisan politics. And if we're honest about things, they always get huge budgets to carry on work overseas, whatever that is. Doesn't matter who sits in the Oval Office. And because of various policies, they often do better with a Republican in the White House.

So what do they have to gain from meddling? 

The FBI is a different story. They solely work within the US, and are directly impacted by the person in charge.  They stand to gain (or lose), and their budgets get bigger and they have more latitude with Republicans - at least in general.  The FBI also shared that they saw interference from the Russians, but they didn't think it was a hack of the election itself and they didn't provide motive. 

But. A.  See my comment about their level of involvement and interest. And B. their primary focus is within the US.  Hacking occurring outside has an impact, but the CIA would be more likely to know the extent of the intrusion.

So here we are.  We're a week away from the Electors meeting to vote.  They "should" vote according to the allocation of electoral votes given by the wins in each state. But there is some wiggle room for them.  Sort of.  Its complicated.  But at the end of the day their job is to protect and defend the constitution of the United States.

There are a couple of possibilities regarding what happens next, so let me run through them.

Option 1: proceed with the electoral vote

Pros: it ends the debate and simply uses the votes from the election

Cons: it creates a constitutional crisis because it was not a free and fair election and we all have no idea if our votes counted.  The ship will have sailed, and from this point on we can never have a fair election again - even if some think we can.  At that point, you might as well start over with a new constitution.  And no, I am not kidding. This imperils our democracy.

There are a couple of possible outcomes here: Trump wins (the most likely result), and serves his term.  Trump wins and gets impeached (ether because of the hack or simply because of his business interests that violate the constitutions prohibition on taking foreign money) and then Pence serves the term (who none of us voted for!).  Trump doesn't get to 270 and it reverts to the congress or the courts for resolution.  Somehow Clinton gets 270 (least likely outcome) and she serves as president.

Option 2: The electors are delayed

Pros: more time to resolve everything

Cons: who makes that call? And in all likelihood challenging the date of their voite

will push us to option 3.

I don't think there is an outcome specific to this option.

Option 3: this heads to the courts to resolve .... something

Pros: at least we avert the constitutional crisis

Cons: this becomes messy and complicated, and delays the vote and could mean that we have to have someone serve as president while this all gets resolved (not Obama and not Biden, nor the cabinet; they are done on 1/20....but you might know this if you read the constitution - its covered as it lists the hierarchy)

There are a couple of possible outcomes here as well: the court orders the electors to delay, or just to proceed.  In either case, they could give the electors orders to unbind them from the original vote; they vote for who they want (note: this may create new problems). The court decides themselves.  They hand it back to congress to decide (again based on the pesky constitution).  They make everyone wait until the investigation ends so we know if Trump was complicit (avoiding the possibility of impeachment) and then proceeding.  And finally they could order a new election.

Option 4: Order a new election

Pros: it solves for the myriad of problems and restores free and fair to the mix

Cons: it becomes a do-over.  Its unclear who has authority to order it.  Its unclear what method we could use to ensure that there isn't another issue.  It will take time and will require a temporary person to fill the office, just like in option 3.  It will probably lead to a legal challenge, unless the supreme court orders it.

This is uncharted territory.  We have no idea what could happen.  And again, do you wait for the outcome to decide if Trump is okay to be included?

Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America | Teen Vogue

"Insist on fact-checking every Trump statement you read, every headline you share or even relay to a friend over coffee"

http://www.teenvogue.com/story/donald-trump-is-gaslighting-america

#MakeAmericaSmartAgain The Big Bank Bailout - Forbes

Forbes did a good piece last year about the big bank bailout. It's chilling how we (i.e. Main Street) are being fleeced by Wall Street.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/07/14/the-big-bank-bailout/

#NotOurPresident - the Donald was right the election was rigged.

Regarding the button shown in the picture, yeah, maybe it counted and then again, maybe not. Or perhaps it didn't count as much as the Russian votes. 

It seems clear some malfeasance went on, and "free and fair" can no longer be applied to this election.  Where this goes from here, I have no earthly clue.  But the outcome can not stand. And can you imagine the outrage if Clinton had won and this came out?  Unhinged probably doesn't begin to describe it, I would think. 

Full disclosure: I think trump is a total douche. I think he's unfit to be president. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with personal opinion. This has everything to do with democracy, about the core of our system of government.  We must not accept this. 

Putin set out to disrupt our democracy, and it appears as though he succeeded. Either he gets the puppet he wanted as president, or he creates confusion and uncertainty, and perhaps a sort of vacancy in the oval office for period of time...in which case he can go ahead and accomplish whatever he has on his agenda for a while.

The fact that this was known by at least a few people is hugely problematic. You could argue that they were trying to act in the best interests of their party, but I don't buy it,  their actions were treasonous.  Mitch McConnell, I'm looking at you.  And James Comey, perhaps you too. 

As for el donaldo, I could not, for the life of me, figure out how he won.  Yeah, he got the fringe people fired up, and winning the primary was a possibility, but it still seemed he should have been weeded out.  In the general election, it just made no sense. The math didn't work for me, and the fact that so many people got it so wrong just bothered me.  And the notion that there were any (much less 10s of thousands) of "hidden trump supporters" didn't feel right.  His fans were passionate and vocal.  Why would so many of them hide in anonymous surveys?

Free and fair election.  That rattled around in my head. If someone were going to tamper with an election, how would they do it?  Perhaps they would do it in many states, to ensure that any one state mixup or recount wouldn't change anything. Perhaps they would select states with large numbers of electoral votes, but whose recount rules were archaic or convoluted. And the simple answer is to have it appear as a couple of smaller, very local problems like a couple of overvotes in some more red districts. Of course you need to ensure that the person you're helping can deflect attention - And he's a master at that.

I never saw election fraud on a grand scale as a real threat.  But I had heard a few security types talk about it before the election, as they often do.  But I discounted it, as I often do.  Maybe this time we should have listened. 

For the month, I was a little despondent.  It was about the guy who apparently won, but yet it wasn't about that.  It's hard to describe, but It was about this nagging feeling that it didn't seem right. That something was amiss.  I felt like my intelligence is being assaulted both from the inability to understand what happened, and the continued nonsense being spewed by that same guy.  I did a little homework, and knew there were some theories but nothing concrete as to how he managed to pull out a win.  It's just so weird, because he didn't just eek out a win, either. But this was one mystery I thought might only be solved in time.  I figured it would always be whispers and suggestions.  And as a rational person this bugged the bejezus out of me.  We live in a society that is free.  Intelligent (Well, relatively). And has crowd sourcing and computing. And still no one had anything meaningful. Just observations.

But now the CIA has shared enough details that we know there was some kind of tampering.  The FBI had similar results, but their rationale and the depth of finding was different. But remember who heads the FBI: Comey.  The guy had no business interfering a week before the election, and yet he did for no good reason....unless he had a reason of course. 

On the one hand, I feel vindicated that at least I was right in my thinking that it wasn't free and fair. It was exactly as he said it himself. Rigged. I guess you might say that those "hidden trump supporters" were actually Russians.

And that's all fine and well, and I'm suddenly feeling energized....but that and 50 cents will get me coffee....the obvious question is: now what?

Can we get out of our own way, and remove the partisanship and look at the real threat to democracy, and do something about all of this?

Perhaps we start by removing and rebuking a few elected and appointed officials.  Determine how much the Donald was involved. Then we proceed to hold a new election, and in the meantime, we roll down the pecking order and hav someone assume office on January 20th. 

#MakeAmericaSmartAgain - the US Constitution

The constitution of this great nation isn't just an idea or a concept. It's a 4 page hand-written document that our founding fathers took great care to write, so the United States would always be great for all of us. A government by the people, for the people and of the people. 

In these times of uncertainty, I recommend reading it for your general knowledge. Hers a transcript from the national archive 

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript

Too much reading?  Then you're just lazy!  But you can check out the schoolhouse rocks preamble video here:

https://youtu.be/0EfnNUt_nwY