Hack The Vote

The Plot Is Sickening

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The Resistance Has Only Begun

While it is difficult in this specific moment to see the forest from the trees, we must. Despair isn't an option. Settling for subhuman status isn't on the menu. If you can't pull yourself together for you then take your strength from the enduring love you have for your children/parents/spouses/etc. In other words, wo/man up. Cry if you must—rage if you must—but be quick about it. Time is not on our side.

Fight. Resist. Refuse nothing less than total victory. We cannot let it come to power...

Ever.

#MidnightMartyrs 

Episode #11: Join The Resistance

When TIME magazine sees it...

When even TIME sees the need to keep Trump from the presidency, shit has officially gotten real. I admit I'm not a fan of the conservative-leaning magazine, but I suppose that's also why its plea (or command?) to the Electoral College snagged my attention.

Republicans: when TIME magazine thinks its beloved and highly overrated GOP is traitorous, you got problems. Consider remedying them.

Episode #9: The Electoral College, Russia, & Republican Treason

Episode #8: #Pizzagate - Putin - and the US Military

Sofia Vergara Being Sued By Her Embryos (Face Palm)

If for some unfathomable reason you still need more proof that the crazies have been emboldened by Trump's electoral college presidency to be, well, look no further. 

Actress Sofia Vergara is being sued by her frozen embryos for denying them the right to life. She's no longer with her former partner and hasn't been for 2+ years, but hey, what has logic and personal choice ever had to do with rightwing thinking? (Rhetorical question.)

Although Ms. Vergara's frozen embryos have been cryopreserved in California, her ex is suing from Louisiana where frozen embryos hold equal rights to actual people.

A word of warning to any (read: all) men who masturbate: it's just a matter of time before choking the chicken becomes a questionable legal right. After all, you kill tens of thousands of potential offspring every single time you rub one out. You brutal serial killers need to think about THAT the next time you watch the make-sexy-time channel. Your hand belongs to the state.

Petition To Give Liberals Our Own Republic

You can sign the petition at Change.org. Because we are brand new and hardly anybody knows about us, we will be leaving this petition up for as long as it takes to get the needed signatures.

Trump News a.k.a. The Face Palm Chronicles

Carrot Top

The Orange Menace pulls so much stupid shit on a daily basis that we can't possibly write individual posts about each incident. Here's yesterday's recap:

Climate Bizarre-Czar

Politico has reported that Ivanka Trump, also known as Daddy's Girl To the Point of Making Eyebrows Raise, is tapped to become the nation's next Climate Czar. Apparently under the delusion that detractors of Trumpel Thinskin will forget about his racism, misogyny, pathological lying, and Xenophobia as long as the planet is in better shape to be oppressed in, her role is to bridge the gaping divide between her father and the liberals who despise him. (Good luck with that.) According to the magazine, Ivanka "is now poised to be the first 'first daughter' in modern history to play a larger public role than the first lady."

Shocking. Really.

General Happy Pants

You Can't Use A Legal Email Server If You're A Woman, But Trading Classified Info For Sex Is "Really Great" If You Have A Penis

The Orange Imperial Wizard is considering disgraced former General David Petraeus for Secretary of State. Petraeus, in case you don't remember, was sentenced last year to two years probation and a fine of $100,000 for divulging classified information to his lover (and biographer) Paula Broadwell. 

[Insert long-suffering sigh]

And Hillary Clinton did what wrong again? Hashtag DoubleStandardMuch?

At Least There's Some Good News

The anti-Trump coalition effort to go after the Electoral College is gaining momentum. If just 37 Republican electors refuse to cast their vote for Trump, it would be enough to force him below the 270 threshold needed to win the EC. Should they not vote for Clinton, the case would be remanded to the House of Representatives, thereby forcing congressional members to publicly dis/avow Trump. If the House votes in favor of Trump, I'm told a lawsuit will be filed that would go before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court, currently divided, has four liberal and four conservative justices. In the event of a tie, it is uncertain what precisely would happen. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

According to Politico, there is only one solid Republican commitment thus far, but David Pakman reported days before this article came out that his inside source has tallied the count of Hamilton Electors (legally termed "faithless electors") to 15 out of the needed 37. 

Not a bad start, but we still have a long way to go. Whether or not anything comes of this last ditch effort remains to be seen, but until the Electoral College meets on December 19th... all hope is not lost.

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#Recount2016

Increasing reports of potential widespread voter fraud in key battleground states have prompted Green Party leader Jill Stein to file suit on behalf of all of us to demand recounts in Wisconsin (Paul Ryan's home state), Michigan, and Pennsylvania. To do so in all 3 states, Stein must raise $2.5 million in filing fees by this Friday. At last check she has surpassed the $2 million mark. You can donate by clicking here.

Where the Hell is the ACLU, NAACP, and NOW?

I'm not feeling particularly forgiving of as of late. This sentiment especially holds true for the civil rights groups whose coffers have been enriched by the very people they are failing to protect. Why hasn't a single one of our nation's highest level advocacy groups legally challenged this farce of an election? All of them relentlessly solicit for donations so they can fight Trump's future policies, yet nary a one has attempted to stop the Orange Menace from being inaugurated.

This is not acceptable—period. That there are any number of valid cases that can be made on a federal level makes it all the more appalling.

1. Math Increasingly Suggests Voter Fraud Against Hillary Clinton: Recap: the only exit polls that did not match up to alleged votes cast were the ones in crucial swing states. David Pakman points out that this phenomenon has only happened in the past during instances of widespread voter fraud.
   
2. The Electoral College Was Meant To Stop Men Like Trump From Being President: Recap: the Electoral College is charged with the duty of insuring a madman is never inaugurated. I don't recall off the top of my head if the reporter brought up what I'm about to say, but many states like Ohio have passed laws which prevent members of the EC from fulfilling its constitutional obligation. Instead of allowing the members to vote their conscience, doing so can provide stiff fines and allegedly jail time.
   
3. We are not a democracy if rule by the people is not upheld. The people did not vote in Trump; the people voted in Hillary Clinton. By the time all votes are counted, Clinton is expected to win the popular vote by at least 2 million votes. She is also expected to have more than 50% of all votes, which is an even bigger mandate that something be done.
   
4. Our republic's viability, much as our position in world affairs, cannot afford to chance a Trump presidency. God forbid a teenager in North Korea sends Orangie Porgie a mean kid tweet. It'll be game over for all of us.
   
   
5. It is both indecent and un-American to put a man in power who surrounds himself with white nationalists and who has used his campaign to normalize hate speech against vulnerable people. Over 700 incidents of hate crimes against minorities have been reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center since November 9th.
   
   
6. When only 17% of voters (all of who live in white, rural America) have more voting power than the other 83%, no election is free.

That is but 6 of the simplest-to-explain issues. This says nothing of more complex problems such as the role Republican congressmen played in obliterating the nation's long held (and long respected) system of checks and balances. Having executive, legislative, and judicial branches that operate independently of each other means little to nothing when all three branches are dominated by one party's archaic ideology—an ideology not shared by the majority of Americans.

So where are the civil rights groups with deep pockets? Why aren't they stepping up to the plate proactively by doing everything humanly imaginable to stop the inauguration of a dangerous, intolerant, greedy, pathological liar?

I have no answers; I only have questions.

Black Americans Once Counted as 3/5 Human; Percentage Has Since Dropped

White terrorist cells have multiplied since Obama's election

Yesterday, Emily Badger of The New York Times brought the travesty that is the 2016 election into stark perspective: "The Electoral College is just one example of how an increasingly urban country has inherited the political structures of a rural past," she wrote. "Today, states containing just 17 percent of the American population, a historic low, can theoretically elect a Senate majority... The bias also shapes the House of Representatives."

Think about that. Seventeen percent of the population, all of which live in white, rural America, can decide not only the presidency for all of us, but the House and Senate majorities too. More to the point, not only can they do it, they just in fact did do it. 

By now most of us are aware that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by roughly two million votes. Most people I talk to, however, are oblivious to the fact that Democrats also won the popular vote in the Senate and House races, but were denied the majority of seats. The sobering result of these defeats on every front is that in the matter of one election, our entire system of checks and balances within the United States government has been utterly annihilated. 

Black Americans vote in Alabama for the first time
after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Before going any further, I need to make a point. Namely, I don't want to downplay the very real injustice that was perpetrated against the majority of this nation's citizens, regardless to our colors. The reason I'll be focusing on African-Americans in particular from here forward is because it's vital to understand black history as every American's history. It is impossible to learn from past wrongs if you don't even know they occurred, much less feel connected to them. Indeed, we are all connected. The harm done to one of us eventually and inevitably spreads like cancer to the rest of us. Bearing that in mind...

Having the right to vote on paper means very little when disenfranchised people are systematically prohibited from casting their ballots. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided a political voice to people of color and brought America one small but vital step closer to achieving its ideal of liberty and justice for all. It wasn't perfect, but it was a desperately needed start. 

After affording black Americans 60 years of voter protection, the VRA was gutted in 2013 by the conservative led US Supreme Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was so angered by the court's decision she chose to orally dissent (speak from the bench) rather than provide a written dissent only, the latter being the norm for SCOTUS. Speaking on behalf of herself and Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, Justice Ginsburg reaffirmed the need for voter protection against disenfranchisement and stated that the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as justice itself had been “disserved by today’s decision.”

The Voting Rights Act is as needed today as it was in 1965

In one SCOTUS ruling, the rights of black Americans were set back 60 years at minimum. The state of Texas quickly took advantage of the bench's decision by enacting laws that disproportionately and negatively impacted African-American voters; more southern states eventually followed suit. It wasn't until the contentious general election of 2016, however, that the end result Justice Ginsburg had warned of would become agonizingly apparent. 

Polling stations were closed down and/or moved without notice, making it all but impossible for the poorest of black, working people to vote. After all, if you can't afford to own a car then you likely can't afford to miss more time from work than your lunch hour allows for. Making phone calls to find out what the hell happened to your polling station and taking buses all over God's green earth are not lunch hour friendly activities. 

Five generations of one enslaved family. Nine of the 180
slaves owned by James Joyner Smith; they lived and
worked on Smith's cotton plantation in Beaufort, SC.
(Early 1800s, Library of Congress.)

Even amidst all the obstacles, black women still found a way to make it work (just as women always do) and turned out to the polls in large numbers. This was accomplished throughout all social classes despite SCOTUS, only to be told early the next morning that black votes don't matter any more now than they did before African-Americans had the right to vote at all.

On July 12, 1787, the Three-Fifths Compromise was enacted, which allowed Southern slave holders to count each of their human properties as 3/5 of one person. This was done so Southern states could claim a larger percentage of representation in the House. The added, albeit unlikely intended effect, also gave them a disproportionate advantage over electing future presidents. In other words, black slaves were semi-counted for purposes of representation in congress, yet not allowed to actually be represented by voting. The compromise portion of the Three-Fifths Compromise was about black slaves rather than for them. 

How, I ask you, is "voting" today any different? 

When only 17% of Americans decide who will make the laws for 100% of us, it is reasonable and valid to argue that any representation afforded us, just like with the Three-Fifths Compromise, is in name only. While particularly egregious to black Americans because of the history of slavery in this country followed by one and a half centuries of systematic disenfranchisement, the problem facing America has become an everybody issue. Most black Americans are urbanites, true, but not all urbanites (or even close) are black Americans. If your vote carries less than 1/5 of the legal power of a white, rural vote... 

Well, I guess we'll just have to call it the One-Fifth Compromise. As was true in 1787, it's a "compromise" no disenfranchised person had a say in much less agreed to.

Episode #1: A rant liberals can relate to :)

Electoral College Truths