Season 2, Episode #8: President Hillary Clinton

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Two Segregationists Confirmed In Two Days

2017's Black History Month will go down in American history as either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. If February 7th & 8th are any indication of what is to come—and I believe in my heart of hearts that they are—we are closer to Civilutionary War than ever before. Indeed, I'll be surprised if the country hasn't broken down into armed militias by spring and torn itself apart by summer.

On February 7, Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education. DeVos is committed to privatizing the school system even though private schools have flagrantly higher rates of segregation and were originally created as a white-flight backlash against SCOTUS' ruling on Brown vs The Board of Education. 

Later that same day, Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced by GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch "The Bitch" McConnell when she tried to read the letter Coretta Scott King wrote regarding Jeff Sessions’ racially bigoted patterns of behavior. The GOP senators then voted to censure Senator Warren using an obscure rule only invoked ONCE in American history, effectively barring her from speaking during the February 8 confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions to the position of Attorney General.

As awful as all the above is, perhaps the most frightening and foreboding thing to occur on February 7 was this: The House Administration Committee voted 6-3 along party lines to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission, which helps states run elections and is the only federal agency charged with making sure voting machines can’t be hacked. The agency was set up after the Bush-Gore debacle of 2000; the GOP has been trying to get rid of it ever since—mission accomplished.

On February 8, 2017 Jeff Sessions was, as expected, confirmed to the position of U.S. Attorney General. He will be in charge of the country’s civil rights division despite his racist and anti-gay views. All Republican senators and a Democrat from West Virginia voted in favor of his confirmation while all other Democrats voted against it. 

I knew both confirmations would go through, but I’m still gutted by the fact they did. America, I do not recognize you anymore. 

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Kellyanne & George Conway: Pure Evil

Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway (very appropriate last name) is likely a new—albeit haggard—face on the national scene for those who don't pay attention to politics, but she's been a part of the extremist rightwing D.C. establishment for decades. Behind the dead eyes and nauseatingly fake smile exists an insidious creature who has been directly involved in and/or an ally to several of the capital's sickest sins against democracy. 

Kellyanne's husband, George Conway III, is an equally repulsive man and serves as literal proof that twisted birds of a feather do indeed flock together. The following list is only the tip of the iceberg, but will hopefully shed light on the most important things you need to know about America's newest white-power couple.

Meet the Conways

1. KA Conway and fugly alt-right Breitbart head Steve Bannon were recently outed by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch as members of the ultra-secretive group CNP (Council for National Policy). According to the SPLC:

"The CNP is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of what The New York Times once described as “the most powerful conservatives in the country.” It is so tight-lipped that it tells people not to admit their membership or even name the group. Revealing when or where the group meets, or what it discusses, is also forbidden. The organization, which can only be joined by invitation and at a cost of thousands of dollars, strives mightily to keep its membership rolls secret."

Kim Davis and Mat Staver (center); 2015.

On the surface, there is nothing noteworthy in and of itself about the clandestine CNP. Once you delve deeper and look at the CNP's many extremist members, however, the picture grows more troubling. Here are four of a plethora of such members:

• Mat Staver: leader of Liberty Counsel, a hate group whose goal is to re-criminalize gay sex. Also a lawyer, Staver's clients include Kim Davis, the Rowan County KY clerk who infamously refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples after SCOTUS' landmark ruling. Staver compared Davis' alleged plight to that of Jews in Nazi Germany.
• Michael Peroutka: board member of League of the South, a white supremacist organization.
• Jerome Corsi: an Obama "birther" hardliner; also a frequent propagandist for the radical right.
• Philip Zodhaites: an influential religious right donor; convicted in September 2016 for kidnapping a child from her lesbian mother and smuggling her to Nicaragua. Zodhaites' defense lawyer and suspected co-conspirator was none other than Mat Staver.

The Southern Poverty Law Center cautions Americans to take note of the sorts of people Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon break bread with because, in the SPLC's words,

"It provides an important venue in which relatively mainstream conservatives meet and very possibly are influenced by real extremists, people who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, describe Latino immigrants as a dangerous group of rapists and disease-carriers, engage in the kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing for which the John Birch Society is famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line with Old Testament law.”

Kellyanne & George Conway III

2. The 2016 election wasn't the first time a Conway pursued a Clinton like a rabid animal. Kellyanne's husband George, a real "gem" of a low-moral lawyer, has represented mega-corps like Phillip Morris against cancer patients and news reports. A colleague and friend who defended the tobacco giant alongside him was Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor Conway would go on to conspire with against President Bill Clinton. 

It was Conway and Starr who served as Paula Jones' lawyers, pulling the sexual harassment case seemingly out of thin air. The Jones lawsuit was filed one day before the statute of limitations would have ran out, given the date the alleged incident occurred. Propaganda surrounding the case was continuously leaked to Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report. George Conway denied being the leak, but given Keith Olbermann's report on Kellyanne's conspiratorial effort against Bill Clinton, the denial is questionable at best.

click to enlarge

3. Apparently marriages that hate together stay together because both of the Conways have pressed for legislation that negatively and selectively impacts African-Americans and the poor. Among a multitude of other appalling grievances against humanity, KAC helped Newt Gingrich draft a particularly brutal piece of anti-welfare legislation. Republican Paul Ryan, the current Speaker of the House, plans to make the law that resulted from the Conway-Gingrich effort disgustingly worse.

Not to be outdone by his wife, George—a member of the ultra conservative Federalist Society—is a staunch advocate of denying former felons the right to vote. His argument justifying the continualization and expansion of the discriminatory practice amounts to a whole lot of rhetoric. At the end of the day, not allowing former inmates to vote is a gross miscarriage of justice which ultimately impacts minority and poor communities at a disproportionate rate.

Conclusion

I've highlighted only three out of a veritable Pandora's Box of grave concerns to be cognizant of and watchful over. That the fanatical rightwing virus the Conways infect others with is about to nest itself in the West Wing of The White House should be equally—if not more—disturbing to all of us than the arrival of Donald Trump himself.

Remain vigilant. Don't give in so much as an inch. The most vulnerable Americans amongst us are counting on watchdogs to be strong and resist. Elected Democrats have made it clear they are a bunch of simpering, hand-wringing pussies. In other words, no help is coming. We ARE our only champions.

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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.

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.

Wisconsin Judge Rules Against Hand Counting

Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn

In a decision that deflated what lingering hope I had left in me, Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn rejected Jill Stein's lawsuit that would have required all Wisconsin counties to do the 2016 recount by hand.

Despite testimony from several renowned experts, such as University of California at Berkeley's Philip Stark (his statistical analyses found unusual patterns in the digits of vote totals in Wisconsin) and University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman (he swore under oath that, "I am strongly of the opinion that a hand recount is going to provide a more accurate result,") the motion was denied.

It is unclear whether or not Stein will appeal to a higher court, but the clock is about to expire on the effectiveness and viability of doing so.

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.