This Is What's Wrong With Democrats

bcba2013

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Wednesday February 15, 2017 · 12:02 PM PST

2017/02/15 · 12:02

I’m a liberal democrat and rarely talk negatively about my party. But this tweet by Hillary Clinton says everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party:

Philippe's got his own way of saying things, but he has a point about the real consequences of fake news...

Democrats all of a sudden have a hard time accepting that there is fake news in the world but never say a word about For-Profit, multinational, billion-dollar corporations generating our news. As if for-profit corporations are incapable of engaging in unethical behavior — as if For-profit news corporations don’t have agendas. For-profit, billion dollar corporations don’t have agendas? Huh?!?

News generated by a For-Profit corporation is the foundation of FAKE NEWS — That Democrats trust billionaire corporations to act without agendas and within ethical standards is sad and just unfortunate.

Fake News: The Media's Scapegoat

bcba2013

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Thursday December 08, 2016 · 8:16 PM PST

2016/12/08 · 20:16

Liberals are a funny bunch of people. I almost get the sense that real liberals, in general, would never be so bold as to run for office. The personal characteristics of people who genuinely care about others, the plight of others, the country, seem to run opposite to the characteristics of people who desire to be in positions of power. I mean let’s really think about it: to go through the process of getting elected - to have your life and everything you’ve ever done, or said, critically examined, and to subject your family to that level of scrutiny - you almost have to love power and attention more than you love people. That’s why when I heard recently that HIllary Clinton was throwing a party for her biggest donors, my stomach turned, not because I suddenly thought of Hil as less of a liberal, it was because I wondered, who could throw a party at a time like this? Then I realized, some people...some liberals.

So my view of liberalism is changing. You now have some liberals, and I hasten to even call them that, who are in many ways like republicans. The Susan Sarandon's and Jill Stein’s, the take-my-ball-and-go-home type of liberal. Do they truly care about the people who they claim to be fighting for, when in their heart of hearts, they know their views match the views of liberal democrat 95% of the time? It’s really unsettling for me.

But for many of my fellow liberals to believe this new hunk of junk that fake news, and not unchallenged lies, was the cause of Hillary’s loss to Trump?!? Let us not forget - and the MSM would love you to forget - the many, hour and a half long, uninterrupted Trump rallies the networks covered nearly every night of the primaries and general. Have we forgotten? Other than the debates, I hardly even remember Hillary on TV. Not once do I remember a news network, not MSNBC not CNN and certainly not Fox News, cover a Hillary Clinton rally for longer than 5 minutes. Have we forgotten the study that revealed Donald Trump received more than 2 billion dollars in free advertising? And now the media want us to believe that “fake news,” a term that now is so important, yet was hardly, if ever mentioned prior to November 8th, costed Hillary Clinton the election? I don’t think so.

If This Is Not Rectified, I Can No Longer Believe In The Promise Of America

bcba2013

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Monday December 05, 2016 · 8:57 PM PST

2016/12/05 · 20:57

Half of Detroit votes may be ineligible for recount

Detroit News

One-third of precincts in Wayne County could be disqualified from an unprecedented statewide recount of presidential election results because of problems with ballots.

Michigan’s largest county voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, but officials couldn’t reconcile vote totals for 610 of 1,680 precincts during a countywide canvass of vote results late last month.

Most of those are in heavily Democratic Detroit, where the number of ballots in precinct poll books did not match those of voting machine printout reports in 59 percent of precincts, 392 of 662.

According to state law, precincts whose poll books don’t match with ballots can’t be recounted. If that happens, original election results stand.

“It’s not good,” conceded Daniel Baxter, elections director for the city of Detroit.

Read the rest here

The corporate media aren’t reporting on this. This could happen in any state yet we would never know because of the incredibly, self-serving corporate media. And who do we have fighting for us? Democrats.

The same people who turned a blind eye to Comey’s outragious remarks and testimony in the summer of 2016 and instead, heaped an unbelieavable amount of praise on the guy. The same people who thought it OK to let three republicans host the presidential debates. The same mentaliity that hired Bob Gates, The same people who refuse to demand the media appropriately question republicans. The same mentality so concerned with Donald Trump being president, yet lacks the courage of the dumbest NFL coach to toss a challenge flag to double check the results. The same people who let an entire year pass without yelling and scraping and clawing to get Garland on the court. The same mentality that is convinced “fake news” rather than unchallenged lies were a central component in Hillary’s loss. The same mentality that looks down on Donald Trumps insults and language and turns a blind eye to Elizabeth Warrens uneccesary personal attacks (unprecedented in democratic politics). The same people so busy looking in the mirror that they can’t see people like Mika Bryzynski, Chris Matthews and the like for who they are. The same mentality that would hire Comey to lead the FBI. Democrats. I will vote but I will no longer care. Rant over

Wisconsin Recount Observations

bcba2013

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Monday December 05, 2016 · 3:24 PM PST

2016/12/05 · 15:24

I’ve been following the recount pretty closely, however before I say what I’ve noticed, there is a big discrepancy that hasn’t been explained. Maybe some of you can explain it. Milwaukee Ward 34 (day 5 update) has given DT an additional 190 votes, but there is no explanation from the state in their daily update. The state makes a statement if there is a discrepancy of 10 or more votes. Not for this one they haven't.

What I’ve noticed is this: Donald Trump has been adding votes but only in counties that he has won by a large margin. In those same counties, Hillary has been losing votes, weirdly. I’ve also noticed that Hillary is adding votes in counties she's won by a large margin, however, many (probably 90%) of the counties she's won have yet to be counted (or completed), so if the trend continues she should pick up more votes when they are counted. I think the drama (if any) might be in those uncounted counties where Hillary won. We’ll see what happens.

Concerns about Pennsylvania Recount

bcba2013

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Saturday November 26, 2016 · 7:13 PM PST

2016/11/26 · 19:13

Curious about the Pennsylvania recount process, I began doing research to understand how things would unfold. I came across a couple of concerns that I need clarification on.

First, things I learned about the process that may be helpful to know:

Most votes in PA are cast on electric machines with no paper trail.
Deadline has already passed, however, candidate can get approval from court to initiate recount.
Donald Trump's complaint in a tweet about “impossible recounts” was a curious statement. It is in fact not impossible to recount votes in Pennsylvania, however, I get the sense he hopes it would be.
Most machines are old and easily hackable, according to experts. All machines are independent and would have to be hacked individually. There are approximately 4500 machines. The process for recounting machine ballots is below (from article found online — heavy):

The Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s Office published a detailed handout on how a recount process works. In a county in which an election district uses an electronic voting system that does not utilize paper ballots, “the county board must conduct the recanvass similar to the procedure used to recanvass the vote cast on voting machines,” the Secretary of State says.

The county board “must make a record of the number of the seal upon the voting machine

and the number on the protective counter or other device.” The board must “make visible the registering counters of the machine, and without unlocking the machine against voting, recanvass the vote cast on the machine.”

The board is then to “recanvass by examining the totals tape on each machine, which shall constitute the recount total.”

If there is a discrepancy, “the county board of elections must unlock the voting and counting mechanism of the system and examine and test the system to determine the cause of the discrepancy,” the handout reads. “In this case, the counter must be reset at zero before it is tested, after which it must be operated at least 100 times. After the examination and test has been completed, the machine inspector must prepare a written statement detailing the result of the examination and test.”

Exit polls showed Clinton winning Pennsylvania, and the discrepancy between the final results and those polls (5.6%) was among the highest in the country, according to TDMSResearch.com.

Concerns

Court Process:

What is the likelihood of a recount being declined? What judge is making this decision? Could it be appealed? The following paragraph is directly from Pennsylvania election law regarding candidate initiated recounts. The last sentence is most troubling:

While candidates cannot file a direct request for a recount, they may appeal the “order or decision of any county board regarding the computation or canvassing of the returns of any primary or election, or regarding any recount or recanvass thereof.” During the appeal process, the court may determine that a recount is necessary.

It’s a judgement call. Who makes that call?

Also, I came across this article discussing the requirements of the recount:

Per Pennsylvania regulations, there is only one way remaining for Jill Stein to get a recount in Pennsylvania and it is a complicated process. BillyPenn reports that Stein would have to file for a court appeal and present a “prima facie case” showing that voter fraud took place. While prima facie has a lower burden of proof threshold than “beyond reasonable doubt,” it is still significant. Stein would have to prove in court that fraud was “probable.” This is going to be very difficult given that even the computer specialists recommending the recount say there is no proof of hacking or fraud.

How true is this?

I am hopeful that we recount Pennsylvania, especially considering the data from exit polls. However, I am not certain we will ever know what really happened given the hurdles involved. Can anyone provide clarification?

Ahead of the Recount, Trump Lead Shrinks by 5k in WI - UPDATE - Clinton to Participate in Recount

bcba2013

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Friday November 25, 2016 · 10:07 PM PST

2016/11/25 · 22:07

Though the recount has yet to begin, fears of being caught vote padding has erased 5000 votes (18% of Trumps original lead) from Trumps Wisconsin total already. A link to the article is below. Let’s see what happens, but if this trend continues….

www.politicususa.com/...

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Clinton campaign to participate in recount.

www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Clinton Campaign:

Listening and Responding To Calls for an Audit and Recount

Over the last few days, officials in the Clinton campaign have received hundreds of messages, emails, and calls urging us to do something, anything, to investigate claims that the election results were hacked and altered in a way to disadvantage Secretary Clinton. The concerns have arisen, in particular, with respect to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — three states that together proved decisive in this presidential election and where the combined margin of victory for Donald Trump was merely 107,000 votes.

It should go without saying that we take these concerns extremely seriously. We certainly understand the heartbreak felt by so many who worked so hard to elect Hillary Clinton, and it is a fundamental principle of our democracy to ensure that every vote is properly counted.

Moreover, this election cycle was unique in the degree of foreign interference witnessed throughout the campaign: the U.S. government concluded that Russian state actors were behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the personal email accounts of Hillary for America campaign officials, and just yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the Russian government was behind much of the “fake news” propaganda that circulated online in the closing weeks of the election.

For all these reasons, we have quietly taken a number of steps in the last two weeks to rule in or out any possibility of outside interference in the vote tally in these critical battleground states.

First, since the day after the election we have had lawyers and data scientists and analysts combing over the results to spot anomalies that would suggest a hacked result. These have included analysts both from within the campaign and outside, with backgrounds in politics, technology and academia.

Second, we have had numerous meetings and calls with various outside experts to hear their concerns and to discuss and review their data and findings. As a part of this, we have also shared out data and findings with them. Most of those discussions have remained private, while at least one has unfortunately been the subject of leaks.

Third, we have attempted to systematically catalogue and investigate every theory that has been presented to us within our ability to do so.

Fourth, we have examined the laws and practices as they pertain to recounts, contests and audits.

Fifth, and most importantly, we have monitored and staffed the post-election canvasses — where voting machine tapes are compared to poll-books, provisional ballots are resolved, and all of the math is double checked from election night. During that process, we have seen Secretary Clinton’s vote total grow, so that, today, her national popular vote lead now exceeds more than 2 million votes.

In the coming days, we will continue to perform our due diligence and actively follow all further activities that are to occur prior to the certification of any election results. For instance, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania conduct post-election audits using a sampling of precincts. Michigan and many other states still do not. This is unfortunate; it is our strong belief that, in addition to an election canvass, every state should do this basic audit to ensure accuracy and public confidence in the election.

Beyond the post-election audit, Green Party candidate Jill Stein announced Friday that she will exercise her right as a candidate to pursue a recount in the state of Wisconsin. She has indicated plans to also seek recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves, but now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides. If Jill Stein follows through as she has promised and pursues recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan, we will take the same approach in those states as well. We do so fully aware that the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount. But regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of the states, we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself.

The campaign is grateful to all those who have expended time and effort to investigate various claims of abnormalities and irregularities. While that effort has not, in our view, resulted in evidence of manipulation of results, now that a recount is underway, we believe we have an obligation to the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported.

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