A Presidential candidate, working with FBI agents and Russia, for the purposes of intervening in a Presidential election, should automatically be disqualified and forced to forfeit the electoral votes. To do less would be a travesty of justice and makes a mockery of our democratic system and values that we have fought and died for. To allow a usurper to be sworn in as our President, diminishes our reputation and the strength of our resolve in our democratic principles that we espouse around the world. It makes us a weaker nation and once the foundation has cracked and it will rot and crumble. History has shown that bigger civilizations than ours have fallen and we may be doomed to suffer the same fate in that I have little faith and hope in our current corrupt Republican Party and our weak Democratic Party too. America electing Trump after his abhorrent behavior and ideology, and seeing the pure unadulterated hate and resentment emanating from so many, cut my soul a little too deeply. I am having a really hard time picturing a brighter future for our country and our planet. I know there are many good people here and in the world, but just like Hillary, we fight the good fight, and it is simply not enough when you have more powerful, more evil, more greedy interests all concentrated in defeating you. They are able to drown out all reasonable, sane voices and inject their own so brilliantly that the masses don’t even realize that they are being manipulated. Forces not looking out for their interests.
This is what happened in this election and so much more. Although, the manipulation has been happening for a long, long time by a conservative party whose plan was set down decades ago. They are leading us into damnation, ruination and racial strife unless we find some way to fight back and shut down their transference of lies and hate.
Our elections should be free from corruption and foreign interference. Since the stripping of the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have done everything possible to suppress the votes of those who tend to vote for Democrats. This has been an ongoing fight for years that continues today and contributed to Hillary’s loss as well. Then Republicans went after Hillary for Benghazi, under a fake investigation, which led to the emails. A familiar pattern used during Bill’s tenure in the White House. Fishing expeditions is what Republicans do.
This year, we also had clear evidence that Russia interfered with our Presidential election to help Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, win the election. For months, Russia illegally hacked the emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC and John Podesta, which were provided to Wikileaks who selectively released them to produce maximum damage. Trump gleefully used this information in his campaign against Hillary by distorting the facts and attacking her character relentlessly. In addition, less than two weeks before the election, FBI Director Comey sends a letter to Rep. Chaffetz informing him that they had discovered more emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, used by Huma, that may be related to Hillary Clinton. Chaffetz immediately leaks the letter to the press and Hillary, whose momentum had grown and was seen as the presumptive President, all of sudden saw her poll numbers fall and her momentum come to a halt. The hope was that the Comey letter’s damage would be minimal, however, the exit polling showed the damage was more substantial than expected and probably cost her the election. I believe it was the effects of all the bad acts combined, and the Comey letter was too much to overcome the vulnerabilities that had been purposely placed on her, through no fault of her own. It is certain, however, that had the Comey letter not happened, Hillary would more than likely have been our President-elect today.
The very reason the FBI has a hard and fast rule of not commenting or leaking information about any candidate that may or may not be under investigation 90 days before an election, is because of the impact it may have on an election. The FBI cannot be seen as being politically partisan or playing any role in affecting a presidential election for political partisan reasons. To do so destroys the credibility of the entire FBI organization. Which is the problem they are dealing with today in violating that very important rule. We learned from Giuliani that he was getting inside information from FBI agents favorable to Trump and that they weren’t happy with Comey’s decision not to indict Hillary. He also hinted that something really special was happening in the next few days while on Fox News and that Trump wasn’t going down without a fight. Two days later, Director Comey sent his first letter and submitted another letter two days before the election stating that they had found nothing to change their July decision when Hillary was exonerated. However, the damage was already done and the second letter could have added to it as well.
Giuliani had no business interfering in this way. The FBI had no business interfering in this way. Trump, however, as the candidate, should not be allowed to profit from his bad faith and bad dealings against Hillary Clinton. How he ran his campaign was utterly corrupt.
So, I am angry and sad when I hear many blame Hillary for the loss instead of blaming Trump for the dirty, underhanded, illegal, disgusting, criminal enterprise campaign that he ran.
Acceptance of Trump’s election makes a mockery of our democratic system. Trump is Russia’s President-elect for America with the added help of the pro-Trump traitors at the FBI. Giuliani, who was given inside information and used the FBI for Trump’s advantage, should also face any and all legal consequences. He should be ashamed of himself. They all should. But they never will because they are despicable individuals who lack any core values.
This election tells the world that America’s democratic elections are vulnerable. That the establishment elite cares more about the appearance of fair elections than making sure there are actual fair elections. This is why we are going through the motions of a “smooth and peaceful transition of power.” I say to hell with that. That should not apply under these particular circumstances with someone like Trump and with all the prima facie evidence against him warranting a serious investigation and a hold on the swearing in ceremony, at minimum. The electorate could legally withhold their votes from Trump and vote for Hillary. As the winner of the popular vote, it is only fair and fitting. However, as a pragmatist, the chances of this happening are very small even though I did sign the petition to do just that.
As we watch Trump select his transition team, my anxiety level rises. He has chosen Steven Bannon as his Senior Counsel. Bannon, the Executive Chariman at Bretbart and the leader of the Alt-Right who represents white nationalists, white supremacists, fascists, nativists, neo-nazis and the worst in the fringe of the underbelly of hate. In August of last year, Steve Bannon reportedly said he was Trump’s campaign manager. www.thedailybeast.com/… He apparently has had a big influence on Trump and his ideology must have resonated with him. Yet, his surrogates and supporters keep telling us to just give him a chance. After all, didn’t we hear his great victory speech where he struck a reconciliation tone? I heard his speech. I remember his son and Pence standing on stage with Trump and while Trump was going through his list of items he was going to do upon becoming President, a man from the crowd yelled loudly “And kill Obama!”.
I was dumbfounded because Trump didn’t flinch and just kept on reading his speech. Pence moved a little bit and seemed to appear to look for the culprit, but even Trump’s son showed no signs of concern. Trump can’t say he didn’t hear it because earlier when someone yelled out “I love you”, he answered back in kind. So, this is the man we are putting in the White House, in charge of our nation and our next so-called leader of the free world? Not anymore, that Title will belong to Angela Merkel of Germany.
There is something very wrong here. How can anyone, and I mean ANYONE, seriously think this man is now going to unite the country when his whole campaign was based on dividing it? Not once did he ever admonish his most ardent supporters to keep it civil and decent. With the election over and the negative campaign no longer necessary, he still couldn’t bring himself to speak out against this vile comment against our President. This is the character of Donald Trump, or lack thereof. What we see is what we get. He is incapable of decency and empathy. But he is unequivocally capable of breaking any and all laws to accomplish his goals, while disregarding the human carnage inflicted along the way. He sees it as just part of doing business.
Donald Trump’s bad acts alone, should warrant an automatic forfeiture of his electoral votes. Working with Russian operatives to interfere in our Presidential election against Hillary Clinton is beyond anything we have ever seen. But when we do, we recognize it for what it is, TREASON.
This is on top of the outrageous lies repeated every day against Hillary and the horrendous charges and name calling. Trump brought in Paul Manafort as his campaign manager, who had a long history of working for dictators and those close to Putin like Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s President who was deposed in 2014. This was no coincidence. He was specifically chosen for his connections and contacts to Russia. “ Being associated with unsavory leaders whose interests run counter to U.S. policy, or who have been involved in repression against citizens, is a professional risk of Manafort’s brand of political consulting. His company formerly worked for Filipino dictator Feridinand Marcos, among others...” www.theatlantic.com/...
Recently, a Russian foreign diplomat confirmed that he had been communicating with Trump’s campaign for months. Hope Hicks, Trump’s spokesperson denied the claim, but the evidence that has been uncovered to date is damning. All things point to Trump having secretly communicated with Russian interests for his own political and personal gains in exchange for policies favorable to Putin. www.slate.com/… Slate wrote how a DNS specialist, an elite malware hunter, saw “a bank in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a server registered to the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue.” A server traced to Trump Tower, campaign headquarters and where Trump resides communicating with a Russian bank? But the Slate article stated something more startling:
“Earlier this month, the group of computer scientists passed the logs to Paul Vixie. In the world of DNS experts, there’s no higher authority. Vixie wrote central strands of the DNS code that makes the internet work. After studying the logs, he concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” Put differently, the logs suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence. “
We have yet to see Trump’s tax returns and probably never will. He refused to put his business in a blind trust. His children will be running his businesses and now he wants to have them working as advisors and wants top secret security clearances for them, including his son-in-law. Is he going to be allowed to get away with this crazy scheme? So far, I have not heard any complaints from the Republicans about nepotism, conflict of interest, or threats to national security. The Democrats are raising concerns, but I am not sure how much they can do since they are in the minority.
The MSM and the Democrat leadership seem to have accepted the results of the election and are just focusing on what we need to do to win back our base support. I believe they are missing something more fundamental and important, the fact that our DEMOCRACY is in mortal danger. Our election was significantly interfered with by Russia and the FBI in support of and at the behest of Donald J. Trump. If this isn’t stealing an election, I don’t know what is. Everyone was shocked at the results, including the world. All the pollsters were wrong and scratching their heads as to why their polls were off the mark. I can see a couple of polls being off the mark, but when you have every legitimate pollster being absolutely wrong, when Hillary was seen leading the entire time except for when Wikileaks released the hacked emails, and leading up to the day of the Comey letter, and then only leading by a smaller, tighter margin by election day after the second Comey letter, a pattern starts to emerge. She lost because of the damage inflicted by Trump with the help of the FBI through Giuliani and Russia through Manafort’s contacts. And I don’t see anybody willing to do anything about it. We should demand Trump forfeit his electoral votes.
We have entered the Twilight Zone folks.