Who's Rigging The Election?
By Thom Hartmann A...
Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump in nearly every poll following Trump's weeklong meltdown as at least nine women came forward to publicly accuse Trump of sexual harassment.
And like a bad card player, Trump is certain that the real reason he's losing is because everyone else is cheating.
"Instead of being held accountable, Hillary is running for president in what looks like to many people a totally rigged election. The election is being rigged by corrupt media, pushing completely false allegations and outright lies, in an effort to elect Hillary Clinton president."
On Saturday, Trump seemed to go even further off the rails as he baselessly accused Clinton of being "pumped up" on something during the second presidential debate and then demanded that both candidates submit to a drug test before the next debate.
"We should take a drug test prior to that. I don't know what's going on with her. But at the beginning of her last debate - she was all pumped up at the beginning, and at the end it was like, 'Oh, take me down.' She could barely reach her car."
On Sunday, Trump was apparently losing sleep over Alec Baldwin's impersonation of him from Saturday Night Live and tweeted at 4 in the morning that he "Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!".
But while Trump is fomenting his base with the idea that the media is stabbing them in the back - Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Republican secretaries of state all across the country are actually tipping the election by fighting non-existent voter fraud.
Before the midterm elections in 2014 - a Loyola Law School professor wrote in the Washington Post how "A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast".
Even though it's not a real problem, Investigative Reporter Greg Palast explained on this program how Republicans are using non-existent voter fraud as a reason to purge minority voters from the rolls:
"So he came up with this thing called Interstate Crosscheck to find people who are supposedly voting in two different states. In other words, for example, this is from the list, a Maria Isabel Hernandez who supposedly ... did vote in Virginia, also voted as Maria Christina Hernandez in Louisiana. Now, you may say Maria Hernandez is a common name, but not for a Republican."
Palast's investigation showed that this isn't a small scale effort either.
"It is Secretaries of State, those little Katherine Harris's that run the vote, the Republicans are using these lists to knock off thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of voters. For my Rolling Stone investigation we pretty carefully calculated that roughly one million voters will find their names disappeared from the voter rolls, especially black voters, Hispanic voters, and they just absolutely crush Asian voters because of their common names like Kim and Ho and Park."
Meanwhile, Patriot Majority USA is accusing Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, of using the Indiana state police to rig Indiana's election.
That group is citing an incident earlier this month when state police baselessly raided the Indiana Voter Registration Project offices.
Why aren't we hearing more about these very real efforts to suppress the vote and tip the election for the Republicans - and what needs to be done to stop the constant GOP efforts to suppress the vote?
Comments
#2
Voter suprression is Trump's best hope along with another HRC meltdown. Obama could have resolved all the VOTER ID BS by either passing a bill or issuing an executive order that the Social Security Card was valid anywhere and everywhere as Voter ID. This would have silenced the wobegone FOX watchers who are convinced voter fraud is a huge problem, and believe it or not, there are lots of folks who fall into that trap. Otherwise both candidates have created the issueless campaign that both want. Thom I admire your spirited defense of HRC. But truthfully she is Wall Street's woman and will support gender and identity equality but never economic egalitarian societies here or abroad (witness her murder of Gaddafi). She is what she is. Clinton's wife, the guy who gave us NAFTA, deregulation , etc.. If you think she is different look at her vote on the student loan issue. Along with Banker Joe Biden she voted to deny constitutional rights to those who file for bankruptcy. (Yes that right is explicit for people in the constitution, there are no foot notes.) Now only corporations can dismiss all their debts, destruction of the environment and fleecing of the public in the Bankruptcy courts. Do a show on that someday. The things the constitution states are actually of interest to some. The right of bankruptcy and the explicit unconstitutional nature of taxes on consumption are worth a show or two, don't you think?
#3
It appears that DJT is about to suffer a complete emotional breakdown. I don't think he can hold it all together until November 8, 2016. Either he knows what he is saying is all a lie, that makes him evil; or he believes what he is saying is true, that makes him mentally incompentent. I prefer to believe that he suffers from a brain lesion than to call him evil.
#4
The winners of a US presidential election are causing the country real harm by not going out of their way to put in place before the election the quality controls suggested by the opposition.
ct
#5
Bush stole the 2000 election. Fla courts, Jeb Bush & katheryn Harris made sure of that . Bush had trouble putting 2 coherent sentences together , when elected he led US to global crash- TARP - loss of 700 K jobs a month in 2007- 2008 . Bush Cheney lied us into Iraq war, wasting lives and trillions. Now GOP has Trump.. who has his excuses all lined up when- if he loses. Trump never accepts responsibility for anything he does or says. He is a thin skiined, petulant, erratic, man- child who always got what he wanted . If he loses.. The touted Trump Brand will be tarnished
Being a ' loser' for first time in his pampered greedy life. This country is not the one I grew up in in 50's . Eisenhower was last decent GOP President - he warned us of the growing Military Industrial Complex 's . Cheney's Halliburton is just one one result.
#6
When was the last time we had an election that didn't come complete with the routine claims of "widespread voter fraud" and the list of voter suppression allegations? When was the last time you heard anyone claimed that there was any integrity in our elections system, much less in our government? And yet with each election comes the howls of outrage against those who choose not to vote.
#7
Interestingly, Eisenhower was actually to the left of today's Democrats and liberals, esp. on core socioeconomic issues. So was Nixon, for that matter. This has been a very strange era.
#8
Our liberal bourgeoisie never quite grasped how deeply the Clinton wing split apart the Dem voting base, while liberals only continued over the past 20 years to more deeply alienate the poor, etc. Over the past eight years, race has been used quite powerfully to alienated many white voters. I think we have a rather unique mess today. In the end, it looks like a good chunk of the country thinks that no matter how the election turns out, masses of us will lose.
#9
Tom, I don't recall, but did you run a column about the blatant election fraud during the Democratic primary that was used against Bernie Sanders. Yes, the fraud occurs on both sides, and while I am anything but a Trump supporter, I would be concerned as well. Instead of deflecting his comments, which I think is disingenuous on your part, you should at the same time show that he has legitimate concerns based on the Democratic primaries.
#10
Quote DHBranski:no matter how the election turns out, masses of us will lose.
It's true. This election has been, and will be, the biggest disaster this country has ever faced. The Civil War is beginning to look like a minor skirmish. People talk about "too big to fail"; maybe we should look at "too big to exist". I think the United States as grown too big to exist. Too many people with too many differences, all wanting to dictate how everyone else should live their lives.
The Roman Empire fell, the Soviet Union fell; the United States will fall.
#11
The Republicans built up how fair the Fox news hosts, Chris Wallace, would be. How professional he is and that he would control it. I thought it was the worse of the 3 debates. Trump was constantly interupting. He was constantly talking over Hilary. I saw no control at all. As usual "Fair and Balanced" is just a phrase to brainwash the gullible.
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Obama and other Democrats are making a big mistake in ridiculing Trump's claim that the election is being rigged. The Republicans rig elections, as much as they can, by surpressing voters and perhaps by hacking. Black box voting with proprietary machines owned by Republican companies. Trump's charges are a smokescreen to distract from the Republican's nefarious activities.