Obama: Vote Rigging Is Impossible - If In Favor Of Hillary Clinton
Is rigging the U.S. election possible?
Obama says it is not possible:
Obama was asked about Trump's voter fraud assertions on Tuesday [..] He responded with a blistering attack on the Republican candidate, noting that U.S. elections are run and monitored by local officials, who may well be appointed by Republican governors of states, and saying that cases of significant voter fraud were not to be found in American elections.Obama said there was "no serious" person who would suggest it was possible to rig American elections, adding, "I'd invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes."
That is curious. There are a lot of "non serious" persons in the Democratic Party who tell us that Russia is trying to manipulate the U.S. elections. How is it going to that when it's not possible?
- Harry Reid Cites Evidence of Russian Tampering in U.S. Vote, and Seeks F.B.I. Inquiry
- Hillary Clinton concerned about Russia tampering in U.S. elections
- NSA Chief: Potential Russian Hacking of U.S. Elections a Concern
- Putin's Meddling in the U.S. Elections
Moreover - Obama himself suggested that Russia may interfere with the U.S. elections: Obama: 'Possible' Russia interfering in US election
Is rigging the election only impossible when it is in favor of Hillary Clinton? This while rigging the elections in favor of Donald Trump, by Russia or someone else, is entirely possible and even "evident"?
Curious.
That said - I do believe that the U.S. election can be decided through manipulation. We have evidently seen that in 2000 when Bush was "elected" by a fake "recount" and a Supreme Court decision.
The outcome of a U.S. presidential election can depend on very few votes in very few localities. The various machines and processes used in U.S. elections can be influenced. It is no longer comprehensible for the voters how the votes are counted and how the results created.*
The intense manipulation attempts by the Clinton camp, via the DNC against Sanders or by creating a Russian boogeyman to propagandize against Trump, lets me believe that her side is well capable of considering and implementing some vote count shenanigan. Neither are Trump or the Republicans in general strangers to dirty methods and manipulations.
It is high time for the U.S. to return to paper-ballots and manual vote counting. The process is easier, comprehensible, less prone to manipulations and reproducible. Experience in other countries show that it is also nearly as fast, if not faster, than machine counting. There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all.
*(The German Constitutional Court prohibited the use of all voting machines in German elections because for the general voters they institute irreproducible vote counting which leads to a general loss of trust in the democratic process. The price to pay for using voting machines is legitimacy.)
Posted by b on October 19, 2016 at 5:54 UTC | Permalink
next page »"There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all."
Of course there is - to rig elections. What do you think they are used for.
Posted by: Blue | Oct 19 2016 6:27 utc | 2
No shit, stay home save gas and time let Obomo and Hillary decides who the next regime in WH? :-)
Posted by: Jack Smith | Oct 19 2016 6:32 utc | 3
So much for Smartmatic: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06CARACAS2063_a.html
Posted by: Erast Fandorin | Oct 19 2016 6:40 utc | 4
No. The price to pay is the ability to be alerted when vote rigging is going on.
Bush won in 2000 because his people controlled the processes that mattered in Florida.
There are the same allegations about 2004 in regards to Ohio.
Here's the best statistical analysis of US vote count irregularities to date. Not a pretty picture.
http://www.electoralsystemincrisis.org/
And here's a broader analysis of voting integrity issues this year.
http://electionjustice.net/democracy-lost-a-report-on-the-fatally-flawed-2016-democratic-primaries-table-of-contents/
But don't worry: the Department of Homeland Security wants to step in to protect our elections -- with a new Election Cybersecurity Committee that has no cybersecurity experts, but plenty of people embroiled in election fraud lawsuits!
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160902/06412735425/dhss-new-election-cybersecurity-committee-has-no-cybersecurity-experts.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrloTS3p-fY
Posted by: Adjuvant | Oct 19 2016 7:36 utc | 6
There is more needed than just paper ballots. A proportional system, a limit on donations and partisan/donor government posts, a stop to the corporate and lobbyist revolving doors.
And diverse political parties that present voters with a choice. At present the US seem to be on their way to a one party system. Any democratic process will take place within this "private" club including a very small part of the population.
But democracy never meant the power of the poor. So, no, for the 1 percent the system is not rigged, they have a preferred globalization candidate, and a police state fall back should the peasants rebell.
And in the end, this is the way things are run in Russia and China, with a lot less media circus.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19 2016 9:09 utc | 7
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19, 2016 5:09:02 AM | 7
Add - a limit to presidential power for one person. US citizens are reduced to vote in a block to this power in the Senate and the House in continuous cycles. In the end that blocks any political progress there might be.
The US are the oldest modern democracy. It is like being stuck in the age of steam engines.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19 2016 9:20 utc | 8
@ wj2 (Oct 19, 2016 2:00:43 AM | 1):
Good one, wj2! Here's some more info on Lord Malloch-Brown and George Soros, courtesy of WikiPedia:
Malloch Brown has been closely associated with billionaire speculator George Soros. Working for Refugees International, he was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia in 1993–94, formed by George Soros. He has since kept cordial relations with Soros, and rented an apartment owned by Soros while working in New York on UN assignments. In May 2007, Soros' Quantum Fund announced the appointment of Sir Mark as vice-president. In September 2007, The Observer reported that he had resigned this position on becoming a government minister in the UK. Also in May 2007, Malloch Brown was named vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute, two other important Soros organisations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Malloch_Brown,_Baron_Malloch-Brown#Association_with_George_Soros
Posted by: Seamus Padraig | Oct 19 2016 10:44 utc | 10
There's lots of evidence that the 2004 election was stolen for Bush in Ohio.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 12:10 utc | 11
Trevor Noah nails Trump on the MSM "rigging" the election. “Oh, Donald Trump, the media is not 'rigged' against you," Noah fired back. "They're just recording what you say and playing it back. If anything, you're rigging your own campaign.
Dozens of RNC members are drinking The Duckheads orange Kool-Aid. But elected officials, not so much.
Our local Fanboy-In-Chief, Gov. Chris “Krispy Kreme” Christie, for example, usually seconds whatever comesout of the Donald’s.... whatever. But he says elections here in NJ are not rigged. Nor is Ohio Secretary of State Husted too happy with his fellow Rethuglican. “Our institutions, like our election system, is one of the bedrocks of American democracy. We should not question it or the legitimacy of it. It works very well.”
And here’s the money quote:
“The vast majority of battleground states have Republicans overseeing their election systems,” said South Carolina GOP chairman Matt Moore. “I think it’s safe to assume they’re not rigging the process either against Donald Trump or for anyone else.”
These officials actually count the votes, and they, like Ohio's Husted, have criticized the Day-Glo Duckhead.
Trump’s response has to been to label the hardened political professionals of the GOP “naïve.”
But that does not seem to have gotten folks like Paul Ryan to back down.
“Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” said Ryan spokesperson AshLee Strong.
Y'all keep on diggin'. The landslide that buries The Donald will be huuuuuge!
Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 19 2016 12:19 utc | 12
I think that it is hard to have "paper ballots" in USA because of a large number of elective offices, some pretty bizarre like "county recorder of deeds". Thus a paper ballot is a complex questionnaire and quick manual counting as done in most of Europe is difficult. On top of that, each state decides the rules for voting, and counties implement those rules, and each county can be different. Thus different kinds of machines.
However, the most systematic manipulation of the ballot is depriving people of the right to vote, in some states, like Florida, on pretty massive scale. And this is directed mostly at potential Democratic voters. Then there are "ID requirements" which are something not easily comprehensible in continental Europe, where everyone has to have an ID. But not in USA, and if you do not have a driver license (un-American!), it is a bit complicated to get one, and rules set by Republican legislatures are tailored so they are easier, on the average, for Republicans than Democrats (I do not recall details, but something like hunting license is OK, but student ID is not).
Perhaps even more massive manipulation is so-called "gerrymandering" which affects Congress and state legislatures.
Over all, Republicans gain more than Democrats.
Concerning attacks from both sides, Trump is definitely more hysterical.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 19 2016 12:40 utc | 13
DOOOOOOOOOM!
"smartmatic" is obviously the right choice. it's a name we know and trust. Like Deibold, Northrup, KBR, and Bellingcat. The integrity stands for itself.
With a population so gleefully ignorant and self centered as D'uhmerica, you should be lowering your expectations significantly.
Posted by: shh | Oct 19 2016 12:50 utc | 14
Are honest elections even legal in Texas and Louisiana?
How about Massachusetts and New York? They may be legal there but it would be dangerous to try to enforce that.
Posted by: Ken Nari | Oct 19 2016 12:57 utc | 15
Just think of how many residents of graveyards will be voting their consciences (or lack thereof) this year. Remember Chicago advise - vote early, vote often.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Oct 19 2016 13:06 utc | 16
obomber has a friend in the vote rigging business.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-18/robert-creamer
Voting Green in Calif.
Posted by: jo6pac | Oct 19 2016 13:19 utc | 17
PB 13 "Concerning attacks from both sides, Trump is definitely more hysterical."
Concerted media campaign (scripted) against Trump portrays him as hysterical. Recall the trumped-up "(Howard) Dean Scream". Trump's hysterical rants (and the smear campaign) are played up in a organized attempt to knock him out. People are getting kneecapped (Billy Bush) to demonstrate to others the wrath that may be visited upon them for supporting the wrong candidate.
Take Bill O'Reilly for example, He told a subordinate female employee (documented court record) that he wanted to "get a few wines in her and soap up her tits in the shower with a loofah and falafel. There was a settlement and the story was under-reported. Forgotten and forgiven. In fact Bill O stands as an arbiter of moral virtue.
Hillary is as nasty and hsyterical as Trump or worse. She uses the F bomb regularly. Screams at her subordinates and she annihilated several countries worth of women and children.
It is simply "not in the script" to malign Hillary with her own words and obnoxious behavior. By the way, she is also a drunk.
Posted by: fastfreddy | Oct 19 2016 13:45 utc | 18
rufus magister says:
Y'all keep on diggin'
well, there's this, and i didn't even have to break ground.
Posted by: john | Oct 19 2016 14:06 utc | 19
We should all be aware of what occurred in the two Baby Bush elections as far as voter machine tabulations and judicial fraud in his becoming president in both elections and the likely murder(s) to cover the fraud up. Small plane crashes being almost untraceable. https://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/bushs-it-guy-killed-in-plane-crash/
paper vote or bust. Everything else hides an attempt at control and ultimately fraud.
Posted by: Northern Observer | Oct 19 2016 14:21 utc | 21
>> “The vast majority of battleground
>> states have Republicans overseeing
>> their election systems,”
> These officials actually count the
> votes,
How does that help Trump? Most DNC *and* RNC Deep State insiders favor Hillary.
> and they, like Ohio's Husted,
> have criticized the Day-Glo
> Duckhead.
Yes.
Posted by: dumbass | Oct 19 2016 14:22 utc | 22
Here's another one: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/17/politico-reporter-sends-story-to-hillary-aide-for-approval-admits-hes-a-hack/
Who is leaking all this stuff so well-timed together? Might just be the FBI, finding itself unable to prosecute officially, not only for fear of retribution, but also because the heap of shit that would get uncovered could be enough for the rest of the world to declare war on the US.
Posted by: persiflo | Oct 19 2016 14:29 utc | 23
I live in the State of Oregon that has paper ballots and I know people that participate in the counting process.....no rigging here.
I have been a techie since 1969 and have read enough to firmly believe that the US electronic voting machines are compromised.
Hence, war criminal Clinton II with the support of the global plutocrats will win.
For the good of the Cosmos, the extinction of humanity cannot come soon enough. Being controlled by the parasitic cabal like we are and have been for centuries says that as a species we haven't even learned to wipe our ass yet.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 19 2016 14:41 utc | 24
Daniel Ellsberg, in his book Secrets, recounts what he had learned during his government service about the honesty of U.S. elections. As reported in Counterpunch:
In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the U.S. government pushed hard to get an election to sanctify its puppet regime. Ellsberg, who spent two years in Vietnam after his time in the Pentagon, aided some of the key U.S. officials in this effort who sought an honest vote. But when U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge heard their pitch, he replied, “You’ve got a gentleman in the White House right now [Johnson] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I’ve spent most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican convention to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft.” Lodge later ordered, “Get it across to the press that they shouldn’t apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S.”But Lodge’s comments were downright uplifting compared with a meeting that Ellsberg attended with former Vice President Richard Nixon, who was visiting Vietnam on a “fact-finding mission” to help bolster his presidential aspirations. Former CIA operative Edward Lansdale told Nixon that he and his colleagues wanted to help “make this the most honest election that’s ever been held in Vietnam.” Nixon replied, “Oh, sure, honest, yes, honest, that’s right … so long as you win!” With the last words he did three things in quick succession: winked, drove his elbow hard into Lansdale’s arm, and slapped his own knee.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 14:54 utc | 25
12,13,will you clowns keep your zippers closed?Your propaganda is unseemly,and we'll see just whose victory will be huge Nov.8,won't we?
Why does anyone put any credence in serial liar polls?
Why is policy discussion absent from this election cycle?Its all Trump bashing,wo one iota of his policies being broadcast?
That is his vote rigging angle,that the MSM is corrupt and is politically assassinating him daily,not the polls themselves being a major factor in the rigging accusations.
Obomba,the most un-criticised POTUS in American history,is a laughable pos concerned about his terrible corrupt legacy of death war and division which Trump will reveal,once in.
And only commie morons would oppose that.
Posted by: dahoit | Oct 19 2016 15:00 utc | 26
Election Fraud within the Outlaw US Empire has a long history. One very intrepid investigator and expert on this is Brad Friedman who runs the Brad Blog, whose current lead item is about this very topic. I suggest those interested in learning more take the time to investigate his site and its many years of accumulated evidence proving Election Fraud a very big problem, http://bradblog.com/
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 19 2016 15:46 utc | 27
The Vote 'No Confidence' movement is growing.
It's being actively discussed on FB and ZH now.
A bloviating bunko artist vers a grifting crypto neocon is not a 'choice', it's a suicide squad lootfest it's taking America down. Once we hit -$25,000,000,000,000 in 'debt' (sic), projected by 2019 under either Trump or Clinton, that's 200% of real GDP (ex Wall Street), and from then on a perpetual interest-only debt repayment of $1,000,000,000,000 a year, more than all 'Welfare' (sic), or more than all 'Defense' (sicker).
Now if it's a choice between losing Welfare or losing Defense, who do you think will take it up the ass??
And what do you think that will do to retail sales and commercial R/E? And what will that do to Federal tax revenues? And what will that do to your SS and MC?
Why do I even have to explain this?
Just look at Greece. Just look at Puerto Rico. Just look at Spain or Italy. How can people remain so blissfully ignorant, that voting Red or voting Blue is going to magically 'Make America Great Again'?
It won't, it will just sustain the lootfest with a buy-in.
That's what the OneParty of Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz offers. The OneParty that brought you the 1998 soft coup and 2001 hard coup, the OneParty that brought you the 1999 Dot.Con and 2008 Mortgage.Con neutron bombs, the OneParty that bailed out all their gambling losses onto our backs, and now we are $20T in 'debt'.
Vote No Confidence.
Choose Neither.
You don't have a choice.
They own you.
You are owned.
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Oct 19 2016 15:50 utc | 28
B: I'm disappointed you throw out this kind of red-meat innuendo, "suggesting" Trump is standing on solid ground. As Piotr Berman @ 13 points out, all of various voting manipulations in their many forms have been architected & executed by & for the GOP in the last 20 years.
Trump's hung himself. On substantial policy issues he just makes things up. His grotesque treatment of women is pathological, and most of his "rigged election" banter has emanated from his belief the media... in covering it, is somehow biased. This is their job.
Poor little Donald.
I've read most of the Podesta emails that seemed problematic against HRC. There's not much there-there. The latest Trump campaign mantra declaring (again) Clinton a criminal and "guilty" because of SOS quid-pro-quo has no basis in fact: there's no evidence for it. As bad as things are here (so poorly misinformed electorate), these things will only make things worse down the road... stirring redneck anger that will persist for years.
Reminds me of GWB's 2k election propaganda reviving neo-confederate prejudices to "build his base". Remember Ashcroft? We're still paying a huge price for that. Trump's giving us a redux.
I watched Charlie Rose's 1 hour interview with John Carlin: I'm no longer convinced Russia is not behind DNC/Podesta hacks. I admire Putin, grateful for what he's done in Syria. But he doesn't walk on water. Carlin makes a convincing case.
And, I'm glad the "leaks" out there. Just unfortunate Trump lies about their contents.
Regardless whether Russia's behind the hacks or not. Bottom line is, virtually all of them expose HRC (for better or worse). How this somehow parlays into supporting Trump's nonsense the election is rigged against him is... bizarre. This makes anyone who criticizes him a potential criminal & he's milking it for all he can.
I strongly suspect hacks from Trump & especially the neo-con advisors he's lined up would provide some real red meat as his lineup is all too reminiscent of GWB's early days: eg. they promoted Bush's folksy "Uniter not a Divider" while -0- indication what the people behind the scenes planning his agenda were really up to: scorched earth horrors.
Many of the same folks calling the shots in Trump's "transition" team. Scary.
...
I hope they cut off his mike tonight if he interrupts again: this is not a forum for little Donald to ceaselessly repeat "lock her up". What a narcissistic ass hole. Reminiscent of Mussolini.
...
I'm voting Stein. She gets 5% this time, she's got a real shot to be a presence in 2020
In Humboldt County California we still use paper ballots. Our polling place also has one electronic voting machine sitting in a corner for voters who can't use the paper ballots. I have never seen it being used. There was a transparency program that I think they still do where all ballots were scanned and the images made available online for the public to double check results. I'm no wiz with machine vision but I think I could knock together enough code to do my own recount.
I'm not paying much attention but doesn't Trump say the election is rigged? Obama's setting up a straw mam by changing the story to election fraud. There may well be fraud in the voting process but we are unlikely to ever know how much. But as to the election being rigged, that's so plainly obvious it's painful.
And Germany doesn't allow electronic voting machines. Gotta be a clue there somewhere.
Posted by: Nobody | Oct 19 2016 16:17 utc | 30
There is ample evidence of election fraud, vote fraud, and various types of ‘rigging’ or ‘organising’ in the US it is just too long to go into in a short post. (See for ex. Adjuvant @ 6, john @ 18)
Ideally, one would have to divide it into different types. It is also traditional, which some forget, I only know about that from ‘realistic’ novels, I recently read Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer, and was amazed how little things change (despite horse-drawn carriages, rouge, spitoons, cigars, sauerkraut, etc.) - see karlof1 @ 25.
Poll Pro-HRC results are not trustworthy. They aren’t necessarily outright fabricated (is easy to do and very hard to detect / prosecute), nor even fraudulently carried out, but ‘arranged’ to give the desired result, which might even, in some cases, be perfectly unconscious, just following SOP. (I could outline 10 major problems / procedures that twist the results.)
Then, the media take it up, and cherry-pick the results, pro HRC. That includes internet sites like real clear politics, which I noticed recently is biased (paid?) in favor of HRC.
It is amazing to me, yet very few ppl actually dig into the available info about the polls. (Maybe 300 ppl in the world?) HRC needs these fakelorum poll results because they will ‘rig’ the election as best as they can, they need to point back to them: “see we were winning all the time Trump deplorables yelling insults who cares” - Pathetic. Also, of course, controlling the polls while not the same as ‘riggin’ the election is part of the same MO. (See Podesta e-mails from Wikileaks.)
This is also the reason for the mad accusations of Putin interference in US elections - if somebody is doing illegit moves it is Trump’s supporter Putin and so the ‘bad stuff’ is ‘foreign take-over’ and not ‘us’, and btw NOT the Republicans, or Trump circle, which is very telling.
I didn’t see the O Keefe, Project Veritas, vids mentioned. Here the first one. There is a second one up and more coming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY
Posted by: Noirette | Oct 19 2016 16:43 utc | 31
I think things could get pretty ugly on Nov 9 if Trump wins because i don't see Hillary going quietly into the night and the dems have seeded "putin is rigging" the election idea to contest the results. Plus the establishment that wants Hillary controls the media and the executive office.
Oh boy.
Posted by: alaric | Oct 19 2016 16:49 utc | 32
Posted by: jdmckay | Oct 19, 2016 12:11:35 PM | 27
Trump's delegitimizing the election before it takes place is definitely color revolution stuff - the carrot revolution?
It is an interesting experiment if you can make people vote for a candidate they don't like by it being the only way to prevent a candidate they dislike even more. You just showed you aren't able to.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19 2016 17:05 utc | 33
It is an interesting experiment if you can make people vote for a candidate they don't like by it being the only way to prevent a candidate they dislike even more. You just showed you aren't able to.
Huh? I'm voting for Stein and did so in '12 as well.
I guess you like to pick fights where none exists.
I can't stomach either of them: what disqualifies each stands on the the merits of their own words & actions, period. Not on what either camp's candidate or surrogates say about the other. To our and world's detriment, it seems the later is what's driving most of the "conversations" (such as they are).
If Trump becomes President he'll patch things up with Russia and AmeriKKKa won't get Nuked in my lifetime.
But I want to die happy.
So, Please AmeriKKKa, VOTE FOR HILLARY!
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 19 2016 17:35 utc | 35
27
I'll throw out an old farmer's tale.
We had a farm when I was in my 20's, during the 'Gotta Revolution, Gotta Revolution' post-Viet Nam Recession that nobody wants to remember. We were lucky, built it into a producing farmstead, not a hippie-haven. But it was all leased land, of course and so eventually we lost it back to the Bank.
Anyway, we kept chickens for meat and eggs, in a wire pen by the house, with a dog to scare off the racoons. You know, a regular chicken coop.
One morning we went out to gather eggs, and all the chickens were dead, head-chopped by the pen wire, in two separate piles at each end of the pen. Inside the pen.
We figured out the 'coons came in the night, in two groups, the Reds and the Blues. The Reds silently rushed the wire, chickens ran the other way into the Blues, who silently yanked as many heads off as they could. That panicked the chickens who ran back towards the Reds, who silently yanked off as many heads as they could, and so on, and so on, until there were two piles of head-chopped-off chickens, safely inside their pen. Safety and security inside the pen is important when you're a chicken.
I never forgot that story of the Blues and the Reds, how they head-chopped all them stupid chickens.
I'll close with another farmer's tale, as we're about to see some more head-chopping here right quick.
We got to meet the guy who homesteaded the place, back at the turn of the century. Very old still sharp guy with a wry smile and twinkle in his eye, said we done a good job restoring it to full production with what little we had. So we asked him, you know, how he lost the homestead.
"Back in '30, people were so poor, that when they announced the (Columbia River) dam project, the folks rose up out of the city (Seattle) and walked up the valleys toward the (mountain) passes. And as they went, they killed and ate all the livestock and pulled and ate all the crops on every farm they passed. We heard they was coming, so I locked up the place and joined them. What could I do?"
Then, like the others, he worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week, for 25c a day and found. 'Found' is a canvas tent, a cot and a plate of beans. And after Sunday go-to-meeting, you spent one of your 25c pieces for a steak, coffee and as many flour rolls as you could stuff in your face. Then back to the dam, ...right up until the Second Banker War, WWII.
Of course, he lost the farm after the war, with all the men gone for near five years, just as the Bankers had planned, with all the build-up debts during the cash-less '30s, together with seed loans, crop failures and harvest losses, wiped out the homesteads and drove everyone into the cities after the war, into factory jobs and cracker box housing. The first 'freedom' work camps. And their children worked in those factories too, and bought more cracker box housing, and maybe even a car!
And then the factories got dismantled, shipped off to China, lol. Suckers. The Bankers got it all.
"This generation got no hesitation at all! Gotta Revolution, gotta Revolution!!"
Yeah, sure, that'll happen, lol. This generation are just like mine was, trying to make rent and put food on the table, living in what we used to call boarding houses, everything they have in the world packed into their tiny bedroom, 3 or 4 to a house, 10 or 12 in some, bunk beds and stuff overflowing in heaped piles in the living room below a silent disconnected big screen box, coming and going as they start and later lose their temp jobs, ...and not even a decent steak and coffee on Sunday.
Go ahead and vote Red or vote Blue. Makes no damn difference at all.
The Rentiers own you now. You are owned!
"We won, you lost. It's just business, get over it. Now get off our land!"
Posted by: chipnik | Oct 19 2016 17:47 utc | 36
My link collection on the elections is here: US presidential elections - ACLOS
Topics discussed:
- Trump loves Putin
- Trump conspires with Putin
- Putin rigs elections
- Trump and Putin poisoned Hillary
- Assange sucks Putin's dick
- McCarthy runs for president
- Obama threatens WW3 with Russia
- Obama cancels elections
- Historian find signs of intelligent life
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Oct 19 2016 17:49 utc | 37
Posted by: jdmckay | Oct 19, 2016 1:24:02 PM | 30
The problem, as things are, your Stein vote is effectively a Trump vote.
Don't misunderstand me - it is impossible to act consistently in this election. Maybe Sanders is right that it is preferable to get Hillary elected and then fight for issues in that environment.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19 2016 17:50 utc | 38
"Hillary Clinton now says her “number one priority” in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad, putting us on the path of war with Syria and Russia next year.
Any “no-fly zone” over Syria will certainly be followed by the shooting down of both Russian and U.S. jets, in an unpredictable escalation that could easily spread
Russia will not back down if we start shooting down its aircraft.
Is Hillary willing to risk nuclear war with Russia in order to protect al-Qaeda in Syria?
Posted by: anon | Oct 19 2016 18:03 utc | 39
Posted by: Mina | Oct 19 2016 18:07 utc | 40
@ somebody who wrote: The problem, as things are, your Stein vote is effectively a Trump vote.
Some of us don't fall for BS arguments but vote against obvious evil.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 19 2016 18:14 utc | 41
Some of us don't fall for BS argumemts about only one candidate being obviously evil.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 18:19 utc | 42
That entirely does not make sense. How can it be a vote for Trump if the person voting was not ever going to vote for Hillary? A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill Stein, plain and simple. Now whether that vote will be counted correctly is, as b points out, very highly questionable. But that will not be on the head of the voter who is trying his or her best to work within a corrupt system that is only fixable if we go back to the tried and true of paper ballots.
Good for Oregon indeed. This election would turn out very differently if more states followed their practice. As it is, we face an 'election', not an election anyone can be proud of. If it can be stolen it will be.
I hope I am proven wrong, but I very much doubt it. And all the same, I am voting for Jill Stein. She has earned my vote.
Posted by: juliania | Oct 19 2016 18:21 utc | 43
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19, 2016 1:50:04 PM | 34
why waste your time arguing with jdmckay?
Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?) to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like he could ever have any political insights worth listening to, now is it?
Posted by: Bo Dacious | Oct 19 2016 18:23 utc | 44
96% of disclosed campaign contributions from journalists went to the Clinton campaign. From the MSM: TIME.
Note the sums are shards of chewed peanuts and their shells. MSM are bought, controlled and are put in a lowly position, and pamper to power, any.… They will go where the money is but it takes them a long time to figure out who what where why etc. and what they are supposed to do. They cannot be outed as completely controlled, so have to do some ‘moves’ to retain credibility, and their clients/controllers understand that. Encouraging a corrupt 4th Estate has its major downsides.
http://time.com/money/4533729/hillary-clinton-journalist-campaign-donations/
Posted by: Noirette | Oct 19 2016 18:32 utc | 45
Posted by: juliania | Oct 19, 2016 2:21:47 PM | 39
This here probabbly is a fairly accurate poll
The decision is made by who goes third party/stays home - people who would vote Democrat if it wasn't for Clinton or people who would vote Republican if it wasn't for Trump.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19 2016 18:46 utc | 46
Rigged. Right. Let me tell you about rigged.
The US system is rigged in a far larger sense than any Americans realize. It’s rigged to blow off the Constitution.
If you want to know how badly rigged, ask any voter when they leave the voting venue: “What is the name of the elector you just voted for?” You’ll get either: 1) a dumb stare; 2) a laugh, or 3) a “WTF is an elector?”
Under the Constitution, Americans vote for electors. They do not vote for presidents, and there’s a reason for that. It’s called “mass stupidity.”
The Fondling Fathers were smart enough to know that the people are too stupid to choose their own leader. So the idea of the Electoral College was that every four years communities vote for a local person who could be trusted to go to Washington and become part of the committee that chooses a president and vice-president.
There is not “supposed” to be any campaign, candidates, or polls. The process is "supposed" to be more akin to the Holy See choosing a pope. The electors were to meet in Washington, debate the possibilities, come up with short list, go to the top person on the list and ask if they would be willing to be president (or vice-president, as the case may be), and if they agreed, the deal was done. If not, go to the second person. Pretty much how the CEO of a large corporation is chosen.
Having the people of a community vote for the local person who would be the most trustworthy to deliberate on who should be president is a reasonable objective. I mean, essentially the question for the voter would be reduced to: “What person in our community would be least likely to be bought off?” But having a gang-bang of 60 million voting Americans who don’t really know shit about the morons they are voting into office . . . that, on its face, is a sign of mass self-deception and insanity. It is mass stupidity perpetuating itself.
The circus that the US presidential election has turned into – including the grotesque primaries – just goes to show how fucking stupid Americans are. The system is an embarrassment to the entire country. And it is an act of flipping-off the Fondling Fathers and their better judgment every four years. But worst of all, the present system is virtually certain to eventually produce the most powerful person in the world who is a complete moron, and who will precipitate a global catastrophe – economic, or military, or both.
Two names come immediately to mind.
And World War Three edges ever closer. Zero Hedge: Russia Is Deploying The Largest Naval Force Since The Cold War For Syria: NATO Diplomat:
Just moments ago we reported that in the latest escalation involving Syria, the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov was now sailing past Norway on its way to Syria, where it is expected to arrive in just under 2 weeks. As part of the carrier naval group, Russia also deployed an escort of seven other Russian ships, which we dubbed the "most powerful Russian naval task force to sail in northern Europe since 2014" according to Russia's Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily reports.It turns out it was more than this and as Reuters reported second ago, citing a NATO diplomat, Russia is in fact deploying the largest naval force since end of Cold War to reinforce its Syria campaign.
SENIOR NATO DIPLOMAT SAYS RUSSIA IS DEPLOYING ALL OF NORTHERN FLEET AND PART OF BALTIC FLEET TO REINFORCE SYRIA CAMPAIGN
DEPLOYMENT IS RUSSIA'S LARGEST NAVAL DEPLOYMENT SINCE END OF COLD WAR - NATO DIPLOMAT
DEPLOYMENT WILL INCREASE NUMBER OF RUSSIAN FIGHTER BOMBERS IN SYRIA, MOSCOW MAY LAUNCH FINAL AIR ASSAULT ON ALEPPO IN TWO WEEKS - NATO DIPLOMAT
That would be in addition to significant components of the Russian Black Sea fleet that are already there.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 18:56 utc | 48
It's really better to vote for no one than to vote for Jill Stein, since a useless vote is simply an endorsement of the existing corrupt system.
With single-bid ("plurality") voting you only have two candidates to choose from.
I have described the strategic hedge simple score election method all over the Internet. It is simple in the sense that does not require easily hackable voting machines, and can easily work with hand counted paper ballots at non-centralized voting places. It is not hampered by any requirement to cater to so-called "sincere," "honest" (actually artless and foolish) voters. It easily thwarts both the spoiler effect and the blind hurdle dilemma (the "Burr Dilemma"). It just works.
Strategic hedge simple score voting can be described in one simple sentence: Strategically bid no vote at all for undesired candidates (ignore them as though they did not exist), or strategically cast from five to ten votes for any number of candidates you prefer (up to some reasonable limit of, say, six candidates), and then simply add all the votes up.
Both IRV-style and approval voting methods suffer from the blind hurdle dilemma, which can be overcome with the hedge voting strategy. An example of usage of the hedge strategy, presuming the case of a "leftist" voter, would be casting ten votes for Ralph Nader, and only eight or nine for Al Gore. This way, the voter would only sacrifice 20 or 10 percent of their electoral influence if Nader did not win.
Don't be fooled by fake "alternatives" like "IRV" and "approval voting".
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers".
It's called simple score because it is almost the same as other well-known forms of score (and "range") voting, except it's optimized for hand counted paper ballots (i.e. no machines).
Posted by: blues | Oct 19 2016 18:59 utc | 49
somebody @ 34
The problem, as things are, your Stein vote is effectively a Trump vote.
That is one common POV. It also one I held which guided my votes for many years. I put a lot of sweat equity in Democratic Party since 2k, and I'm sad to say it's been all for naught. If anything, Dems have regressed.
AFAIC, repubs are worse.
Regardless what others think, my support for Jill is an affirmative one. I believe and agree with most of calher platform, which has received scant attention. I think, put into action... these things could simply work. Mutch of what she's said in detail I believed we needed long before I ever heard her say them. Ironically, she articulates much... in detail, that has been clamored for here (MoA) for a long time but the regulars come out of the woodwork to dismiss her citing innuendo, pundit's Stein characterizations belying their prejudices and lack of rigor in investigating her own words and proposals.
Jill's really done her homework.
There are no political "saviors", or at least very very rare... come along here and there in history and rarely recognized until after they are gone. The extrordinary courage of these people is usually seen only as threatening foolishness by their contemporaries.
I don't know that Stein's in this category. But her proposals are pointing in the right direction and 100% outside the paradigms most pundits, political, scientific and (IMO) especially economic "experts" deem possible. But then, most of this same crowd missed every single disaster of blast 15 years (Iraq, financial crisis, rapidly expanding consequences of climate change, expanding arms race (again), 10 years of US economists prediciting China's imminent collapse...). They sit in offices with air conditioning reading spreadsheets, drive home in BMW's and are mostly driven to make $$ with no real life experience in the world of the catastrophies they orchestrate.
And it's mostly the same crew contextualizing the various outcomes of this election based on whichever candidate wins.
I'm 99% in agreement with what B's been writing here for a long time, elucidating the immoral wrongs done by the US (mostly in ME, but also Ukraine, unqualified support for Netanyahu, etc. etc.). Almost endless list of corruption in every area of US currently.
I just don't see many good solutions being put forth. Even comments here have degrades these last few years into soul baring rants about "empire", "Hitlary" and all the rest of it. Fine. But AFAIC there's no solutions in any of this. None. Just people lobbing hate bombs across the pond, and if one doesn't agree with the other the conversation is over and people take their marbles and go home... rinse & repeat.
I affirmatively support Stein because of her ideas and proposals, not because of a love affair "Jill". I do think she's got some real balls as she's stuck to her guns... not compromised on her core proposals given how little good attention she's received. Most of her supporters I've gotten to know here are coming from a similar mindset as myself: they've been around a while, gotten 100% fed up with both major parties, have actually taken the time to investigate Stein and are willing to put some time/$$/effort into supporting her.
As I've said before, if she gets 5% this election she will be in a strong position to command a lot more national attention in 2020. Either Hillary or Trump are going to make things worse in next 4 years, each in different ways. I'll let the chips fall with whoever we get, and do what I can so that Stein (or some other unforseen person) has a real chance to change things in 4 years.
chipnik @ 32's "farmers tales" more or less describe the futility of both Trump and HRC AFAIC.
Hey MoA,
Just got my mail-in ballots from the postman. Voting against all Democrats except, for POTUS. Take a few days and vote either Jill Stein or Donald Trump.
Need to comb through the propositions carefully. Against big business and self serving liberals.. BTW, I'm a Californian from the Central Valley. Oh! How I wish there is a proposition. Should Hussein Obomo II charge for crimes against humanity?
Posted by: Jack Smith | Oct 19 2016 19:09 utc | 51
“For any minimally conscious American citizen, it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the viciously dishonest Mainstream Media.”
-Boyd D. Cathey, “The Tape, the Conspiracy, and the Death of the Old Politics”, Unz Review
"When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party’s presidential candidate? What does that say about the media?"
Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us?"
from Mike Whitney, Counterpunch
To read more:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/19/trump-unchained/
Posted by: anon | Oct 19 2016 19:16 utc | 52
If Jill Stein needs 5% of the vote in order to be considered a legitimate candidate (or to bring the Green party up to legitimate third-party status for the 2020 election), then you can rest assured that no matter how many votes she actually gets, her percentage will never be above 4.99%. Just like when Obama swept into office in 2008, the powers-that-be made sure the Democrats never had a filibuster-proof majority. Give 'em just enough to believe that the system works, but never enough to create a situation where the lack of change can't be explained away by "gridlock". Brilliant in its malevolence, really.
Posted by: Bruno Marz | Oct 19 2016 19:26 utc | 53
It looks like ALL of the Neocon war criminals and architects of the mass slaughters in Iraq (Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc) are standing with Hillary Clinton:
Here's a partial list of neocon war criminals supporting Miss Neocon:
Paul Wolfowitz (aka, the Prince of Darkness), Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Bill Kristol, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Marc Grossman, David Frum, Michael Chertoff, John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, etc
All neocons stand with the CrookedC*nt because there hasn't been nearly enough pointless war, slaughter, dismemberment, death or trauma, it needs to go on FOREVER.
Posted by: anon | Oct 19 2016 19:32 utc | 54
To be blunt. It is not only MSM who are prostitutes of oligarchic ruling elite but all or most even so called left-leaning or independent media are all under guise of phony "opposition" or diversity of opinion where there is none.
Actually MOA is one of few, more or less independent, aligning itself with any sane ideology, a welcome island of order in the ocean of media cacophony and I often disagreed with MOA but I appreciate its logical consistency and integrity, hard facts based journalism,no matter from what moral stand MOA writings are coming from. MSM even lacks this basic foundation of a rational thought and must be dismissed entirely.
But there is much, much more rigging going on, on massive, even global scale. The fraud is so massive and so visible that blinds people from the truth about it. From the truth of how massively they are being controlled in their opinions and thoughts.
The freedom of speech and press, democracy and just simple decency are simply not allowed in these US under penalty of social marginalizing or even death as Assange and Manning are facing. The entire message of MSM propaganda false flag soldiers is fear.
It may seem shocking for people under spell of overwhelming propaganda, but this government run by Global oligarchs is dangerous to our physical and mental health and must be eradicated as a matter of sanitary emergency.
Let's sweep all those political excretions into the sewage pipes where they belong. But first we have to recognize the scale of their influence and their horrifying daily routine subversion of social order, gross malfeasance or even horrendous crimes also war crimes covered up by MSM.
Only after we get rid of this abhorrent, brutal regime, cut the chains of enslavement we can have decent democracy or voting, not before.
John Stuart Mill - “Government shapes our character, values, and intellect. It can affect us positively or negatively. When political institutions are ill constructed, “the effect is felt in a thousand ways in lowering the morality and deadening the intelligence and activity of the people”Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “I had come to see that everything was radically connected with politics, and that however one proceeded, no people would be other than the nature of its government.
And here we are, believing the shit those mofos and feeding us about freedom and democracy citing bought and sold lies as "scientific research" concocted for one reason alone, to fuck us up , exploit and discard when not needed.
Here is, in a small part, about how they do it, starting from phony polls that suppose to sway you one way or another into following supposed projected winner anointed by the establishment.
Polls are routinely skewed, even MSM pundits say use polls they can trust i.e. which give them results their bosses seek.
Now over hundred top newspapers and media outlets endorsed Hillary so you can safely remove them from your list of polls you can rely on.
Anyway most polls are rigged even more than elections themselves, mostly by skewing the content of a poling sample like in the above example. If you poll Dems about Reps that exactly you get what you seek. But they are more insidious like doubling or tripling polling sample and then pick an choose what answers they like, or focus sample on the area you know there is overall support for your thesis or assertion of candidate regardless of official affiliation, and many more down to raw rigging by fixing numbers or adjustments.
The US Elections themselves are regularity defrauded (read Greg Palast) for decades in thousands of well-documented different and additional ways to polls such as:
By limiting selection of possible candidates and their access to statewide or national ballot box via rigged undemocratic caucuses and primaries and other unreasonable requirements, goal-seeking ad-hoc rules. by eliminating and/or confusing voters about voting at proper physical location often changed in last moments, forcing into never counted provisional vote by purposely hiding registered lists, purging made up "felons" from voter lists, requiring expensive or unavailable or costly to obtain due to extensive travel, identifying documents, threatening citizen (of color) with deportation, accusing them of voter fraud [baseless challenging that automatically pushes voter into provisional vote], or strait offering meaningless provisional ballots instead of proper ballot for people who can’t read (English) well, eliminating students and military vote when needed on phony registration issues, signature, pictures, purposefully misspelled names, mostly non-British names etc., reducing number of polling places where majority votes for “rouge” candidate, forcing people to stand in line for hours or preventing people from voting al together.
Selecting remote polling locations with obstructed public access by car or transit, paid parking, exposed to weather elements, cold, wind and rain in November.
Hacking databases before and after vote, switching votes, adding votes for absent voters, and switching party affiliations and vote at polling places as well up in the data collating chain, county, state, filing in court last minute frivolous law suits aimed to block unwanted candidates or challenging readiness of the polling places in certain neighborhoods deemed politically uncertain, outrageous voting ON a WORKING DAY (everywhere else voting is on Sunday or a day free of work) skewing that way votes toward older retired people.
Massive lying propaganda of whom we vote for, a fraudulent ballot supposedly voting for “candidates” but in fact voting on unnamed electors, party apparatchiks instead, violating basic democratic principle of transparency of candidates on the ballot and secrecy of a voter, outrageous electorate college rules design to directly suppress democracy. Requirement of approval of the electoral vote by congress is an outrageous thing illegal in quasi-democratic western countries due to division of powers.
Outrageous, voting day propaganda to discourage voting by phony polling and predictions while everywhere else there is campaigning ban, silence for two to three days before Election Day.
No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen as anybody who opens eyes can see.
All the above fraud prepared by close group of election criminals on political party payroll, months/years before election date often without any contribution from ordinary polling workers who believe that nothing is rigged.
If somebody thinks that they would restrain themselves this time, think again. The regime, in a form of mostly unsuspecting county registrars are tools of the establishment and will do everything, everything they can and they can a lot, to defraud those elections and push an establishment candidate down to our throats, without a thought crossing their comatose minds. “Just doing their jobs like little Eichmanns of NAZI regime”.
One way or another your vote will be stolen or manipulated up and down the ticket at will and your participation would mean one thing legitimizing this abhorrent regime.
We must reject those rigged elections and demand that establishment must go, all of them GOP, DNC and that including Hillary before any truly democratic electoral process worth participating may commence.
"The individual loses his substance by voluntarily bowing to an overpowering and distant oligarchy, while simultaneously “participating” in sham democracy."
C. Wright Mills,"The Power Elite" (1956)
and here is why:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/faux-elections-and-american-insanity-of-fear/
Any sane person must thus conclude that an act of voting in the current helplessly tainted and rigged political system is nothing but morally corrupting tool that divides us, conflicts us, extorts from us an approval for the meaningless political puppets of the calcified, repugnant oligarchic US regime, in a surrealistic act of utter futility aimed just to break us down, to break our sense of human dignity, our individual will and self-determination since no true choice is ever being offered to us and never will.Idea of political/electoral boycott, unplugging from the system that corrupts us and ALTERNATIVE POLITICAL PROCESS designed, developed and implemented for benefit of 99% of population is the only viable idea to express our political views that are absent from official regime candidates’ agendas and from the rigged ballots. Let’s not be afraid, it was already successfully done in the past. It works.” Without courage there is only slavery.
Posted by: Kalen | Oct 19 2016 19:35 utc | 55
Bo Dacious @ 41
Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?) to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like he could ever 5have any political insights worth listening to, now is it?
Grow up.
I took the time off (I'm a software engineer) after the primaries (having supported neither BO or HRC) because that's who get got. We were coming off 8 years of BushCo which was, in summary... a horror. The republicans were 100% unrepentant, and McCain was a far louder and steadfast supporter of Iraq then Hillary... wasn't even close. McCain burried his Abramhoff investigation, sealed their findings for 50 years. And his running mate was not just bereft of any policy expertise, she was a loudmouth loon... even FOX canceled her post election show.
I was well aware of BO's questions/limitations. He didn't put his time in as a Senator and sponsored no meaningful legislation. He played it safe. He had no real policy track record. And as a Senator he quietly slipped away and hob-nobbed with Bush several times (no other Dem Senator at the time did this that I was aware). So yeah, Obama was on open question.
But he was the guy we got. His office here (Albuquerque) was also shareed by Udall, who I did actively support. There was nobody else who knew what they were doing to run that office, so I rolled up my sleeves and did it. No pay whatsoever.
I put skin, time, effort & money in. If you think you're so clairvoyant as to have somehow divined what his presidency would look like then AFAIC you're and idiot. Throw your stones as you wish. er
I'm a citizen and I've worked my ass off for 50 years. I've registered and voted Repub/Dem/Independent my whole life. I put time/$$/effort into '08 (and '2k/'04) election and cumulatively forfeited about a year of income to do so.
I took 4 years more to fight environmental battle here (2010 - 14)... massive Kirtland AFB jet fuel spill into our only water supply, took on the Air Force and some local politicians beholden to them. We one, one of the few communities in the US to take on the 100+ DOD superfund sites and win. There's a lot of people in this town that thank me for it everyday. I never did anything like this before, but developed some serious expertise in all aspects of "pulling off" what most everybody here believed impossible.
.
It was hard my friend, and really layes bare the uselessness of bleacher bums sitting on the sidelines criticizing and making assumptions about people you know nothing about.
If want to have constructive and intelligent conversations here I'm all for it. Otherwise I'll continue to comment here as I see fit.
ok ive been paying attention to us politics since the clinton years, and after every election someone put out a study or wrote a book documenting all the fraud and abuse that took place that elections.
i recall spending a few dreary summer days back in 2005 reading fooled again, by mark crispin miller that made a good case that the election was stolen.
Posted by: pA | Oct 19 2016 19:52 utc | 57
It's great to see some passion, missed here for years. Reminds me of our old friend RG ...
Posted by: jonku | Oct 19 2016 19:54 utc | 59
at 23 Lysias
In America, few know Nixon visited VN earlier. In 1953, as Vice-President under Pres. Eisenhower, he was in Saigon VN where he reviewed the situation and made promises of American support if the French should falter. DienBienPhu came less than a year later. IIRC, Lansdale had already come there from the Philippines to set-up the scene.
Nixon was already Vice-President,just months after Ike's election. He was busy creating his future.
Posted by: chu teh | Oct 19 2016 20:04 utc | 60
anon @ 51
There's no link or reference to any of those people endorsing Hillary. If you've got a good reference I'd like to see it. And NO, my saying that is NO indication whatsoever I support HRC.
I'd just like to keep things straight here. Either Feith/Wolfowitz/Pearle (etc.) have endorsed HRC or not. I've never seen that website before. Parsing his headlines, little more then fringe FOX News type nonsense.
Off-topic, sorry. Is this even possible or just more wild speculation? Rumors are swirling that Julian Assange has been captured and sent on a rendition flight to Charlotte, North Carolina aboard a United States military plane known as the Guantanamo Bay Express. http://www.anonews.co/assange-guantanamo-express/
Posted by: Daisee | Oct 19 2016 20:11 utc | 62
@Kalen | Oct 19, 2016 3:35:05 PM | 52
An excellent piece, thank you. The "assume liar" say if he's elected he will push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, "our pledge to drain the swamp."
No fair mind person would disagree. I would rather trust the "assume liar" than a "Liar".
Posted by: Jack Smith | Oct 19 2016 20:12 utc | 63
The Best of Joachim Hagopian
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/10/joachim-hagopian/war-us-russia/
Posted by: ALAN | Oct 19 2016 20:20 utc | 64
I was going to pass on this election, but I've read a lot here about it and started to consider what as a US voter I might do.
Oddly, I looked to Russia for inspiration. RF believes in international law so greatly that she strives mightily at every turn to make it the way nations interact. And what we can see if we choose, is that this effort is paying off. The world is changing because of what Russia believes in.
I believe in voting. I believe in multiple parties. I believe the game is totally rigged but sometimes you can win, except that you have to play for this to happen. I believe that you have to be the thing you want.
I believe in a Green Party and I admire the sanity that comes from Dr. Jill Stein every time I encounter her position. This is the world I believe in. This is the world I'll vote for and support, with all tools that comes to hand, forever.
~~
I don't believe in the view that aspiring for betterment is foolish or naive, or the view that current status cannot change or be changed. Such views fail to acknowledge the physical reality of a new universe manifesting in each moment, always different in some way from that of the previous moment. Such views are lost, bewildered, behind the curve, forever.
Posted by: Grieved | Oct 19 2016 20:27 utc | 65
jdmckay says:
I'm a citizen and I've worked my ass off for 50 years. I've registered and voted Repub/Dem/Independent my whole life. I put time/$$/effort into '08 (and '2k/'04) election and cumulatively forfeited about a year of income to do so
so wasting all your life's time and effort up until now has convinced you that to continue wasting it in the same way is prudential?
Posted by: john | Oct 19 2016 20:29 utc | 66
Term limits are useless. There could never be a Cynthia McKinney or a Dennis Kucinich -- Ever!
Term limited representatives would by definition be track record-free representatives.
If you really would like positive change, you simply need to get strategic hedge simple score voting:
SHSV
Nothing else can possibly help.
Posted by: blues | Oct 19 2016 20:45 utc | 68
I like the ancient Athenian system of choosing representatives from the whole citizen body by lot. It actually worked.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 20:47 utc | 69
@blues
AFAIK, the only party that supports any type of ranked choice voting is the Greens. (I know that your have argued that your type of voting is superior to what the Greens are advocating for.)
So I find it strange that you say that a vote for the Greens is wasted.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2016 20:54 utc | 70
The Donald describes what this election is about (ht Saker)
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2016 20:58 utc | 71
daisee @ 59 - there has been a lot of strange postings about Assange over the last 24 hours. I'm not at all sure what to make of any of them but ZH has this story up that may be helpful to you - http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-19/hillary-clinton-linked-mysterious-front-associated-julian-assange-pedophile-smear
Apparently, there is some firm that has been connected to the clinton campaign that set up a smear campaign accusing Assange of pedophilia plus receiving a $1M check from Russia. It's all very, very odd but maybe no odder than the former DC Editor for Sputnik being canned due to posting a story then yanking it after figuring out the info he was relying on was false. But then crazy stuff began immediately after yanking the story b/w the DC Editor, Newsweek Editor and the CIA???...nope. I'm not making this crazy stuff up.
Lots of weird in the last 24 hours.
And btw, nothing related to Assange right now I would consider off topic at this point. After all, we would know nothing about Soros' relationship with Smartmatic without WL.
I am disappointed in how critical of Assange Glenn Greenwald and Naomi Klein are in this piece: IS DISCLOSURE OF PODESTA’S EMAILS A STEP TOO FAR? A CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI KLEIN.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 21:19 utc | 73
Craig Murray, who is in London at the moment, writes as though Assange is still in the Ecuadorian embassy. How to Really Really Upset the Foreign Office and Security Services:
1) Go into the Foreign Office and read ten Top Secret documents about UK collaboration with torture to refresh my memory. Hand back documents and my notes in a double sealed envelope (have just done this bit).2) Immediately after reading Top Secret documents, go to see Julian Assange for a whisky in the Ecuador Embassy (am on my way).
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 21:21 utc | 74
re: Jackrabbit | Oct 19, 2016 4:54:48 PM | 67
Well, turns out the "Green Party" is just as corrupt as the Repubs and Demos. After all these "Greens" do support ranked choice voting (the "IRV" style).
And of course ranked choice voting is in turn supported by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Open Society Foundations (of Soros), and on and on.
Ranked choice voting is just as bad,or worse than out present single-bid ("plurality") method with regard to enforcing the two party syndrome, and this has been demonstrated repeatedly in history.
Score voting is fundamentally distinct from ranked choice voting, and does not promote the two party syndrome. That's probably why it doesn't get hundreds of millions of promotion dollars as the "Green Party's ranked choice system does.
PLEASE look at the truth for yourself:
http://www.fairvote.org/financials
Very hard to believe, huh?
Posted by: blues | Oct 19 2016 21:51 utc | 75
http://sweetremedy.tv/electionnightmares/archives/278
Although Clinton Won Massachusetts by 2%, Hand Counted Precincts in Massachusetts Favored Bernie Sanders by 17%
Mar 06 2016
J.T. Waldron
Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results, may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines. 68 out of the state’s 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by 1.42 %.
In the Dominican Republic's last elections (May 2016) voters forced the Electoral Office to get rid of the electronic count in favor of paper ballots, which were counted both, by scanner and by hand, one by one, in front of delegates from each party. This action avoided a credibility crisis and everything went smooth.
Posted by: Malvin | Oct 19 2016 22:15 utc | 77
@73,
That Massachusetts primary was noticeably different from the other New England primaries.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 19 2016 22:31 utc | 78
@blues
"just as corrupt"? This exaggeration doesn't help your case.
I don't know why FairVote funding comes from those organizations. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that the voting method itself is faulty. $$$ buys access so these organizations may just want to keep tabs on what FairVote is doing. $$$ also means guiding outcomes (dictating outcomes can be counterproductive): TPTB may allow alternate voting methods as an "improvement" if they can control the election in other ways (e.g. via candidate selection, media/propaganda, and 'hacking' the vote). And funding some legitimate organizations that are doing good brings credibility for taking liberties elsewhere.
Still, its possible that the Greens are wrong on this issue (I defer to your evident expertise). Most of their other positions seem very sensible.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2016 22:33 utc | 79
in re 24 --
ROTFLMAO! Srsly?
What effect do you think all Donaldesque whining and bullying will have? Just the opposite, maybe?
If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
It will be my distinct pleasure to keep it as hot as possibly can for you, and the rest of you Trumpeters. Think of it as a preview of coming attractions you’ll see when y'all meet your master downstairs.
Love those “MofA community values.” Vote for the wrong party? Why, it’s a criminal act! Don’t like the criticism of your blindness and incompetence? Shout it down. Because of course, unless they agree with you, they can only be lyin’ on ya.
You hear that a lot from losing litigants on “The Peoples Court,” BTW.
‘Cuz da jooz. Or some other half-baked, lame-ass conspiracy “theory”. Somebody somewhere did something that might be something like your sordid little imagination can project. So ergo, QED. "Evidence? We ain't not no stinkin' evidence! You give us the vote now!"
Plenty of groundless suspicion though. That’s an “MofA value,” fer sure, good buddy.
So keep at it, even though The Donald’s retainers have started to bail on him. Gov. Krispy Kreme here has put even more daylight between himself and the man he hoped would resuscitate his political career.
O’DONNELL: ”Are you proud of the campaign he’s running?”CHRISTIE: “Listen, it’s – for me, the person who needs most to be concerned about the kind of campaign they’re running is the candidate. Because it’s the candidate’s campaign. It’s not my campaign. It’s not Jeff Sessions’ campaign. It’s not Rudy Giuliani’s campaign. We’re surrogates. And I’m proud of everything I’ve said and that’s all I can control. The rest of it I can’t control, Kelly.”
Translation: I have done my best to reign [sic - rm] in the crazy but it isn't working. I am not in charge so I am stepping back and letting Trump crash his own campaign and this interview will serve as proof that I was not in charge or taking ownership. Also, I am innocent of Bridgegate even though there is a lot of evidence that I did indeed conspire to do some shady sh*t and may be facing criminal charges. Thanks for not asking me about it.
Nor does the Chief Spokesfraud like the Kool-Aid either. When asked about the assertion of widespread voting fraud say replied:
“No, I do not believe that,” Kellyanne Conway said during an interview on MSNBC. “So absent overwhelming evidence that there is, it would not be for me to say that there is. We know in the past, we know that people who are dead are still on the voter rolls, we know that people are voting a couple of different times in places. You do hear reports here and there.”
Because although you may not think so, Even Fox News Knows Trump’s Voter Fraud Claims Are Garbage.
Kimberly Guilfoyle pointed out there have been “a lot of research and studies” examining voter fraud. “Overall, it doesn’t bear out in terms of the numbers to say that there is widespread voter or election fraud,” she said.Dana Perino pointed that even some members of Trump’s campaign are reportedly telling him that “that’s not really true.”
“It’s not good for American democracy and our elections,” Guilfoyle said, noting that his tactics seem to be “working” on some of his fans.
And did anyone mention the fact that his very own VP choice is not quite fully on board, either? Trump ratchets up 'rigged election' claims, which Pence downplays. Well, he never was a True Believer, I 'spose.
And just so you know, The Day-Glo Duckhead’s scheme for “poll watching” looks suspiciously like voter intimidation. Rather like your post, no? Neither will be successful, of course.
Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 19 2016 22:47 utc | 80
in re 28 --
Sounds like a Tea Partier "Second Amendment remedy" projection.
Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 19 2016 22:57 utc | 81
in re 42 --
Spot on, refreshing change of pace.
Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 19 2016 22:59 utc | 82
I certainly agree that paper ballots are the way to go, along with an explicit, 'inalienable' right to vote for anyone eligible to run, and poll to majority.
Speaking of vote rigging, one of the demoblicans' absurd alarms about Russia, and associated electronic obfuscation, how about the transcripts of the harridan's speeches to Goldman Sachs et al.? I've seen posts with excerpts, but the transcripts themselves are said to have been released on Saturday ... yet I don't find them. Anyone have a link?
Posted by: jfl | Oct 19 2016 23:05 utc | 83
@blues | Oct 19, 2016 5:51:48 PM | 72
blues and NOT b since our last encounter along with Tom Murphy and few others in MoA. No objections with your "strategic hedge simple score voting".
First, you need a certain percentage (?) voters to make it work and umpteen years. How many voters willing to go along your harebrain scheme? I call it harebrain cuz you said "It's really better to vote for no one than to vote for Jill Stein, since a useless vote is simply an endorsement of the existing corrupt system"
Still remember Canada progressive+independent+liberal votes "Strategically" and end up Justin Trudeau from the Liberal Party, another NeoLiberal. If you suggest not voting Green or Jill Stein, who may I asked will be our next POTUS with your harebrain "strategic hedge simple score voting"?
There is a possibility we may end up Mickey Mouse?
There are no perfect candidates. It depends on self interest, fear, dreams or even getting fucking rich (just to name a few).
Posted by: Jack Smith | Oct 19 2016 23:05 utc | 84
I'm having a good chuckle watching the MoA cognoscenti descend into partisan mudwrestling. Must be close to "last call" y'all! Hooooo-Eeee!!!
Posted by: Doobie Us | Oct 19 2016 23:18 utc | 85
This is unrelated to this post.
Just had the pleasure of reading a post about how I am a CIA agent and "endanger real journos."
-I'm not CIA.
-A Turkish official told me, upon my release, that I was held to "teach America a lesson."
-I've produced more than 30 videos out of Syria, for 7 different outlets, in the last two years. What makes one a journalist if not the work?
https://vimeo.com/134215817
This one aired on MSNBC and won a Murrow award this year.
And I'm sorry it seems strange that I escaped AQ. Their strict adherence to Sharia law made it pretty easy, actually. I convinced them to put me in a "secure" house with women and children and had a contact in Ahrar Sham come case the location, send a map identifying where there were dogs and men, and a day later, I ran to the road and he picked me up.
Finally, fuck you for writing such unsupported drivel.
Posted by: Lindsey Snell | Oct 19 2016 23:31 utc | 86
@80 jfl
transcripts are here
click on attachment link at top of email.
Posted by: b4real | Oct 19 2016 23:38 utc | 87
john @ 63
so wasting all your life's time and effort up until now
Uhhhmmmm... how the hell do you wire up I wasted "all my life's time up until now?" You would have to sit back and divine a lot of assumptions to do that. It's not even suggested in anything I wrote.
has convinced you that to continue wasting it in the same way is prudential?
What do you mean... "the same way?" Voting? ... speaking my mind?
I've had a pretty wonderful, full life. At 61 now enjoying almost perfect health and real good fitness. Still many good years left. I have no sense of having wasted much time at all. Spend almost 1/2 my time in Vietnam last couple years (what a wonderful place and people). I'm very grateful I haven't become jaded like so many both here and all the other "Killary" vs. "The Lying King" sites. I sleep very very well everynight, and wake up with 5 hrs sleep ready to go.
AFAIC, falling into hating one candidate so much the other is the "only choice"... sad place.
Glad to see a few more folks around here voicing preference/support for Stein. Be willing to bet in 2020 a lot of you all Killary or Lyin King Trump fanatics will be hearing a lot more about Jill and kicking yourselves for not having taken the time now to find out what she's about.
re: Jackrabbit | Oct 19, 2016 6:33:12 PM | 76
{quote} "Gormley took over as the new Green Party leader after the election and as the minister for environment, heritage and local government minister in the coalition government. Eamon Ryan, the current leader, became the minister for energy and communications. They respectively sold out the campaigns to save the historic Hill of Tara from a motorway bypass and the farmers and fishermen in County Mayo fighting oil giant Shell in the "Shell to Sea" campaign. They also acquiesced to the blasphemy law, leaving Ireland as the only country in Europe with such legislation.
"As the more radical members departed and the electorate became more disillusioned, the party was sucked further and further into the maw of the coalition. It ended up supporting the bailout measures for the corrupt Irish banks and signing up to the highest per capita debt payback terms in Europe. Unsurprisingly the election of 2011 left the party with no seats. It is now struggling to return to its pre-2007 levels of support and still has a long way to go." >> {end quote} -- Red Pepper Magazine
{quote} "The Czech Greens entered a similar Faustian pact with a right-wing party from 2007 to 2009. The fatal fault line in the Czech Republic was not the economy, nor the environment, where the party remained relatively true to its principles, but militarisation and the construction of "Star Wars" missile bases by the US aimed at Russia.
"Underlying all this was the fact that the party had been effectively taken over by a right-wing businessman, Martin Bursík, who overawed the membership with promises of funding and improvements in electoral methods. He delivered and the Greens entered government. At the European Green Party conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2008 he argued that the Green's natural allies were on the right and that connections with the peace movement were part of the historical baggage that needed to be jettisoned." {end quote} -- Red Pepper Magazine
What are the chances of the Greens disappointing their supporters if they get into government? High, if the experience of their sister parties elsewhere in Europe is anything to go by, suggests Joseph Healy:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/when-greens-govern/
Posted by: blues | Oct 19 2016 23:48 utc | 89
Funny how the media ignore's IRS targeting of 'Tea Party' political opponents when reporting on Obama's criticism of Trump's talk about a 'rigged election'.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2016 23:48 utc | 90
Anyone have any thoughts on the crazy attempt to entrap and slander Assange?
Posted by: WG | Oct 19 2016 23:53 utc | 91
https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/587lbg/i_have_been_looking_into_the_san_fransisco/
Sorry for the second post but there's some additional research into the 'plot' in this Reddit thread.
Posted by: WG | Oct 19 2016 23:57 utc | 92
@71, Tomorrow is Craig Murray's big day to give evidence to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.
And it is certainly curious Swedish prosecutors cancelled the interview last week, with no explanation given the same day JA internet was cut.
Posted by: Daisee | Oct 20 2016 0:04 utc | 93
@blues
What are you getting so worked up about?
1) AFAIK, the Green Party in every country is different.
2) U.S. Green Party voters are under no illusion that the Green Party can win.
Voting Green is a protest vote in the US. It is a bit better than staying at home. It is a vote FOR something, rather than a vote AGAINST a "greater evil".
Most importantly, a good turn out for the Greens in this election is an embarrassment for Hillary because it shows that real progressives are NOT "with her" and her fake left, chickenhawk crony blowhards.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 20 2016 0:09 utc | 94
Point being that not only would The Clintons have the Democratic Party machine to rely on for potential vote rigging in this stage of the process (distinguishing vs. primaries simply for rhetorical focus),
but with the clear reality of the Republican Party elite also backing her, she can rely on at least some of the Republican Party machine also being available for potential vote rigging, and who have their experience in Florida, Ohio, etc to bring to the table.
The longer term issue is the Imperial Oligarchy has now taken off the mask, they have abandoned the pretense of 2 party competition to unite behind the defender of status quo interests, with WikiLeaks detailing the gory bits of their corruption and malfeasance. And everybody in the system is tainted by that, both parties, media, etc. It has overtly collapsed to the reality of a single Party of Power (per the term Oligarch media like to use re: Russia for example).
And the craziest thing of course is not that this all happened by accident because some "scary clown" appeared, but that this was nearly exactly planned BY The Clinton faction themselves (promoting Trump in order to win vs. "scary clown"). Most notably, not simply as a seizure of power by Democratic Party "against" Republicans... They are very clear the Clinton faction is 100% "bi-partisan" and about confluence of both Oligarchic parties.
I would say the Democratic primary was even a mirror of this, I would guess that Clinton had hoped to win more easily vs Sanders without rigging etc... essentially between Sanders and Trump turning anything but "radical status quo" into boogymen. Only surprise was how well Sanders did, necessitating fraud etc, with polls in fact showing Sanders was BETTER placed to defeat Trump than Clinton.
That just reveals how close to the line the Imperial Oligarchy feels compelled to play... and, I suppose, how confident they are in the full spectrum of tools at their disposal to manipulate democracy. But that is also shown merely by the situation we are in, with the collapse of the two party system in order to maintain the strength of Imperial Oligarchy.
Posted by: yup yeah uh huh | Oct 20 2016 0:12 utc | 95
re: Jackrabbit | Oct 19, 2016 8:09:45 PM | 91
Any "protest vote" is a vote for the unprotestant. NO MORE FUCKING LIES!!!
COWARDICE COWARDICE.
That is all this could be. Afraid to face true self. And your true owners.
Get strategic score simple voting -- With no machines -- With real honest community -- Or get lost. That's the decision. There is no other.
Posted by: blues | Oct 20 2016 0:26 utc | 96
I just read this posting at ZH and believe that this information when fully grokked will take the market down.
This is the smoking gun behind the corruption of the Fed during the 2008 crisis. I want to see how they tell the world that this was all legal.
END PRIVATE FINANCE! The folks that own private finance also own the US and many other governments.....with or without vote rigging as one of their tools.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 20 2016 0:29 utc | 98
Sorry Jackrabbit. I find it unbelievable that the world tolerates all this darkness. The fury is not to be directed at you, esquire.
Posted by: blues | Oct 20 2016 0:40 utc | 99
Hey blues,
Why don't you pick on me for a change. I am going to vote for Jill Stein as I did in 2012.
You wrote:
"
Get strategic score simple voting -- With no machines -- With real honest community -- Or get lost. That's the decision. There is no other.
"
I don't believe that what you are suggesting is available to us in this election but keep pushing BS that is not relevant to our current choices.
The lesser of evils argument is wearing thin.....especially when there is the opportunity to vote for someone who is not a war criminal or a womanizing grifter born with a silver spoon up his ass.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 20 2016 0:44 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
I just found out that many states in the US use electronic voting systems made by Smartmatic which is part of the SGO Group. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown is the chairman of SGO. This man is heavily entangled with Soros. Hillary is Soros' candidate.
You simply can't make this sh*t up
Posted by: wj2 | Oct 19 2016 6:00 utc | 1