Bob Fitrakis talks with Ajamu Baraka on the state of the world and the effect of neoliberalism on our society including the drug war, prison industrial complex, the economy and black liberation.
http://wcrsfm.org/content/other-side-news-october-6-2017-interview-ajamu-baraka
ELECTRONIC ELECTION THEFT, RENEWABLE GREEN POWER & THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE fill our souls today in Solartopia today.
With my long-time co-conspirator BOB FITRAKIS of Freepress.org we study the history of electronic voting machines as presented to the political science profession in a breakthrough moment where mainstream academia seems finally to be taking seriously the theft of our elections. An attorney and full professor, Fitrakis’s pioneer work on the electronic debasement of what’s left of our democracy is key to our understanding how we wound up with the corrupt, insane Donald Trump in the White House.
We’re also joined by KEVIN KAMPS of BeyondNuclear.org to dissect the latest pro-fossil/nuke “report” from Energy Secretary Rick Perry (Texas’s former “Governor Good-Hair”) fomenting the obscene absurdity that somehow renewable energy must defer to Trump’s polluters destroying the Earth. In tandem we discuss Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich’s opposition to a massive bailout for decayed nuke reactors in Ohio versus New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo’s support for a massive bailout of four reactors in upstate New York.
Along the way we also visit the NFL and COLIN KAEPERNICK’s spreading protest, putting forth a demand that we exchange the racist, pro-slavery Star-Spangled Banner for something better, like THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND. The concussions dealt by the intense military presence at pro football games are damaging our national soul, and need to be replaced by the rising tide of progressive athletic consciousness now sweeping the sports world.
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
Angst, fear and loathing are the overwhelming emotions six months into the disastrous Trump presidency. Just exactly who, or what, do we have at the helm of the United States Ship of State, and the little red button that could end life as we know it? This month’s Free Press cover depicts a Trump regime floundering in rough sea waters, with the Don confident, but clueless.
The planet and its leaders are watching in horror as the ship appears to be capsizing. Trump and his fools enrich themselves, all the while gleefully decimating domestic social programs, dooming the environment and destroying our nation’s relationships around the world.
Charles Wince, the artist, is asking: just who is steering this ship of fools?
A buffoon? A bully? An oft-bankrupt billionaire businessman? A Benito Mussolini in the making?
Simply put, what we have is an international criminal hell-bent on continuing his crime spree within and without his corrupt administration. Making the world safe for oligarchy.
Casinos, luxury hotels equals Money laundering
Let’s see, casinos, pricey real estate, the Russian mob, the U.S. mafia…hmmm. One plus one plus one equals money laundering.
The notorious meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and assorted Russian operatives spawned new allegations and suspicions that the Trump family colluded with Russian intelligence to try to gain electoral victory over Hillary Clinton. The details remain murky but the truth is likely more diabolical.
Not that Clinton wasn’t busy demonizing the Russians and using the Clinton Foundation for political pay-offs.
The meetings with Putin’s comrades and Trump’s entourage, may indicate the President may merely be a bagman and money washer for the Russian mafia.
This perception is magnified by Trump’s unprecedented refusal to release his tax forms, which may indicate his net worth to be largely in rubles.
Trump has a long history of involvement with the Russian government. Trump’s first visit Russia was in 1987 at Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubin’s invitation.
Craig Unger’s New Republic article, Trump’s Russian Laundromat essentially argues that Trump’s money laundering for Russian mobsters is what propelled his worldwide real estate empire.
Trump’s closely-held private real estate holdings, according to Unger, provide the perfect resources for illegal money laundering. Unger cites “…a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia.” He points out that, “Over the past three decades at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of the Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money.”
Business Insider noted that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department Of Justice (DOJ) recently settled a major money laundering case involving a real estate company owned by the son of powerful Russian government official Pyotr Katsyz, former Vice Governor of the Moscow region. Katsyz’s son Dennis owns the real estate company Prebezon, that was accused of laundering millions of dollars through New York City real estate when the case was “unexpectedly settled two days before going to trial in May,” according to Business Insider.
The attorney representing the Katsyz family was none other than Natalia Beselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump, Jr. on June 9, 2016, to allegedly disclose damaging information concerning Hillary Clinton. She was described as a “Russian government attorney” in Trump Junior’s emails. Democratic House Judiciary Committee members sent a letter to Sessions inquiring about Beselnitskaya’s involvement in the settlement.
Also in attendance on June 9 was Renat Akhmetshin, described by CNN as “a U.S. citizen lobbyist promoting Russian interests and a former Soviet military officer” and Aras Agalarov, owner of the Crocus Group, a Moscow-based property company .
The mystery man, or 8th person who emerged at Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russians, turned out to be Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, a Crocus Group Vice President accused of laundering more than $1.4 billion into the U.S. from Eastern Europe. Kaveladze allegedly used 2,000 shell companies to launder money into the U.S..
Essentially, Trump, Jr.’s meeting was a perfect Russian triumvirate representing an alleged money launderer, the Russian military and and a pro-Putin oligarch.
If Trump is to be impeached and his clumsy cover-up of Russian ties revealed, it will be because the laundered money was easy to follow from the election tampering to Putin meddling.
Forget about the Russians, Trump supports American-made election riggers
While Trump’s apparent law-breaking focuses on the Russians, his primary anti-American assault is his bogus Election Integrity Commission led by Kris Kobach, whose Crosscheck program stripped countless non-millionaire citizens from the voter rolls in at least 30 states, critical to putting Trump in the White House. The man who rigged Ohio’s 2004 election, Ken Blackwell also serves on the Commission.
As Americans we cannot allow this high-tech Jim Crow destruction of the electoral process to lead to a permanent, one-party dictatorship.
This official lynch mob must be replaced by a national commission to promote universal hand-counted paper ballots and universal automatic voter registration, with legally protected, transparent voter rolls.
At least now the media and establishment have to admit U.S. election systems can be, and have been, hacked — a fact the Free Press has investigated and reported for over 15 years.
Resign or be convicted
All of this raises the blackmail issue. Which foreign entities, including crime syndicates, have information to compromise Trump and his close personal entourage?
It’s not just the Russian connections we should be investigating. As The New Yorker pointed out, “Throughout the Presidential campaign, Trump was in business with someone that his company knew was likely a partner with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”
Trump’s “Trump Tower Baku” was a failed luxury hotel project in Azerbaijan, considered one of the world’s most corrupt nations. His partner was Zaya Mammadov, a billionaire oligarch tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, who worked as the Azerbaijan Transportation Minister for $12,000 a year.
The Guardian reported in mid-June that “Donald Trump — like Richard Nixon” is now “under investigation for obstruction of justice.” There is already speculation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is also investigating Trump’s alleged money laundering.
Trump has questioned Mueller impartiality regarding the Russian investigation and has contemplated firing Mueller in perhaps his own version of Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” when he fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Donald Trump must resign the presidency by August 9, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and the resignation of Richard Nixon.
In Trump’s brief tenure, he’s already fired James Comey, the FBI Director, for failing to pledge personal loyalty. Trump went on to try to intimidate Comey by suggesting he might have “tapes” of their conversations. The Washington Post reported that Trump then tried to get CIA director Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats to kill the FBI investigation into Trump’s Russian connections.
Trump’s coverups must stop. If, by the time this issue comes out, he hasn’t resigned, he needs to resign or be convicted.
Demand Trump Resign on National Nagasaki/Nixon Day
To prevent nuclear war, ecological collapse, economic ruin and the Jim Crow destruction of our democracy, August 9 has been designated for demonstrations to demand Trump’s resignation.
Rallies are already in the planning stages in California and Ohio. Demonstrators are encouraged to wear orange jump suits and t-shirts, and yellow wigs or hats, in solemn evocation of the likely upcoming indictments of Trump and his mafia family, Russian and otherwise.
A demonstration at the “mushroom cloud” peace statue in Santa Monica, California, to be broadcast and/or podcast on Pacifica/KPFK radio, will highlight a national call for Trump to step down in the face of his proven, highly destructive inability to lead the country, and amidst his alien, illegal assault on American democracy.
Group photos with a “RESIGN” signs are also encouraged.
Please notify us through colsfreepress@gmail.com about upcoming events.
Originally published here: https://freepress.org/article/orange-new-orange-president-should-be-behind-bars
Policeman throwing a woman out of her wheelchair, still from video by Atticus Garden.
by Bob Fitrakis
JULY 7, 2017
Policeman throwing a woman out of her wheelchair
What appears to be a phony 911 emergency medical call was used as a pretense for Columbus Police to forcibly evict and arrest wheelchair-bound Medicaid recipients in a building that houses Senator Rob Portman’s office.
July 6 was a national day of action to sit in at Senate home offices across the country to protest cuts to Medicaid as the U.S. Senate seeks to roll back the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Five activists peacefully occupied Portman’s Senate office at 37 West Broad, where they remained overnight. The next day activists from ADAPT, a disability rights organization, joined members of local groups Junto Unsilenced, Socialist Alternative, and Yes We Can.
Kelly Weber, who organized the sit-in along with John Shade and Bilal El-Yousseph and with support from UltraViolet and Planned Parenthood, said the original demands were for Senator Portman to vote no on the bill to repeal the ACA and to hold a town hall meeting in the district.
The Free Press witnessed one of the largest displays of police vehicles storming the building in history. One onlooker wondered if there had been a terrorist attack.
Video recorded by a demonstrator shows a wheelchair-bound woman being tossed from her chair by the police. One witness stated that police were dragging people out of wheelchairs. Three witnesses told the Free Press that they saw and videotaped people being pushed out of wheelchairs and of a hearing-impaired person being arrested.
The Columbus Police claimed 15 people were arrested. Weber put the number higher at 23, including 20 women, with all the arrestees being from the group ADAPT. ADAPT had negotiated their action with the Police and were stunned by the violent nature of the arrests.
What prompted the police violence was a curious appearance by Columbus Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel in the building at 3:10pm, claiming they were looking for a man having a heart attack. ADAPT demonstrators were blocking three of the four elevators, but one was available for EMS to get a gurney into the building.
Those arrested were charged with obstructing medical personnel during an emergency, though a police officer, in cruiser 121, confirmed to the Free Press that no one was found having a heart attack at the site.
At the same time the EMS personnel appeared, Portman’s staff was having the occupiers removed from the office by simply asking them to leave, which they did.
In another bizarre event witnessed by the Free Press, a woman in a wheelchair who had complied with police officers and had moved to the sidewalk outside was asked to produce identification. When the officer saw that her I.D. indicated she was from Pennsylvania, she was immediately arrested. This could be a violation of the disabled woman’s First Amendment right to demonstrate, associate and travel.
The police escorted a spokesperson for the Huntington Plaza building over to the demonstrators on the sidewalk. The spokesperson informed the demonstrators that if they ever stepped on the property again, they would be arrested. While he made this pronouncement, the police were shooting video of the demonstrators. Many of the demonstrators pointed out that they would then be blocked from visiting the office of their Senator. The spokesperson for the building did not respond.
On June 29, disabled ADAPT activists in Denver, Colorado were forcibly removed from Senator Cory Gardner’s office and arrested. The Denver Post reported that one officer told them to “Stop fighting” but the demonstrators replied that they weren’t fighting. The Denver Post article stated that, “Police picked up some protesters, restrained them, forced them into their wheelchairs and wheeled them out of the office.” Those arrested in Denver were released on personal recognizance on July 1.
Weber noted that there will be a town hall meeting at 6:30pm on Tuesday, July 11 at the Statehouse grounds, whether Portman attends or not.
Fight Back Podcast Nov. 11, 2012
Bill Baker talking about Charter passing against fracking in MANSFIELD, OH 1.03 BILL OF RIGHTS ARTICLE 1
Fight Back Podcast November 24, 2012
Naked Short Selling, Brown Saddle Films, Christina Copeland
The Wall Street Conspiracy – Trailer The Naked Truth: Investing in` the Stock Play of a Lifetime Hardcover – February 15, 2008 by
Fight Back WVKO Podcast November 17, 2012
Bill Baker Charter amendment in Mansfield Against Article 1 sec. 1.03 Bill Of Rights Anti-Fracking activist. Home Rule by Existing Ohio Law
Fight Back WVKO Podcast November 10, 2012
Karl Rove Melt Down, Election Summary, Jim Hettle
and Mary Beth Bryan Working on documentary incl. Romney
Fight Back WVKO Podcast November 03, 2012
Jill Stein Green Party Presidential candidate, Command Central
Voting Intricacies
Fight Back WVKO Podcast, October 27, 2012 Romney Family investments in voting machines
Fight Back WVKO Podcast, October 06, 2012
Special Guest Ass’t Professor Of Economics, Dr. Fadel Kaboub from Denison University
Fight Back WVKO Podcast, September 29, 2012
Brian Clash live. Terri Jameson Domestic Relations Juvenile court candidate.40:45> Gerry Bello Sept. 27, 2012 Free Press Article, “Vote counting company tied to Romney”
Fight Back WVKO Podcast, October 13, 2012
Cheri Honkala, VP Candidate For The U.S. Green Party 2012
Fight Back WVKO Podcast October 20, 2012
Kelly Nyks, “Split, A Deeper Divide“, Gerry Bello, Political analysis (31:37), John Wellington Innis, Edited Version, “Free For All” (34:25), Discussion of Michael Connell, (52:04), ‘Point Of Sale’ (POS) attack. Romney and voting machines.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast Sept. 15, 2012
Michael Alwood standing in for Peter Navarro Film Producer, official site “Death By China” Free on youtube. Know Drones 47:58 Nick Mottern.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast Setp. 8, 2012 Bob talks to Senior Editor of the Columbus Free Press, Harvey Wasserman about Husted, Ohio SOS, bans Sunday voting and voter suppression.
Fight Back, WVKO Podcast Sept. 1, 2012 (Starts 11:12) Tom Over, live at the republican convention.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast Aug. 18, 2012 (Starts 8:20) Elections and Voting, Wisconsin Guests (Dennis Kern, John Washburn) Ohio Dem. Dennis Liberman removed from office (by Jon Husted Ohio SOS) for promoting weekend voting.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast Aug 11, 2012 Fighting The War Party, Richard Ehrbar III (L) – Candidate for Congress, Ohio District 3, Bob’s Opposition candidate.
FightBack WVKO Podcast August 4, 2012 (starts at 6:25)
Columbus City Council Mis-Representation, Reflex, Carpet Baggers, Hiroshima, Nagasaki memorial 62nd, No Drones, 51:47: Dave agin’ Obama and dems, Obama agenda, Workers and voting rights.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast July 14, 2012 (Starts 9:30) (Starts 9:43) Re-examining Lucasville, OH longest prison uprising in U.S. Ben Turk Redbird prison abolition. Live call from prison, Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders) | Justice for Lucasville Lucasville Five.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast July 21, 2012 (Starts 7:43) Prison Industrial Complex Derrick Jones and Natural, movie “The Great Incarcerator”
Fight Back WVKO Podcast July 28 2012 (starts 7:20) Dell Perry, local Musician, Producer, Then (38.50) R.P Ericksen author “The Left Has Always Been Right”.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast May 19, 2012 Front Street with host Charles Traylor,
Fight Back WVKO Podcast May 26, 2012 Rob Kall, Chief editor OpedNews.com, (21:12) NATO Summit, Chicago coverage from Freepress Photographer, Christopher Coston. COINTELPRO worldwide campaign fighting U.S. policy opposition. Trayvon Martin discussion caller. Bob Bennett, Wally O’Dell (Diebold) mention. Infoshop Event.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast June 6, 2012 Sean Gilbow, 1851 center, Donald Goldmacher, Bay Area Activist “Heist, The Movie” Public Employees, School Districts for profit.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast June 9, 2012 Dr. Bob and Cliff Arnebeck, Richard Charnin, Scott Walker Recall (WI), Pattern: Exit Polls adjusted to match “outcome”. Harvey Wasserman calls in. Barbara With, Sheila Parks.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast June 23, 2012 Dr. Bob, Michael Alwood and Cliff Arnebeck, Campaign For America’s Future, Van Jones about Obama’s knowledge of election rigging. Judith, Texas Strike Force, WI robocalls, Michael Connell deposition, death (42:20). After Conf. Posse to Crossroads, 43:30. Letter from Bob Bauer, Jill Simpson and Don Seigelman, Max Cleland, Georgia election corruption. Rove fired from Whitehouse, 2007.
Fight Back WVKO Podcast May 12, 2012 Fascism, Corporatism, Socialism, Trotsky, Michael Alwood, Steve
Fight Back WVKO Podcast May 5, 2012 Bill Baker, Frack Free Ohio, Preferred Fluids, TX, President Speaking in Columbus
Fight Back WVKO Podcast July 7, 2012 Bob, Michael Alwood, AEP, Global Warming, Weather Mods, Full Spectrum Dominance, Nick Mottern: KnowDrones
BONUS:
Donald Trump. (photo: Bill Clark/Roll Call)
Trump Is Our Imperial Vulture Come Home to Roost – We Must Repent
13 February 17
s the nightmare reality of Donald Trump sinks in, we need to put our resistance in a larger perspective.
There’s no need here to list what he is doing and is prepared to do to what remains of our rights, freedoms, economy, ecology, human dignity, sense of justice, the future of our children and much, much more. Donald Trump appears at this point to be our worst national nightmare.
For many of us, it will be the challenge of a lifetime to solve this problem. Millions of words will be written about it in the months to come.
But we might start by comparing him to the kinds of leaders our nation has forced on other countries, and by making some kind of amends. Trump is, in fact, our own imperial vulture come home to roost.
Indeed, he’s actually (so far) a moderate compared to scores of murderous dictators the US has installed in other countries throughout the world. Especially since World War II, our imperial apparatus has constantly subverted legitimate attempts by good people to elect decent leaders.
In all such cases, people no different from most of us have suffered terrible, tangible consequences. No matter how much pain we may now feel in America, it pales before the horrors we’ve imposed with Trump-style dictators in other nations.
To get them installed, the Central Intelligence Agency and other imperial organs have often merely subverted elections. As was done here in 2016 and for countless elections before (and perhaps to come), substantial portions of the population have been systematically stripped of their right to vote. Where that’s proven insufficient, vote counts have been flipped by electronic and other means to guarantee a secure corporate outcome.
But where even that’s not been enough, our imperial minions have simply exiled, killed outright, invaded, employed mass violence, concocted civil wars and done whatever else necessary to remove those popular leaders that have not suited the American corporate interest.
One recent instance has been in Honduras, where the elected president, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was ousted in a U.S.-backed coup and the military took over from 2009 to 2013. Honduras became the most violent non-war zone on Earth in those years.
Here is a partial list of other duly elected leaders the United States has had removed, disappeared and/or killed to make way for authoritarian pro-corporate regimes. In each case, their demise resulted in death, denial of democratic rights and massive suffering to individuals within those countries who stood in the way of America’s imperial agenda:
Lumumba, Congo; Allende, Chile; Aristide, Haiti; Mossadegh, Iran; Arbenz, Guatemala; President Joao Goulart, Brazil; Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, Greece; Sukarno, Indonesia; Tecumseh, John Ross, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Sealth and countless other indigenous Americans; and too many more.
Here is a very incomplete list of violent, torture-prone kleptocrats the US has installed to serve its corporate interests:
Pinochet, Chile; Duvalier, Haiti; Somoza, Nicaragua; Marcos, Philippines; Suharto, Indonesia; Diem, Ky, Thieu, Vietnam; Pol Pot, Cambodia; Batista, Cuba; Saddam Hussein, Iraq; the Shah, Iran; the Regime of the Colonels, Greece; and too many more.
Taken in sum, the horrors these coups have imposed on innocent people throughout the planet comprise a terrible karmic debt our nation owes the rest of humankind.
The idea that such retribution would come home to roost may have been best stated by our 16th president. It is chiseled on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capital, for all to see.
At the end of the Civil War, in his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln mourned that this “terrible war,” which killed more than 620,000 Americans, had come “as the woe due to those by whom the offense came.”
The offense, of course was slavery. To pay for it, Lincoln warned, we would see the war “continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”
Are we, as modern Americans, now being called to pay for the blood drawn and the pain imposed by our imperial armies? And for all the wealth and comfort and dignity unjustly stolen from innocent peoples around the world?
As we squirm and mourn and march and organize, we might keep in mind the image of Donald Trump as imperial payback.
We might remember that as we work to overcome this homegrown vulture of our own making we must make right what we’ve imposed on so many others.
And that the restoration of sanity, dignity, and democracy to this nation can only come with a genuine sense of perspective … and with the resolve to never again impose any such suffering anywhere else in this world.
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of THE STRIP & FLIP SELECTION OF 2016: FIVE JIM CROWS & ELECTRONIC ELECTION THEFT at www.freepress.org, where Bob’s FITRAKIS FILES are available. Harvey’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.solartopia.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
BOB FITRAKIS AND HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
original article from: http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/trump-s-big-lie-about-three-million-alien-voters-cuts-far-deeper-than-you-think
(Photo: Rama)Donald Trump’s relentless insistence that three million “aliens” voted for Hillary Clinton and cost him a popular majority in November’s presidential election cuts far beyond what the corporate media is willing to report. When it comes to undermining democracy in the US, Trump is once again proving that the best defense is a total attack, even if it relies on “alternative facts.”
Trump’s Big Lie on voter fraud has been as widely scorned as his fantasies about the size of the turnout at his inauguration. Even the normally restrained New York Times has editorialized that “what once seemed like another harebrained claim by a president with little regard for the truth must now be recognized as a real threat to American democracy.”
It seems to be dawning on The Times and others that by claiming so many non-citizens voted more than once, Trump re-loads America’s Jim Crow lynch laws against Black people voting. Based on these assertions, we can expect more and more aggressive attacks by the administration against the rights of non-whites and non-millionaires to a fair and honest ballot.
Indeed, the corporate media has not yet faced the devastation of mass disenfranchisement in 2016. As reported by Greg Palast (www.gregpalast.com) and others, some thirty GOP Secretaries of State across the US used a computer program called Crosscheck to strip thousands of mostly black, Hispanic, Asian-American and Muslim voters from the registration rolls. These mass disenfranchisements could well have made the difference in key swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida that allowed Trump to win in the Electoral College while so thoroughly losing the popular vote.
Trump’s carping about voter fraud has first and foremost has helped divert the public’s attention from this defining reality.
But unfortunately, there is far more.
Let’s start with the Electoral College. For the sixth time in US history, the candidate who lost among eligible voters has entered the White House. Last was 2000, when Al Gore beat George W. Bush nationwide by more than a half-million votes. Neither Gore nor the Democratic Party followed this stunning election theft (which had such dire consequences) by launching any kind of movement to abolish the Electoral College. Instead, many Democrats have spent 16 years screaming at Ralph Nader for daring to run for president. Had they instead recruited him to help organize the abolition of the Electoral College, Trump might not now be in the White House.
In 2016, the attack on Nader has morphed into a fixation on Russian hacking and anger at the FBI. So barring a miracle (or a Constitutional Amendment) in 2020 and the foreseeable future beyond, the curse of the Electoral College will still be there to serve the popular minority.
Trump has also fought hard against any meaningful recounts, And for good reason. As many as 28 states this election showed statistically significant variations between exit polls and official vote counts. In 25 of those states, the “Red Shift” went in Trump’s direction. Among statisticians this is known as a “virtual statistical impossibility.”
In Michigan, which officially went to Trump by about 10,000 votes, some 75,000 ballots came in without a presidential preference, mostly in heavily Democratic urban areas. The idea that 75,000 citizens would take the trouble to vote but not to make a preference among at least four presidential candidates has yet to be explained by the media or the Democrats.
Major problems with electronic voting machines, precinct access, ballot chain of custody and vote count issues also surfaced throughout the swing states. But when the Green Party’s Jill Stein dared to attempt a recount, Trump launched an all-out attack. High-priced attorneys in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere did all they could to prevent any realistic examination of what actually happened in the states that gave him the presidency.
Meanwhile, rather than doing the work themselves, the corporate media heaped scorn on Stein for daring to examine exactly how Trump became president. The Democrats and the Clinton campaign offered no help beyond sending a few attorneys to “observe” the assault on greens uppity enough to challenge the system that had flipped the presidency, the Congress, the Supreme Court and innumerable state and local governments.
The bottom line here is that our entire electoral process is broken. Donald Trump became president because massive disenfranchisements kept thousands of citizen from voting, because electronic “black box” voting machines cannot be monitored or accounted for by the general public, and because the Electoral College remains in place, ready to swing the next loser into the White House.
Trump’s screaming assertion of entirely the opposite is a brilliant strategy that can only work in a country where the media refuse to face the realities of a thoroughly broken system, and an “opposition” Democratic Party that won’t fight for elections it actually wins.
Our survival demands an actual democracy. That means universal automatic voter registration, with voter rolls transparent and readily accessible for verification. It means a four-day national holiday for voting, universal hand-counted paper ballots, and automatic recounts at no cost to the candidates. It also demands an end to gerrymandering, a ban on corporate money in our campaigns and, of course, the abolition of the Electoral College.
Trump’s rantings about voter fraud are a brilliant diversion away from all that. So is the media and Democrats’ obsession with the Russians.
Our stripped and flipped elections are home-grown poison. Donald Trump is the ultimate outcome. Until we reject the current electoral system, we will all be living in a world of hurt.
—
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman have co-authored six books on election protection, including The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016, at www.freepress.org, where Bob’s Fitrakis Files also reside. Harvey’s Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth is at www.solartopia.org.
