The 2016 United States Presidential Election

Yeah, I don't watch much sports, so I don't see this, but your take seems reasonable ... but this is also how militarization creep occurs: making it more "normal" to see military in everyday life, like the militarized police.

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Militarized Police Turn Peaceful Native American Protest Into a War Zone

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Following the activation of the North Dakota National Guard on September 8, peaceful Dakota Access Pipeline protests quickly became flooded with militarized law enforcement. Native American activists, or water protectors, have been standing in the way of the pipeline’s construction for months, successfully blocking it at the Sacred Stone camp near the Missouri River.

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There are other even more striking images of the massive buildup of militarized police and National Guard, and the attacks on the people are pretty intense,

It just keeps getting worse ... for GOP fraudsters:

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A Trump staffer was just convicted on ten charges of felony election fraud

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A staffer for Donald Trump’s campaign in Michigan which Trump narrowly won by just over 10,000 votes will be doing jail time for election fraud.

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27-year-old Brandon Hall, who was on trial for forging petition signatures for a Republican judicial candidate in 2012, has been convicted on 10 out of 10 counts of felony election fraud, and will serve up to five years in prison, according to the Grand Haven Tribune. It took the jury less than an hour to return a verdict. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Hall’s case should be tried as a felony.

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Green Party candidate Jill Stein officially filed for a recount in Michigan Wednesday afternoon, after raising the money necessary to file the paperwork in just 24 hours. Stein also filed for recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania last week, after computer scientists suggested there may have been anomalies between ballot counts in counties that tallied them by hand versus counties that counted ballots electronically.

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Funny how all the people being charged and convicted of voter fraud and election fraud seem to be republican ...

Meanwhile the recount cost in Wisconsin jumps from 1.1 Million to 3.5 Million ... and they were already the most expensive of the three states petitioned for recounts.

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Wisconsin Commission estimates recount will cost $3.5 million

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Election officials in Wisconsin estimate that a recount of the state's vote, as requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, will cost about $3.5 million.

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Stein, whose third-party campaign for president got only a tiny fraction of the vote nationally in November, successfully petitioned to initiate the recount last week in the state, which Donald Trump won by some 22,000 votes. Stein reports that she has raised more than $6 million in her call for a recount in Wisconsin and two other states that Trump won narrowly, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

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Referencing Wisconsin’s new strict voter ID law, Walker also asserted that state lawmakers made it easy to vote, hard to cheat in Wisconsin elections.

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Easy to vote unless you are in a minority ... this repressive law is one place where election fraud really occurred.Edited by RAZD, : .

Then there are the people purged from voter registration lists because they have the same name as someone in another state ...

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Jim Crow returns - Millions of minority voters threatened by electoral purge

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Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched a program that threatens a massive purge of voters from the rolls. Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, are at risk. Already, tens of thousands have been removed in at least one battleground state, and the numbers are expected to climb, according to a six-month-long, nationwide investigation by Al Jazeera America.

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At the heart of this voter-roll scrub is the Interstate Crosscheck program, which has generated a master list of nearly 7 million names. Officials say that these names represent legions of fraudsters who are not only registered but have actually voted in two or more states in the same election a felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison.

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Until now, state elections officials have refused to turn over their Crosscheck lists, some on grounds that these voters are subject to criminal investigation. Now, for the first time, three states Georgia, Virginia and Washington have released their lists to Al Jazeera America, providing a total of just over 2 million names.

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The Crosscheck list of suspected double voters has been compiled by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states. Interstate Crosscheck is the pet project of Kansas’ controversial Republican secretary of state, Kris Kobach, known for his crusade against voter fraud.

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The three states’ lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim ones common among minorities, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, fully 1 in 7 African-Americans in those 27 states, plus the state of Washington (which enrolled in Crosscheck but has decided not to utilize the results), are listed as under suspicion of having voted twice. This also applies to 1 in 8 Asian-Americans and 1 in 8 Hispanic voters. White voters too 1 in 11 are at risk of having their names scrubbed from the voter rolls, though not as vulnerable as minorities.

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If even a fraction of those names are blocked from voting or purged from voter rolls, it could alter the outcome of next week’s electoral battle for control of the U.S. Senate and perhaps prove decisive in the 2016 presidential vote count.

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Pennsylvania To Cross-Check Voter Registrations Against Other States’

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The Corbett administration announced this week that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will join two dozen other states in a consortium designed to identify duplicate voter registrations.

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He says that beginning in January, the Pennsylvania Department of State will begin to provide data for the Interstate Voter Registration Cross Check Program. The consortium includes 24 states and is run by Kansas for no fee.

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If someone does move from Pennsylvania to another state in this consortium, we in Pennsylvania will get information that someone with the exact same unique information name, date of birth, Social Security number is registered to vote in another state.

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Interstate Crosscheck (Verified Voting Foundation)

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Back in 2005, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach who as chair of his state’s Republican Party championed an illegal voter suppression technique called caging launched a program called Interstate Crosscheck to compare voter registration data across states and ferret out evidence of double voting. The program has since expanded to 30 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), but it’s been controversial from the start. For one thing, it’s resulted in very few actual cases of fraud being referred for prosecution, as alleged cases of double voting in multiple states turned out to be clerical and other errors. One tally found that while the program has flagged 7.2 million possible double registrants, no more than four have actually been charged with deliberate double registration or double voting. Meanwhile, some states including Florida dropped out of the program due to doubts about the reliability of its data though others, including the swing state of North Carolina, joined despite those issues.

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North Carolina: Despite budget squeeze, lawmakers poised to step up anti-voter fraud spending

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This week, North Carolina state lawmakers put forward a budget plan that calls for tens of millions of dollars in program cuts sacrifices that Republican leaders say are necessary since the state will be collecting $1.57 billion less in revenues through 2015 due to hefty tax cuts approved last year. But at least one program is getting a boost in the plan proposed by the Senate: a request from the N.C. State Board of Elections, led by Kim Strach, to add three new investigators to tackle alleged voter fraud. While the Senate’s budget eliminates at least 12 positions from the Department of Health and Human Services, the latest budget plan released Thursday [pdf] calls for $201,657 in new funding for three new positions to investigate fraud in elections, discrepancies in voter registration information, including duplicate registrations, and to pursue prosecution for violations of election law. According to news reports, Strach had asked for five new investigators to focus on voter fraud. This was addition to the state board’s May 2014 hire of former FBI agent Chuck Stuber, who has been tasked with investigating voter fraud and campaign finance issues.

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How many people are named Smith? Jones? How many blacks named Washington? Brown? Jackson? How many Muslims are named Mohamed? How many hispanics are named Gonzales? Rodriguez?5,000 Most Common Last Names in the U.S. | Name Census ... seems to be fairly small numbers but they list 7.2 million names for purging from voter registration lists ... with only 4 going to court ...Four (4) cases out of 7.2 million justifies purging "suspects" from voter lists? Really?Or is this just another way to target and reduce minority voters.

Wisconsin continues to make the news ... here from "Bipartisan Report"

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BREAKING: 5 Of 9 Voting Machines In Wisconsin County Found TAMPERED With (DETAILS)

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Strange things seemed to keep happening in Wisconsin on Election Day. For example, four wards in Outagamie County were found to have more votes counted than ballots cast. Now, an observer of the vote recount in St. Croix County discovered that the seals of five out of nine of the voting machines were tampered with.

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Here’s one of the St. Croix County voting machines with the seal broken.

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So far, no explanation from election officials from Wisconsin or St. Croix County can explain why the seals on more than half of the vote counting machines have been visibly tampered with. Perhaps the GOP or Russia had someone hack the machines Or maybe someone in La Croix County is the kind of person who just can’t stop picking at those pesky labels. Either way, the Palmer Report finds this highly disturbing.

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Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn ruled that the Wisconsin vote recount can proceed. Alas, she rejected Jill Stein’s request to recount the ballots by hand and left it to county officials to decide. Twelve counties have chosen to opt out, but the broken seals may convince Bailey-Rihn to reverse her ruling.

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Scott runs such a model government ...

And the recount moves forward in Michigan ...

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A Federal Judge Just Ordered A Recount In A Pivotal Swing State

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Early on Monday morning, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith ordered an immediate recount of the election votes in Michigan to begin at noon and for the state to assemble necessary staff to work sufficient hours to complete it by Dec 13th.

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Yestarday, Judge Goldsmith held an emergency session with the lawyers of Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who successfully convinced him that following the state law that demands a two business day wait before commencing a recount represented a sufficiently credible threat that the recount, if delayed, would not be completed.

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Goldsmith dismissed state Republican Party chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel’s concerns over cost, saying that with the perceived integrity of the presidential election as it was conducted in Michigan at stake, concerns with cost pale in comparison.

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Donald Trump won Michigan by a mere 10,704 , 2,279,543 to Hillary Clinton’s 2,268,839, as per the Michigan Department of State. The minuscule victory margin is enough that a recount is the only way to ensure the democratic process worked and that Michigan’s sixteen electoral votes deserve to go to Trump.

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While the recount isn’t likely to change the outcome of the election, a reversal could convince more Electoral College voters to turn faithless and vote against their state’s decision, potentially saving us from four years of Donald Trump.

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That and the fact that Hillary won the popular vote. Even though I do have apprehensions of supporting such Electoral College actions and setting a precedent that could have unforeseen consequences (like "borking" supreme court nominees ... ), I do think the recounts are important to reveal the degree of discrepancies and then investigate to find the causes, so that future elections can be done better.Enjoy

That's insane, so I did some checking:

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Michigan Recount Laws

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Recounts conducted under the supervision of county, city, township and village boards of canvassers are conducted using an electronic voting system unless one or more of certain conditions exist. These conditions are specified in statute and include such conditions as discrepancies in the number of ballots issued and voted, and discrepancies relating to the seals on ballot containers and transfer cases. Mich. Comp. Laws 168.871(1).

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Although the default method of counting is retabulation using an electronic voting system, Mich. Comp. Laws 168.871(4) provides boards of canvassers with other options for counting ballots and states that recounts may be conducted by any, or any combination of the following means: a manual tally of the ballots; a tabulation of the ballots on a computer using a software application designed to specifically count only the office or ballot question subject to the recount; or a tabulation of the ballots on a computer using the same software application used in the precinct on election day.

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Bold added. Looks like the recount is then done by a different system than the original method, which would be a sane approach anyway.Enjoy

At which point they will go broke because nobody that can afford to buy will want to eat there. Which will then compete with the Christian madassa system for students. Completing the devolution of the US to a 3rd world country sending resources to developed countries.Great news.

The minute Cruz ran for president I knew the wingnuts were going to have trouble maintaining their Obama/Kenyan conspiracy cloak when the real issue was that he is black. Because he is black. Using "muslim" is just dog-whistle because since 9/11 it has become politically acceptable to hate muslims, so call Obama muslim to sugar-coat your hate that he is black.America is steeped in systematic racism and the proof of it is that anyone of mixed heritage is deemed to be a member of the more hated group, because they are not pure. So Obama is black whether his mother is white or not, and Obama is muslim whether his mother is christian or not. "They" are not one of us ... and "they" don't get to say whether "they" belong or not. ... because the haters need believe it's all fake to justify their hatred.There is no other reason to believe his birth certificates are faked. None. NADA. Zilch.What Faith is looking for is a change to the constitution to keep blacks from being president, that is the only difference between Obama and Cruz that she doesn't accept as irrelevant to being president.Systemic racism isn't overt, it is built in. It uses various ploys to hide behind, ploys that divide people into "us" and "them" because of some characteristic.Enjoy

wow.just wow.The cognitive dissonance in this one is strong ...

Nope. You saw lies masquerading as truth, and it matched what you wanted to believe was true, so you swallowed it. It allowed you to hate Obama without admitting it's because he's black. I've known several muslims, mostly from Bosnia, who were very happy to have been rescued from persecution and death squads in Bosnia.Your manufactured hatred of muslims is how you justify hating Obama, hiding the fact that your real objection is that he is a half-breed highly educated and successful black man who just doesn't know his "place" ... so uppity he thinks he can be president.We actually have more homegrown white christian terrorists in the US than muslim terrorists. KKK and white supremacists, who have killed more americans than all foreign terrorists combined. Being a terrorist is more about fundamentalist ideology than religions. ISIS main targets are muslims. Why? Does that make ISIS your friend if they are killing muslims? As you keep saying about virtually everything you believe, because it HAS to fit your ideology, not because you are interested in truth. Or reality.Enjoy

She is not alone. The alt-reich echo machine has been working overtime for over 8 years to build a base of deluded people completely out of touch with reality -- Trump just swept them up the way any shyster con artist knows to do: play to their false beliefs.

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Shocking New Poll Shows That A Vast Majority Of Trump Voters Live In Another Reality

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We've reached a dangerous point in our politics where people are divided not just by different political ideologies, but also by their belief in reality.

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A new PPP poll unveiled on MSNBC’s ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ Thursday showed just how out of touch Donald Trump’s supporters are with the real world.

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On a slew of questions about simple facts, a large chunk — and, in some cases, strong majorities — of Trump supporters are simply living in a different reality.

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Nearly 40 percent of the president-elect’s supporters believe the stock market has gone down under President Obama, despite the fact that it’s nearly doubled during Obama’s tenure.

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Trump supporters are also living in an alternate reality with respect to the unemployment rate. Even though the jobless number has gone from 7.8 percent in January 2009 to 4.6 percent last month, a whopping 67 percent of Trump voters think it’s actually increased.

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Forty percent of Trump fans also believe that Hillary Clinton lost the popular vote, despite her margin over Trump exceeding 2.7 million votes. An even greater percentage — 60 percent — think millions of people illegally cast their ballots for the former Secretary of State.

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When asked by PPP whether Trump protesters are being paid by George Soros, 73 percent of the incoming president’s supporters said yes. Fifty-three percent think that votes in the state of California should not be included in the popular vote tally.

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The full PPP poll will be released on Friday, but these results show what Donald Trump’s conspiracy-driven campaign has done to our politics and how he has convinced his supporters that the world as it is doesn’t really exist.

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Americans are no longer just divided by political ideology, but also by their belief in reality.

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The sad thing is that these are issues where the facts can be easily checked. They don't because they don't want to.Standard cognitive dissonance avoidance behavior.Enjoy

IFF they vote according to that allotment -- the 30 some odd electors could choose to vote for either top 2 candidates.This is where ranked voting would help.Enjoy

I googled the headline and got
I have never seen anything quite like the grief being felt by the majority of American voters who did not vote for Donald Trump.

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I have never seen anything quite like the grief being felt by the majority of American voters who did not vote for Donald Trump.

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Back in 1980, there was disappointment among Democrats when Ronald Reagan won. In 2000, after the long Florida recount and the intrusion of the Supreme Court into the decision, there were plenty of upset people who thought Al Gore, not George W. Bush, deserved to be president. But the losing voters in those elections were not despondent. They were not breaking out in tears weeks later. They were not waking up each morning with feelings of dread about what was to come.

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This time it is different and, in my experience, unique. This is not simply a case of Hillary Clinton supporters being bad losers. For most of those who feel traumatized by what happened on Nov. 8, this is not about the candidate who won the popular vote, yet lost the election. It is about the candidate who was picked as president by the electoral college on Monday. People are mourning because the fate of their country will now be in the hands of an intellectually disinterested, reckless, mendacious narcissist.

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It is not just Democrats. There are plenty of conservatives and Republicans among those feeling depressed. Their party has been captured by a man who has no bedrock belief in any principle; a man whose only allegiance appears to be to himself.

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Probably true Faith. What did you grieve about Faith? The loss of democracy? How universal was it?Inquiring minds want to know.Enjoy