The Story of the Theft of the 2016 Election

Here’s what we do now – a personal note by Greg Palast Being right never felt so horrid. “This is the story of the theft of the 2016 election. It’s a crime still in progress.” So opens my film, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. And on Election night I waited for the returns to make a fool of me. Instead, the returns made the fool a President. And so, my vacation’s cancelled.  My life’s cancelled; that is, a life of anything but sleuthing and exposing the details of the heist of our democracy. What’s at stake? No way around it, this is one frightening moment. Decades of progress created with sweat and determination face destruction.  Within the next six months, we may see the Voting Rights Act repealed—and civil rights set back 50 years; the entirety of our environmental protection laws burnt in a coal pit; police cruelty made our urban policy; the Education Department closed to give billionaires a tax holiday; and a howling anti-Semite as White House Senior Counselor. But the horror we face is countered by this one hard and hopeful fact:  Donald Trump did NOT win this election. Trump not only lost the popular vote by millions — he did not legitimately win the swing states of the Electoral College. Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Ohio:  every one was stolen through sophisticated, and sickeningly racist vote suppression tactics. If you saw my report for Democracy Now! on election morning, it revealed that Ohio GOP officials turned off anti-hacking software on voting machines, forced Black voters to wait hours in line (while whites had no wait). And, crucially, I confirmed that purged tens of thousands of minority voters on fake accusations they’d voted twice.  I first exposed this bogus double-voter blacklist called Crosscheck, in Rolling Stone. It’s the sick excrescence crafted by Kris Kobach, the Trump transition team's maven who also created the Muslim-tracker software he’s bringing to the Trump administration. What can we do now? I have been INUNDATED with requests for my factual reports and findings by media and, most important, the front-line activist groups preparing for the fierce fight to protect our votes.  Some examples: Rev. William Barber of the NAACP filed a suit based in North Carolina,  hoping to overturn the Trump "victory" — and protect the tiny margin of the Democrat’s win of the Governor’s mansion.  The NAACP cites my discovery of "Crosscheck" — in which North Carolina removed upwards of 190,000 voters on false charges they voted twice.     They now need my facts. Congressmen Keith Ellison and Alcee Hastings of the Congressional Black Caucus, personally presented Attorney General Loretta Lynch with my investigative reports and demanded investigation — "and indictments."  That investigation must kick off immediately.     They now need my facts. The Asian-American civil rights group 18 Million Rising has gathered 50,000 signatures to push the Justice Department to investigate my evidence of a massive attack on the Asian-American vote.     They now need my facts. In Michigan, the ACLU is ready to take action on the purge scheme I uncovered, "Crosscheck," that wrongly gave the state to Trump. In Ohio, voting rights attorney Robert Fitrakis is going into court with evidence, much that I uncovered, of racist voting games — from 5-hour-long lines in Black precincts to shutting off ballot security measures on the voting machines.       The team need my facts. I expect to be in Washington at the Justice Dept and meeting with civil rights groups in December before the Electoral College meets. Information—plus film, video, investigative reports And beyond the voluminous files and confidential documents my team has uncovered, we are deluged with requests for our film, videos, writings and more.     And now we have US networks, even major comedy shows, asking for our material and, of course, new investigative findings. Information and facts make a difference With our investigative reports, with our hard and unassailable evidence, we can challenge the legitimacy of the Trump "election."  Most important, we must begin the difficult but necessary work of protecting and restoring voting rights.  The 2018 Election — and the threat of more stolen elections — is upon us. What we need to keep going...   Your extraordinary support and faith in our work funded my film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, which is now more relevant than ever and being seen by ever more audiences. Now we need your financial support again to keep this fight going. We just did not budget for the GOP's in-your-face steal of the Congress and White House.  All our resources went into raising the alarm before the election.  So, now, I have to re-hire the staff, hit the road again. Ohio, North Carolina, Washington DC and who knows where, retain attorneys—and retain our team of technicians from cameramen to outreach organizers. Can this new work be done? Is there any choice? Honestly and personally, I was hoping for some rest and time off. But a lifetime of your work and mine is now in the balance.   PLEASE, say, "Count me in to count the votes" by supporting the 2016 Stolen Election Investigation for a donation of any size no matter how small or large Be listed as a producer ($1,000) or co-producer ($500) in the credits of the broadcast version of the updated, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy:  THE THEFT OF 2016 Stay informed and get a signed DVD of my film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a signed copy of the book with the same title or better still - get the Book & DVD combo.   And does an angel have the $8K needed for our Washington work and filming?  If so, flap your wings. I can't thank you enough for all the years of support. Alas... our work is not done. Greg Palast and the Palast Investigations Team

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie. Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive. Download the FREE Movie Comic Book. Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo. Or support the The Palast Investigative Fund (a project of The Sustainable Markets Foundation) by shopping with Amazon Smile. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Palast Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info. Follow Palast on Twitter | Like Palast on Facebook | Forward to a friend  Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter | Podcasts Share this with    Copyright © 2016 Greg Palast, All rights reserved. You are receiving this Newsletter because you are a subscriber. Our mailing address: (Check donations are payable to: SMF (our fiscal sponsor) Memo: Palast Fund Greg Palast 3357 Cahuenga Blvd W, #13 Los Angeles, CA 90068 Add us to your address book

Evangelicals and Evil

The word, evangel, comes from the Greek euangelion, which means "good news."  In the Christian New Testament it refers to the gospel of Jesus Christ which is supposed to be "good news" to the world.

Evangelicals, therefore, are bearers of this Good News.  It applies to all those who claim the title, Christian.  However, some years back it was co-opted by "conservative" Christians who stressed the infalibility of the Bible and certain doctrines which they cherry-picked to suit their inclinations. For example, they chose John 3:16 to be their rallying cry:  people must be "born again" in order to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Conservative Christians thus distanced themselves from more traditional Christianity by giving this verse extraordinary power in their theological tradition.  All persons who have not had a "conversion" experience and been born again are suspect and not "real" Christians.

They also co-opted the term, evangelical.  Because, unlike other traditional Christian groups, they stressed the need to convert everyone and ensure everyone has a born-again experience, they decided that they, alone, were the true evangelicals bringing good news to the world.

And that's why people like Billy Graham and other hucksters travel around the world holding huge rallies designed to do only one thing - convert people to "evangelical" Christianity.


Somewhere along the way, evangelicals became puffed up with pride believing that they alone were doing God's work.  As they became more numerous, they began to force their beliefs on other people.  The more power they had, the more successful they were.

Years ago, I confronted a public middle school principal in Texas about his insistence on reading the Bible during the morning announcements.  When I suggested this was illegal and unconstitutional, he proudly stood his ground as an evangelical Christian and told me to "jump in the lake" or something similar.

I've thought for some time that the good news brought by evangelicals wasn't very good at all.  It was totalitarian, disdainful of other people, and quite often disregarded the rights of non-evangelicals.


According to the latest statistics, 81% of evangelicals in this country voted for da Trampf.  In other words, a huge majority of people who identify as conservative Christians, true Christians, voted for a thrice-married sexual predator, a con man and grifter who is a pathological liar, a man with no government experience, a man with an ego the size of Russia, a man with strong ties to Russia's leaders, a man whose word cannot be trusted, a man who lives his life to make enormous sums of money but gives away very little, a man who is, in every respect, the antithesis of what a Christian should be and who stands firmly opposed to the teachings of Jesus.

Evangelicals today are not bearers of good news; they are the epitome of bad news.  We can understand the 81% voting for da Trampf when we realize they operate and believe the same things da Trampf does.  They are hateful and dismissive of people different from themselves. They are wrapped up in fear of homosexuals, Muslims, liberals, blacks, latinos, and the way the world is moving which they perceive as the wrong direction.

Unfortunately, for Christianity, the evangelicals have despoiled the "evangelical" name and the Christian faith.  They have proven they are not "born again" but are self-serving political creatures who will sell out their Lord for a bigger piece of the pie or for the pie-in-the-sky promises of a fascist demagogue.

They remind me very much of the story in the Christian Bible, where Jesus' favorite disciple, Peter, denies knowing his Lord three times, because he was afraid.

Evangelicals today have lined up with Peter, not with Jesus.  Their shame is palpable and their recovery is doubtful.  Traitors are generally greeted by the words, "Go to hell!"

The Nazis Crawl Out From the Slime

The following is from a New York Times article by Joseph Goldstein; it is his report on an alt-right conference in Washington, D.C.

By the time Richard B. Spencer, the leading ideologue of the alt-right movement and the final speaker of the night, rose to address a gathering of his followers on Saturday, the crowd was restless.

In 11 hours of speeches and panel discussions in a federal building named after Ronald Reagan a few blocks from the White House, a succession of speakers had laid out a harsh vision for the future, but had denounced violence and said that Hispanic citizens and black Americans had nothing to fear. Earlier in the day, Mr. Spencer himself had urged the group to start acting less like an underground organization and more like the establishment.

But now his tone changed as he began to tell the audience of more than 200 people, mostly young men, what they had been waiting to hear. He railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were “awakening to their own identity.”

As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. When Mr. Spencer, or perhaps another person standing near him at the front of the room — it was not clear who — shouted, “Heil the people! Heil victory,” the room shouted it back.

Please read the entire article HERE.  Then weep.  

It is time, I think, for our corporate media to call a spade a spade.  It is time to give up the term, "White Nationalists," which may be correct, but is lacking in its essence.  Let's call these scum what they are, Nazis!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/alt-right-salutes-donald-trump.html?_r=0

No Admission of Guilt

Da Trampf has settled the lawsuit against his Trump University.  You may remember what that was all about - it seems people who paid thousands of dollars to learn something about real estate, etc., from "professors" chosen by da Tramp himself, were defrauded.

Da Trampf did not choose the teachers.  In fact, the whole thing was a massive fraud.

Now Da Trampf, being non-elected prezident by white folks, decided it would not look too good for someone of his perspicacity (that means "Acuteness of perception) to be shown to be a fraud in court.  He proved that on the campaign trail, but things have changed and he's busy filling his administration with Nazis and racists and over-the-top bigots, and ignorant non-scientists.

Thus, Da Trampf decided to cut his losses and settle for a mere $25 mil.  With no admission of guilt.

OK, stop laughing.  It is funny, though.

He must have been very afraid because we know Da Trampf doesn't take lightly to people calling him a fraud.  He gets up in the middle of the night to twit away on twitter to castigate people who suggest that his hair is made up of squirrel tails.  Today he whined that the cast of "Hamilton" harassed his VP choice, the patsy named Pence, by asking Pence to ensure just treatment for all people. Whine, whine, whine.  Not very presidential in the least.

But for Da Trampf to give away $25 mil ... well, that settlement is, in itself, an admission of guilt!

I can see him in my mind's eye:  He's sitting in his silk PJ's in his bedroom in the Trump Tower in the dark.  He's fidgeting and shaking and gets up to pace the floor.

"What am I gonna do?" he asks himself.  "They're going to find out that I am, indeed, a fraud and I might get impeached and I haven't even been inaugurated! I've got to settle, but with no admission of guilt.  That will fool people so they won't think I'm at fault.  I've been fooling them for years so no problem."

Unfortunately, Da Trampf is probably right.  The fact that he is, indeed, guilty of fraud will make no difference to his supporters.  Hell, they'll probably cheer him just as they cheered him for gaming the system so he had to pay no taxes.

Which brings up a final question/comment:  When is Da Trampf gonna show his tax returns?

My guess, never.  Those tax returns would prove without doubt he is a Yuge fraud!

Billboard Ad in Montenegro

Is this real or Photoshopped?  Don't know.  It's from thesun.co.uk/news.  The link is HERE.

Welcome to the World of da Trumpf

s 

This ought to tear your heart apart.  Spotted in downtown Tampa, it's a fitting reminder of what Donald Trump has brought to light.  The kind of people behind this have always been around, of course, but like the cockroaches they are, they usually hid from sight because they knew the United States stood for something far different.  In fact, pre-Trump, this would probably be considered a hate crime. Though we have a long way to go, we have taken major steps toward becoming an inclusive and just country even as racism has continued to pervade certain areas with its stench.

You might have seen something like this back in the 60s in the south but it would be highly unlikely in recent years.

The damage Trump has done in his campaign is monstrous.  He gave the crazies and the haters "permission" to unleash their insanity and hate upon the nation.

It's not going to get any better if the past few days are an indication.  The comparison of Trump's presidency with Hitler gets stronger every minute.  He has appointed a white supremacist (Nazi) as his senior advisor and among other things he intends to "register" all Muslims in this country. The German Nazis, similarly, in the 30s "registered" all Jews in that country which turned out to be a prelude to the Holocaust.

Hopefully, there are enough decent people left in the U.S. to fight Trump and his minions, to stand for what is true and right, to continue the struggle to ensure all of our citizens equal treatment, equal rights, equal respect, irrespective of their race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, religion or any other "thing" that people use to discriminate.

Note:  The photo above is from Stogie's fine blog which you can check out HERE.

Our "Prezident," First Lady, & Other Ladies

Don't these photos make you proud of our country?  Don't you get so choked up inside you just want to cry?  Don't you want to throw up?

[Note:  Photos from m.detonate.com]

There is no god!

It is true that Donald Trump was elected, in large part, by Christian "evangelicals" who claim they were motivated by their concern that the United States should be a Christian nation.

Evilgelicals (a much more appropriate term) believe that we need their god's blessing as a nation in order to prosper.  Thus, they ignore the fact that over the past 8 years, Mr. Obama has brought us back from the brink of another serious depression, has wound down some of our war-mongering, has taken steps to halt the destruction of our environment and global warming, has shrunk our national debt substantially, has helped to ensure that the rights of LBGT persons are respected, has helped to authorize a health-care bill which, while not perfect, has provided insurance for 20 million Americans, and that overall Obama has helped the United States reach a higher level of prosperity.

But the evilgelicals don't care about any of that.  There are two issues of importance for them: abortion (which includes contraception), and homosexuality.  Obama, they believe, is anti-god because he supports a woman's right to choose as well as the right of all Americans to buy and use contraceptives, and he actually wants to protect the rights of LBGT people.


In a previous article, I argued that no Christian could have voted for Donald Trump.  It would be impossible for that to happen because Mr. Trump is diametrically opposed to all of the teachings of Jesus.  So, all those people who call themselves Christians and voted for Trump are not Christians at all, but merely hypocrites and will, in the end, face the full wrath of the biblical god!

The evilgelicals, however, ignore that argument.  Somehow, because of Trump's current position on abortion and LBGT issues (a position that may change at any moment), he was god's choice for the presidency.

Now, this approach has born another, related, stream of thinking.  Rob Boston, in an article at Talk To Action, notes that a number of evilgelical leaders are proposing the notion that god actually got off his heavenly throne and intervened in the election to ensure Trump's success.

They're not too sure how he pulled it off, though...

One group called The American Pastor's Network claimed there is "No Other Explanation - God Worked a Miracle..."

The American Family Association, (designated a hate group by those who know) published an article by Michael Brown, which said, in part, "I believe Trump has been elected president by divine intervention."

We can't forget the Southern Baptist evilgelicals.  Richard Land, a high-placed poobah with the SBC, had a slightly different tack.  God is really pissed at America, but Trump's election "headed off divine judgment."


Let's consider a couple of theological items.  Christians consider their god to be all about truth, justice and mercy, and that he or she (most evilgelicals are adamant that their god is a HE) is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing).

If that is true, then god knew beforehand that Trump would be elected and thus wouldn't have had to intervene.  So, it wasn't god's intervention that got Trump elected but god's non-intervention. 

(Or, of course, if god is omnipotent, he/she could have simply switched all the votes for Clinton in the ballot boxes with one little zap from a nearby cloud.  Not too hard for an all-powerful deity!  And what a great ploy!)


But we still are left with the problem of god's concern for truth, justice and mercy.  Why wouldn't god intervene to ensure Trump was NOT elected?  That would make more sense because Trump is a pathological liar, who has no taste for either justice or mercy.  Trump is a narcissistic businessman who cares only about financial profit for himself.

If god was real and truly about truth and all that other stuff, then surely it would behoove him (or her) to intervene and make damn sure Trump got nowhere near the White House (where, it turns out, he doesn't want to live anyhow ... evidently he needs his own bed and comforter ... both of which are located in New York).

But god did not do that and now we're stuck with this damnable demagogue, this fascist, would-be dictator, this goof-ball who doesn't have a clue what to do next so he hires some of the worst actors on the American political scene to help him try to figure things out.

Ergo, there is no god.

America Has Fallen!

A chilling encounter with a German student left me shaking...

As a part-time Boston Uber/Lyft driver, conversing with the many international students filling our many colleges and universities can sometimes proved quite the eye-opener. But no encounter has ever left me as shaken as my Saturday ride with a German student coming home from a goodbye party. His parents came to the painful and hard decision some grandparents did not make 80 some years ago. He departs for home on Monday, without finishing his semester because fear is spreading across Germany.

I was honestly and sincerely just stunned speechless to hear that his parents screamed at them, "the unthinkable has happened and America has fallen, you need to get OUT NOW before it's too late."

Not will fall.

Not is falling.

Please read the entire article at Daily Kos HERE.

100,000 March to Protest Trump in Los Angeles

One Hundred Thousand people got off their duffs and marched the streets of Los Angeles to show how the feel about the fascist Trump.


Read the article and watch the video at Daily Kos HERE.

This is Fascism, and we should say it clearly ... while we can

[A Daily Kos article by Mark Summer]

Sixty million people died in World War II, but fascism won. It didn’t win on the battlefield. It didn’t win right away. It won because the same fears, the same greed, the same hatred that fueled its growth in the first part of the twentieth century never went away.

The symbols of fascism became anathema, but the causes … went deep. And gradually, slowly, one step at a time, all those vices became first tolerated, then treated as virtues, and then as the only acceptable view.

Godwin’s Law—the contention that any argument will eventually come round to warnings about Hitler—is twenty-five years old, but for much longer than that, we’ve been taught that the use of that... f-word, is not to be taken seriously. Sure, every government program, new or old, is open to accusations of communism and warnings of a slippery slope toward some failed dictatorship. That’s expected. But to even acknowledge our long, stumbling lurch to the right; the building force of corporate power; the relentless need for war; a police whose power of enforcement is divorced from law; a preening nationalism that rewards the full rights of citizenship only to those who fit an ever-narrower mold… You can’t call it fascism. People will only laugh.

It was French poet Charles Baudelaire who said “the finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist." The finest trick of the modern fascist? The same. Nothing is ever fascist. It’s just “very conservative.” And this week’s very conservative, is next weeks middle of the road.

After all, what politician could be taken seriously who didn’t accept the completely middle of the road position that we should value the safety of the populace over the preservation of rights? Forget that oath. The top job of the president is to keep the American public safe, no matter what that takes. 

It looks like the American people are waking up.  They know that electing a Commander-in-Chief to keep America safe, so that we remain free, is what the 2016 election is all about.

Even when doing that job means abandoning families left destitute by war.

“Republicans and Democrats came together in a veto-proof majority to respond to the will of the American people and do our primary job to keep them safe,” said Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, a Republican, who co-sponsored the bill with Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas.

That drive for safety über alles means that we must surrender our privacy to the state censors who read everything we write, listen to everything we say, view every transaction we make, without a warrant and keep doing it even when they say they’re not.  It means that we have a police that makes use of tanks and other military gear to invade the homes of ordinary citizens, and where police take more property than criminals without convictions, or even charges.

Now we’ve come to an election year in which the promise of surveillance of those who follow the wrong religion, internment camps, torture and racism, racism, racism is not just a strategy, but a winning strategy.

This is who we are ...

* * * *

Please read the rest of this HERE.

What IS Wrong With Americans?

The Election was Stolen - Here's How by Greg Palast

The Election was Stolen – Here’s How by Greg Palast Before a single vote was cast, the election was fixed by GOP and Trump operatives. Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states. The system, called Crosscheck, is detailed in my Rolling Stone report, “The GOP’s Stealth War on Voters,” 8/24/2016. Crosscheck in action:   Trump victory margin in Michigan:                         13,107 Michigan Crosscheck purge list:                           449,922 Trump victory margin in Arizona:                           85,257 Arizona Crosscheck purge list:                            270,824 Trump victory margin in North Carolina:               177,008 North Carolina Crosscheck purge list:                   589,393   On Tuesday, we saw Crosscheck elect a Republican Senate and as President, Donald Trump.  The electoral putsch was aided by nine other methods of attacking the right to vote of Black, Latino and Asian-American voters, methods detailed in my book and film, including “Caging,” “purging,” blocking legitimate registrations, and wrongly shunting millions to “provisional” ballots that will never be counted. Trump signaled the use of “Crosscheck” when he claimed the election is “rigged” because “people are voting many, many times.”  His operative Kobach, who also advised Trump on building a wall on the southern border, devised a list of 7.2 million “potential” double voters—1.1 million of which were removed from the voter rolls by Tuesday. The list is loaded overwhelmingly with voters of color and the poor. Here's a sample of the list Those accused of criminal double voting include, for example, Donald Alexander Webster Jr. of Ohio who is accused of voting a second time in Virginia as Donald EUGENE Webster SR.   Note: Watch the four-minute video summary of Crosscheck. The investigation and explanation of these methods of fixing the vote can be found in my bookand film, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: a Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits (2016). No, not everyone on the list loses their vote.  But this was not the only racially poisonous tactic that accounted for this purloined victory by Trump and GOP candidates. For example, in the swing state of North Carolina, it was reported that 6,700 Black folk lost their registrations because their registrations had been challenged by a group called Voter Integrity Project (VIP). VIP sent letters to households in Black communities “do not forward.”  If the voter had moved within the same building, or somehow did not get their mail (e.g. if their name was not on a mail box), they were challenged as “ghost” voters.  GOP voting officials happily complied with VIP with instant cancellation of registrations. The 6,700 identified in two counties were returned to the rolls through a lawsuit.  However, there was not one mention in the press that VIP was also behind Crosscheck in North Carolina; nor that its leader, Col. Jay Delancy, whom I’ve tracked for years has previously used this vote thievery, known as “caging,” for years.  Doubtless the caging game was wider and deeper than reported.  And by the way, caging, as my Rolling Stone co-author, attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tells me, is “a felony, it’s illegal, and punishable by high fines and even jail time.” There is still much investigation to do.  For example, there are millions of “provisional” ballots, “spoiled” (invalidated) ballots and ballots rejected from the approximately 30 million mailed in.  Unlike reporting in Britain, US media does not report the ballots that are rejected and tossed out—because, after all, as Joe Biden says, “Our elections are the envy of the world.”  Only in Kazakhstan, Joe. While there is a great deal of work to do, much documentation still to analyze, we’ll have to pry it from partisan voting chiefs who stamp the scrub lists, Crosscheck lists and ballot records, “confidential.” But, the evidence already in our hands makes me sadly confident in saying, Jim Crow, not the voters, elected Mr. Trump.   What about those exit polls? Exit polls are the standard by which the US State Department measures the honesty of foreign elections.  Exit polling is, historically, deadly accurate. The bane of pre-election polling is that pollsters must adjust for the likelihood of a person voting.  Exit polls solve the problem. But three times in US history, pollsters have had to publicly flagellate themselves for their “errors.”  In 2000, exit polls gave Al Gore the win in Florida; in 2004, exit polls gave Kerry the win in Ohio, and now, in swing states, exit polls gave the presidency to Hillary Clinton. So how could these multi-million-dollar Ph.d-directed statisticians with decades of experience get exit polls so wrong? Answer:  they didn’t.  The polls in Florida in 2000 were accurate.  That’s because exit pollsters can only ask, “How did you vote?”  What they don’t ask, and can’t, is, “Was your vote counted.” In 2000, in Florida, GOP Secretary of State Katherine Harris officially rejected 181,173 ballots, as “spoiled” because their chads were hung and other nonsense excuses.  Those ballots overwhelmingly were marked for Al Gore.  The exit polls included those 181,173 people who thought they had voted – but their vote didn’t count.  In other words, the exit polls accurately reflected whom the voters chose, not what Katherine Harris chose. In 2004, a similar number of votes were invalidated (including an enormous pile of “provisional” ballots) by Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.  Again, the polls reflected that Kerry was the choice of 51% of the voters.  But the exit polls were “wrong” because they didn’t reflect the ballots invalidated by Blackwell. Notably, two weeks after the 2004 US election, the US State Department refused the recognize the Ukraine election results because the official polls contradicted the exit polls. And here we go again. 2016: Hillary wins among those queried as they exit the polling station—yet Trump is declared winner in GOP-controlled swings states. And, once again, the expert pollsters are forced to apologize—when they should be screaming, “Fraud!  Here’s the evidence the vote was fixed!” Now there’s a new trope to explain away the exit polls that gave Clinton the win.  Supposedly, Trump voters were ashamed to say they voted for Trump.  Really?  ON WHAT PLANET?  For Democracy Now! and Rolling Stone I was out in several swing states.  In Ohio, yes, a Black voter may have been reluctant to state support for Trump. But a white voter in the exurbs of Dayton, where the Trump signs grew on lawns like weeds, and the pews of the evangelical mega churches were slathered with Trump and GOP brochures, risked getting spat on if they even whispered, “Hillary.” This country is violently divided, but in the end, there simply aren’t enough white guys to elect Trump nor a Republican Senate.  The only way they could win was to eliminate the votes of non-white guys—and they did so by tossing Black provisional ballots into the dumpster, ID laws that turn away students—the list goes on.  It’s a web of complex obstacles to voting by citizens of color topped by that lying spider, Crosscheck.

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie. Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive. Download the FREE Movie Comic Book. Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo. Or support the The Palast Investigative Fund (a project of The Sustainable Markets Foundation) by shopping with Amazon Smile. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Palast Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info. Follow Palast on Twitter | Like Palast on Facebook | Forward to a friend  Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter | Podcasts Share this with

The Manchurian Candidate

If you don't know what "The Manchurian Candidate" refers to, please go to Google ASAP.

Many people argue, now that Trump has been duly elected, we must work with him to help him be a successful president based upon the misguided notion that somehow he can be reasoned with and will do the right thing.  At the very least, we should relax and hope he'll do the right thing.

I think this is entirely wrong.  The comparison between Donald Trump in 2016 and Adolf Hitler in 1938 is too strong.  Trump is not Hitler and our Constitution and agencies of government should keep him in check.  But, as Hitler showed us, Constitutions and governmental agencies are no barrier to a despot dedicated to accomplishing his nefarious goals.

The people of Germany voted for Hitler just as about half of the people in this country voted for Trump.  Hitler did not hide his agenda at that time, nor has Donald hidden his agenda for this time.  Donald has told us, again and again, in a loud voice and bold print exactly how he intends to tear down this country and turn it into a third-world banana republic ruled and run by the very rich and the military.

None of this should surprise anyone.  His wife has said that he keeps Hitler's, Mein Kampf, by his bedside and reads it frequently, finding it a valuable resource.

Trump is an awful, evil person.  But the real horror is that so many citizens of this country cast their vote in his favor.  How could this happen?  Again, he did not hide the facts of the case nor did he try to hide the evil that resides within him.

If any other candidate had said just a couple of the things that Trump said, or had done just a couple of things that Trump did, that candidate would have been run out of town.

Consider:

Donald Trump is a psychopath - which means he suffers from an antisocial personality disorder.  A psychopath has no conscience, "that little voice inside that lets us know when we're doing something wrong."  Thus, Donald Trump can lie, cheat and steal, etc., with no moral qualms.  He may pretend to be sorry, but he is not.  For example, he refused to release his tax returns based upon the incredible reason that he was under audit by the IRS.  But he bragged about gaming the system so he didn't have to pay any taxes.  And that, he said, made him "smart."  No moral qualms there.

Trump is a sexual pervert by his own admission; "grabbing pussy" is his right.  If your mother, wife, sister, or niece worked for him, you would not want to give him the key to the restroom. Similarly, because of his psychopathic tendencies and his inability to control his actions, you would not want to give him the keys to our nuclear codes.

Trump's wife (who, it turns out, worked illegally in this country for some time - although both she and Trump lied about that) has referred to him as a man-child. From his words and actions, he appears to have never reached adulthood and still operates from the emotional and maturity levels of a 10-year old child.

This morning, he became frustrated by some folks protesting against him and took to Twitter to call them out, indicating first of all, he has a very thin skin; secondly, that he is vengeful; and thirdly, that he really isn't convinced our Constitution's guarantee of free speech is a good thing.

Trump is a psychopathic liar.  He lies about everything and then lies about having said what he said, even when presented with clear evidence such as tape recordings.  This was another trait that Trump shares with Hitler.  Hitler and his cohorts knew they could tell extravagant lies and then deny those lies and people would believe them.   The bigger the lie the easier it was to fool the people. Trump learned that lesson well!

He got by with lying about President Obama's birthplace.  He lied about Hillary Clinton's emails and rallied his supporters to hate her to such an extent that some of them, including at least one congressperson, indicated she should be shot!

Donald Trump is a racist, a bigot, a misogynist, and a cheater.  His record shows multiple instances of racism, that he has cheated business people with whom he has worked, that he treats women like garbage, and that he intensely dislikes certain people, especially the poor and minorities.

Currently, Trump is having to deal with a legal challenge related to his Trump University.  He is being sued for fraud.  This morning, it appears his lawyers are trying to settle and get the case closed which makes a lot of sense because it is clear that their client defrauded many people out of thousands of dollars and it just won't look good if a new president is convicted of such a deed even before he takes office.

Actually, he's involved in a number of other lawsuits, although I'm not privy to the circumstances.

Trump has another great liability:  he has no government experience.  He knows very little about the government.  Not long ago, he showed he did not know about the separation of powers or how our system works.  His ignorance shows also in his promises to "build a wall," or "get rid of Obamacare" immediately after taking office.  Because he is a fascist demagogue, however, he seems to think he can order such things to happen and voila! so they will.

Finally, back to the Manchurian Candidate.  During the campaign, Trump denied knowing Putin, avowing that he'd never met him.  Those were all lies.  Moreover, in the past, Trump has praised Putin and at one point suggested Putin involve himself in the campaign by checking out Ms. Clinton's emails.

Although Trump swore he had no business interests in Russia, it appears now that also was a lie; that his organization has secret accounts with a Russian bank, the purpose of which is yet to be determined.

Immediately following the election, Putin praised Trump and indicated he was looking forward to working with him to bring the U.S. and Russia closer together.

But the smoking gun was revealed when one of Putin's associates indicated that Russia had interfered in the election to help Trump get elected.

Remembering how Trump lies about everything and cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything, one cannot help but be concerned over his Russian ties and Russia's intentions.  All of this certainly raises some important, even vital, questions.  A minor one that does not fall prey to conspiracy notions, is exactly what does Russia expect in return for their help in getting Trump elected?


As noted, almost one-half of the Americans that voted, voted in favor of Trump for president.  Many, if not most of this people, call themselves "conservative" or "evangelical" Christians.  How such people could vote for this monster is incomprehensible.

Unless...and this is probably the case, their "Christianity" has nothing to do with their Jesus or their God but is simply a front for their "conservative" political ideologies.  At the very least, the fact they voted for a pathological liar, sexual pervert, cheater, bigot and racist, says to all the world they are monumental hypocrites and if their Bible is true, they must expect to be cast into the fires of hell upon their death!


It is bothersome to the extreme that we've learned so little since the 1930s, that the United States, which I used to admire as having potential at least, has become one of the most morally and ethically and intellectually lax countries of the world.

For those of us who care about this a little bit, the least we can do is fight Mr. Trump in every possible way to make it impossible for him to advance his agenda and to hobble him in such a manner that his depravity fails to take hold in this country.

Now representing officially - American Fascism

This photo is in memory of what this country used to be.  It also is a recognition of what is.  Less than 1/2 of our citizens have elected (due to the Electoral College) a psychopathic fascist as our president.

The darkness descends just as it did in Germany on Kristallnacht when mobs beat and robbed Jews and torched synagogues.  The date of Kristallnacht was November 9 - 10, 1938.

In both instances, the country's leaders, demagogues both, urged the people to wreak violence against unwanted citizens.  While the same amount of violence has not yet occurred here, threats have been made by our demagogue and his followers, and it is, I believe, just a matter of time.

Happy Birthday, Hillary!

This is from Shakesville, click HERE.

New York's Daily News Special Editorial on da Trumpf

One of the best summaries of the person known as Trump.

Read it all here.

Life's a Bitch

                                                       s

Jon Stewart Takes Over Colbert's Late Show Desk

Keith Olbermann - 176 Reasons Trump Should Not Be President

Watch this video on The Scene.

Hillary Clinton Nails Trump to His White Nationalistic Friends!

Making Clear the Right To Bear Arms

For a number of years now, I have argued strenuously that the 2nd Amendment does not, in any sense, guarantee that private citizens have a right to own guns in this country.  The NRA and most, if not all, gun owners, may disagree with me and the conservative gun-loving Supreme Court may also disagree but such disagreements do not nullify the truth that the only thing the 2nd Amendment guarantees is the right of "a well-regulated militia" to own and use weapons in the defense of the nation.

What follows is a grammatical argument which sustains my position.  It was written by Daryl Sneath and appeared in the Huffington Post on August 16, 2016.  Sneath is a novelist and self-proclaimed amateur grammarian.

Sneath notes that the most notable of our founders, namely Jefferson, Madison and Thomas Paine, who were directly involved in the construction of our founding documents, were well-educated, very wise men who knew a thing or two about language and they worked to make sure what they wrote was glaringly clear.

Thus, Sneath observes, based on the founding fathers understanding of grammar,  it is not the right of every Tom, Dick, and Harriet to own guns which shall not be infringed, but rather the right to keep and bear arms is always predicated on the need for a well-regulated militia to ensure our freedom.

One of those things they knew about is the comma, the only purpose of which is clarity. Doubtless the writers were acutely aware of this grammatical truism (despite their apparent affinity for complex diction) when they drew their collective stylus southward (certainly aware too of that symbolic direction) making the little mark immediately following the phrase the right of the people to keep and bear arms. As such, the subject of the predicate shall not be infringed is clearly not the right of the people. No subject is ever separated from its predicate by a comma alone. Put more plainly, the principal clause (or declaration) of the whole amendment is this: A well regulated militia shall not be infringed. The middle bit modifies the main.

But the ‘right to pack’ contingent continues to unpack the latter half of the amendment such that, for them, it states matter-of-factly the right to keep and bear arms is theirs because The Constitution says so and ain’t nobody gonna say no different no how.

There’s no need for anybody to say any different—the third comma does.

In addition to the subject/predicate issue explained above, the third comma further indicates that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a noun phrase which functions adverbially on the the participial phrase preceding it which, in turn, modifies the subject A well-regulated militia.

To clarify, the right of the people is only a right when A well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, all of which together is the thing that shall not be infringed.

The end.

Glaring clarity. 

What the hell?

This photo, currently flitting about the Web, shows Ivanka Trump with her dear friend, Wendi Deng Murdoch while on vacation in Croatia.

Wendi Murdoch happens to be Vladimir Putin's girlfriend.

Did not da Trump say he hardly knew Vladimir?  And did he not say he had no financial interests in Russia?

Is it possible da Trump is lying?

Is it also possible that Ivanka is purposely trying to derail her father's bid for the White House?

Made in China by I. Trump

This was sent to me by a friend.  I have no way of determining its source nor can I verify its validity, but I thought it was interesting enough to post.

True or False?

Politifact: Donald Trump Is Way Ahead In 'Pants On Fire' Statements

I've been writing this for a while now, but Donald Trump lies like no other presidential nominee before him. I'm talking about the kind of lies that are easily debunkable and unnecessary. I'm talking about the kind of lies conspiracy theory nuts spew to the fringes of our society. And he's also a serial exaggerator about…

KA-BOOM! What Trump Really Thinks About Iraq and Hillary

What follows is from Daily Kos.


In 2007, Wolf Blitzer interviewed Da Trump.  Da Trump was asked what he thought about the war in Iraq.  Da Trump said this:

The war is a total disaster. It's a catastrophe, nothing less. It is such a shame that this took place. In fact, I gained a lot of respect for our current president's father by the fact that he had the sense not to go into Iraq. He won the war and then said, Let's not go the rest of the way. And he turned out to be right. And Saddam Hussein, whether they liked him or didn't like him, he hated terrorists. He'd shoot and kill terrorists. When terrorists came into his country, which he did control and he did dominate, he would kill terrorists. Now it's a breeding ground for terrorists. So, look, the war is a total catastrophe.

BLITZER: Who do you blame?

TRUMP: And they have a civil war going over there.

BLITZER: Who do you blame?

TRUMP: Well, there's only one person you can blame, and that's our current president. I mean, obviously Rumsfeld was a disaster, and other people that are giving him advice have been a disaster. And Condoleezza Rice, who's a lovely woman but she never makes a deal -- she doesn't make deals, she waves. She gets off the plane, she waves, she sits down with some dictator -- 45 degree angle, they do the camera shot. She waves again, she gets back on the plane, she waves -- no deal ever happens. So, I mean — 

Then, Blitzer said, "Thank you very much.  Let's talk politics.  All right?  A lot of people thinking about politics right now.  I'm going to mention some names:  give me your thoughts right away. 

Hillary Clinton.

Da Trump said:

Very talented, very smart. She's a friend of mine, so I'm a little bit prejudiced. She's a very, very capable person and I think she'll probably be the nominee. We'll see, but I think she'll probably be the nominee.

BLITZER: Is she ready to be commander-in-chief?

TRUMP: I think she is. I think she's a very, very brilliant person, and as a senator in New York, she has done a great job. Everybody loves her. She just won an election with a tremendous majority and she really -- she's become very, very popular in New York. And it wasn't easy.

AND KA-BOOM!!!!

One Sentence by the Crazy Donald Trump

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist  and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, 

OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart 

—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, 

like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the 

smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a 

conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's 

why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went 

there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my 

like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but 

you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would 

have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear 

is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the 

power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of 

what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), 

but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it 

used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I 

would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, 

you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter 

right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about 

another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians  are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

Note:  The video is from about a year ago.  The transcription came from Daily Kos.  The man really is crazy!

Lebanese Olympic Athletes Bar Israeli Athletes From Bus

According to Jerusalemonline.com, on the eve of the Olympic's opening ceremonies, the Lebanese athletic delegation refused to allow the Israeli delegation on the bus - although both delegations had been assigned that bus by Olympic officials.

This kind of thing is far from the spirit of the Olympic games and what they represent - inclusiveness, friendship, cooperation.  It also violates the "truce" agreement among the nations participating.

The Lebanese athletes and their cohorts responsible for this debacle should be confronted and given a choice:  Apologize for the action or pack up and go home!

It is also reported that the Israeli athletes have let this slide and intend to focus on their various competitive events and fully engage the Olympic experience.  That is wonderful but doesn't solve the problem or deal with the issue.  The authorities in Rio need to take decisive action to let the world and the athletes know that this kind of hatred and divisiveness will not be tolerated.

Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2016 in Rio Demonstrating Dangerous Clima...

And a Republican congressman just the other day suggested that climate change and global warming are a myth and should be ignored.

Those of you who live along coastal Florida, get out now.  Just don't come to Ocala.  Please!  We may be drier in the future but we're loaded with climate change deniers and other jackwangs and don't need any more.

Clinton Campaign Devastates Trump With His Ties To Putin

This video put out by the Clinton campaign is brutally effective, and even more so because it's true. Here's the former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell, explaining just how awful Trump's embrace of Putin is within the intelligence establishment. Holy cow, folks. "The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump's character are not just risks…

Our Heroes

Evidently, this scene has a Star Wars connection.  It was created by:

@jeffbenzenberg.

I found this at Shakesville, a wonderful blog by Melissa McEwan.  The young man in the middle is a young Tim Kaine...and the face in the storm you recognize right away:  the wrath of Evil.

AARP & The Koch Brothers - Hand in Hand???????

Did You Know That AARP Is A Paying Member Of ALEC?

Here is a real shocker. AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) has been a paying member of the notorious right-wing, Koch-tied lobbying organization American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since at least 2014. Yes, that AARP, once known for protecting the interests of senior citizens and fighting to protect Social Security and Medicare. Yes, that…

Trump's Campaign Store Might Be a Pain Store

Think Twice Before Buying From Trump's Campaign Store

When you make an online purchase, you try and take confidence that your personal information, including your credit card information, remains secure throughout the transaction. A good indicator is in the URL bar of your browser. If it shows a green lock, that means you're secure. If it doesn't then stop what you're doing and walk…