Today's Election IS Rigged - By Trump And The GOP

Cartoon by Jonathan Schmock.  

As we cast our votes today, the sound ringing in many of our ears is that of Donald Trump telling us over, and over, and over and OVER again the system is rigged.

Trouble is, he's right. But he and the Republicans are doing most of the rigging. I

n this case, if the polls are to be believed, the rigging might not be enough to get Trump to the White House, but the rigging is impressive nonetheless.

Here are just some ways they've gone about trying to rig the election:

REMOVING LEGIT REGISTERED VOTERS:  Despite the efforts of the U.S. Justice Department, some states, notably North Carolina and Texas, have been improperly removing people who just happen to be  more likely to vote Democrat from voter registration lists.

The shenanigans have gotten so bad in Texas the U.S. Justice Department is sending crews of poll watchers to Texas to make sure everyone who's eligible to vote and wants to indeed does so.

In North Carolina, the GOP literally bragged in a press release issued Sunday that fewer black voters cast early ballots there than in 2012. North Carolina Republicans said that was because African-Americans are supposedly tired of Barack Obama's policies, but that doesn't explain why Obama is more popular than he's ever been.

The real reason why black early voting is down in North Carolina this year is because of aggressive GOP efforts to suppress the black vote.

Says Mother Jones:

"Emails obtained last week by Reuters showed that Republican officials pushes successfully to restrict early voting sites and cut down on early voting on Sundays, when many black churches hold 'Souls to the Polls' mass voting drives."

REMOVING VOTING SITES

Another way Republicans are trying to suppress votes from blacks and Hispanics is by cutting down the number of voting sites in minority neighborhoods on election day. This creates long lines, and people who work for a living can't stand in a line all day waiting to vote. Or they don't have cars and can't drive long distances to polling places.

SCAM ADS:

The most obnoxious method of voter suppression isn't sanctioned by the GOP, but done by Internet trolls, most of whom are Trump backers.

As CNN notes, they're circulating fake ads on social media saying things like: "Save time. Avoid the lines. Vote from home... Text 'Hillary to 59925 and we'll make history together." The ad comes complete with a "Paid for by Hillary For President" stamp.

Of course, you CANNOT vote via text. You have to do it in person. People who don't realize this will hit that text number, and think they voted and didn't.  By the way, as if you didn't know, Hillary For President is not putting out these ads.

Twitter is trying like hell to scrub these ads, but there's only so much they can do to stop the onslaught.

BACKLASH:

Of course, some of these attempts at vote suppression have backfired on Republicans. In Texas Latinos, fired up by Trump's anti-Hispanic rhetoric and efforts to block their votes, have motivated Latinos to sign up to vote in droves, despite the roadblocks.

CBS Dallas says there are 500,000 more Latinos registered to vote in Texas this year than in 2016.

In Nevada, Latino voters were so pissed off at Trump and the GOP that they swarmed polling sites like crazy for early voting over the weekend, which just might have tipped that state to Hillary Clinton.

What mystifies me is it would probably be easier for the GOP to appeal to Hispanics and African-Americans through persuasion, rather than just appealing to an ever-shrinking proportion of conservative white voters.

There are many African Americans and Hispanics for whom conservative social values, and pro-business economic plans would be appealing.  The GOP could just come up with a good, decent , detailed, comprehensive conservative platform to siphon these votes away from Democrats.

The way the GOP is handling things this year, they're telegraphing that they really don't have any good ideas as a counterweight to the Democratic platform.

There's more than a whiff of racism here. Let's appeal to the white voters, and leave others out of our club. It's not the American way, obviously.

It's also not how you win elections, and I'm stunned the GOP hasn't figured that out yet.

Sadly, SNL Alum/Tea Party Crazy Victoria Jackson Won't Be Williamson County Commissioner

Sadly, Victoria Jackson will not become Williamson
County, Tennessee Commissioner.  

Sad news out of Tennessee last week when we learned Victoria Jackson will not become a county commissioner in Williamson County.   

Instead, two definitely conservative, but rather sane incumbents won re-election. That's no fun!

Jackson, after a short, mystifying stint on Saturday Night Live several years back, has become an, um, colorful political activist.

And her sense of style! You can see it in the photo that accompanies this post.

I think where she got hung up is she was the nuts and bolts of the important job of Williamson County Commissioner. When she was asked how she would manage traffic congestion in the county, she said she opposed Common Core and Agenda 21, which are apparently socialist/communist assaults against the fine citizens of America. 

Common Core is a controversial, but fairly dense federal education policy. Agenda 21 is a bland, voluntary United Nations policy on sustainable development.

But Jackson says they're plots to take away all of our freedoms, so what do I know?

Jackson warned the fine citizens of Williamson County that the evil Agenda 21 was on their doorstep.  There are proposals to build a bike path or two in the county, which is Agenda 21's insidious first step to take away everybody's private property. Or something like that.

Jackson does have unique opinions. Here's a partial summary from the Oh No They Didn't blog:

"She has strummed a ukulele while harmonizing Muslims 'like beheadings and pedophile weddings.' Even Bill O'Reilly laughed at her when she compared Barack Obama to 'Castro in Cuba or the guy in China, or Saddam Hussein.' She has declared, in a protest of a gay kiss on Glee, that homosexual children need to "pray the gay away' amd that there's a spiritual war in America.'"  

Well, then. I guess Jackson won't lead Williamson County in praying the gay away or protesting Muslim weddings with her ukulele.

That's a good thing, but still, the spectacle of Jackson being in public office would have been a lot funnier than anything Saturday Night Live ever produced. Wouldn't it be great if Jackson and Sarah Palin teamed up? I think Jackson should be a regular on Palin's TV network. 

Jackson's political career is short circuited for now, but her classic campaign ads live on. They're such fine pieces of art.

You have to watch it over and over. The guy in the "Nashville Tea Party" t-shirt waving the American flag definitely adds to this film classic:

Small Town Vt. Election Shows What's Right, Wrong About Politics

Like almost every journalist in the nation, I spent election day covering the outcome of the balloting.

The back bumper of a truck parked at a polling place,
Milton, Vermont election day 11/6/12

I stopped in the relatively small town of Milton, Vermont to check in on things there. I got a lesson on everything that's both wrong and right with the nation's political climate.

Most of it scene in Milton was standard issue election fare. Candidates stood next to the parking lot, holding campaign signs and greeting voters. Town residents said hi to each other as they came in and out of the municipal building, where the election was being held. A bake sale benefitted the town's upcoming 250th birthday celebration.

But in the middle of the parking lot was a jarring scene. A guy had parked his truck there, it's back bumper festooned with virulently anti-Obama stickers. Signs with grammatical and spelling errors also pointed out the man's hatred of Obama.

"Obama: Why Stupid People Shouldn't Vote," read one bumper sticker. A hand made sign read: "Warning: Obama may win the election but Americans will loose (sic) it all. Our country is being stolen."

The man put flyers under the windshield wipers of the voters' cars as they were inside casting ballot. The paper listed a lot of reasons why he thought we shouldn't have voted for Obama: "Deminished (sic) America's strengths. To make America more Acceptable to his Muslum (sic) brothers.

This man represents what's wrong with American politics. No, there was nothing wrong with people supporting Romney or Obama.  Many perfectly reasonable people thought Romney would make the best president, and many perfectly reasonable people thought Obama would be best.

The election turned out to be Obama's.

The problem came when all too often, the political discussion was hijacked by people like the angry man in the Milton, Vermont parking lot. There's people like him lurking on both the political right and left.

Rather than have a somewhat intelligent debate on whether Obama or Romney's approach was best, some people resort to these wild attacks not based on reality.

For the record: No, Obama is not some communist dictator set to completely control our lives. No, Romney was not some capitalist  gone amok intent on impoverishing us all so he could rake in billions. Both are smart guys with flaws like we all have, both sometimes self-serving, who had two starkly different visions of how America should move forward.

The Loopy Lous I guess have the right to spout their idiocy. But really, they're not helping. That's what's wrong with American politics. It just makes everybody angry. And until this election, I thought it maybe would turn people away from engaging in voting, in politics, in the country's future

But here's what's right with the way the election system: Almost everybody who came to vote in Milton either ignored the guy with the whacked out signs, or engaged in brief conversations with him, just to be polite.

Those voters calmly walked into the municipal building, calmly cast ballots and calmly walked out to go on with their days.

A Republican candidate for representative in the Vermont House campaigning at the Milton municipal building who wanted Romney to win made it clear to whoever would listen that he had no affiliation with the guy and all those weird signs.

John Cushing, the Milton Town Clerk, shrugged his shoulders and said the scene in the parking lot was just American free speech at work.

Maybe some of the wackos thought they would demoralize those they hated, and they wouldnt turn out to vote, and that would help them win.

Instead, there might have been a backlash. A small part of the reason many people voted, weighed in, was because they wanted their rational voices heard above the din of political insanity.

I took comfort that, despite all the attention paid to the loopy reactionaries, it turns out the vast majority of Americans, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, quietly made up their own minds, stayed away from the fireworks, soberly voted and hoped for the best.

Was Diane Sawyer Drunk?

Post-election speculation has swirled all over the place, and has landed, among other places on ABC's Diane Sawyer.

Was she nipping at the booze during the election coverage? She sure seemed like she was having fun, talking about magic milkshakes, lamenting the lack of music to introduce a new segment, and slurring words.

I don't want to be unfair. She might have been very tired. God knows she probably worked more than 24 hours straight. Or people just caught a couple iffy moments and cobbled together clips into funny YouTube videos.

Of course, 24-hour election coverage would certainly drive me to drink, so if she did imbibe, I'm not surprised.

I'm also sure plenty of Republicans are drinking heavily today. This election was not their moment.

Perhaps all this means that the election will prompt the nation's alcohol industry to lead the nation into a long, sustained and booming economic recovery.

Below is the clips of Sawyer on election night. You decide what was up with her.