Rigging Elections
There are a couple of recent stories that illustrate just how corrupt the Republican party has become and what little regard they have for democracy, only thirsting to stay in power by any means possible.
The first comes out of the fraudulent election in North Carolina’s 9th District. There is already overwhelming evidence of election fraud with absentee ballots being illegally destroyed for the Democratic candidate and filled in for the Republican. Now we learn that the local election board improperly leaked the early vote total to the Republican candidate, potentially giving him a pretty good idea of just how many fraudulent absentee ballots he need to create in order to win the election.
Meanwhile, down in Florida, it appears that a Republican attorney for an actual target into corruption in the Tallahassee city government continually leaked information that implied the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Gillum, was implicated in the case. In fact, that now has turned out to be totally false and Gillum was never a target of the probe. But that implication was a real factor statewide in a race that ended being decided by less than 40,000 votes out of the 8.1 million votes cast.
And, finally, last Friday, James Comey finally admitted what was already clear, namely that the New York FBI field office was leaking information about the Abedin emails to Rudy Giuliani, a surrogate for the Trump campaign and now supposedly Trump’s lawyer. Said Comey, “In particular, in I want to say mid October, maybe a little bit later, Mr. Giuliani was making statements that appeared to be based on his knowledge of workings inside the FBI New York. And then my recollection is there were other stories that were in the same ballpark that gave me a general concern that we may have a leak problem”. Those leaks are what pressured Comey into writing his fateful October 28th email “reopening” the Clinton email investigation, which subsequent evidence has indicated was the decisive factor in the election.
Krugman, among others, has finally recognized the authoritarian nature of the current Republican party, highlighted by the recent actions by the Republican-led legislatures in Wisconsin and Michigan. It’s something I have been harping on for years. And the evidence keeps piling up.
Thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts. During the 2018 election, about 1/3rd of the voters chose the R button for President, about 1/3rd of the voters chose the D button for President, and about 1/3rd of the voters chose not to push the button. What that tells me is that whatever you chose to do, 2/3rds disagreed with you. The Republicans want to continue to pillage and the Democrats spend all their time trying to stop them. What is lacking is ideas worthy to persuade the inactive 1/3 to join together with the idea maker. The best case scenario would be an idea which we can all agree upon. I will make a bold statement to you today. 9 out of 10 Americans agree on 9 out of 10 issues. It is all about how you phrase the question or direct the conversation.