Category Archives: Elections & Voting

Even in an election year as shot through with conspiracy theories as this one, it would have been hard to imagine a bigger bombshell than Russia intervening to help Donald Trump. But that’s exactly what the CIA believes happened, or so unnamed “officials brief on the matter” told the Washington Post. Continue reading →

The claims that the Russian government hacked US voting machines are absurd. Voting machines are not connected to the Internet. To hack a voting machine you have to be physically in proximity to the machine and use a hand held device. The machines can be programmed to throw the vote count to one candidate or the other, and there are other ways to interfere with elections. Possibly if a foreign power had server presence in the US, some precinct reports of results could be intercepted and altered, although a voice check over the telephone is an easy way to verify the electronic transmission. What is clear is that Russia cannot hack the voting machines. Continue reading →

Two, long, boring years before every presidential election, we hear a constant barrage of empty promises. Candidates will say whatever voters want to hear, but then once elected, they change their views and do a position switch. The result is that we get the same old prototypical leaders over and over again. It happens because “the system is rigged,” as George Carlin said. Our so-called “democracy” is a sham, a big joke. Voting does not change anything significantly, and it is understandable why many individuals do not even vote or vote for a third party. Continue reading →

Universally, Trump was depicted as an anti-establishment candidate. Washington and Wall Street hated him, and the media were deployed to vilify him endlessly. If they could not discredit Trump enough, surely they would steal the election from him. Some even suggested Trump would be assassinated. Continue reading →

There have been many thought-provoking articles in the alternative news lately. Robert Reich says all current members of the Democratic National Committee should resign so that we can have a new democratic party. Noam Chomsky says, “Trump’s win puts government in the hands of the most dangerous organization in world history.” Bill Gates has argued that we need socialism to save the planet. Robert Scheer says this [the election result] is “the revenge of the deplorables.” Chris Hedges exclaims in an article, entitled “It’s Worse Than You Think,+++++” that “Widespread social unrest will ignite when Donald Trump’s base realizes it has been betrayed.” Continue reading →

A friend of mine who has dual Israeli-American citizenship tells the story of entering an elevator in Jerusalem shortly after a bullying right-wing government had taken over the country. Continue reading →

That line from a 1960s lyric spoke to a society in the midst of social change totally misunderstood by opinion makers and their employers. The situation now is more serious, the changes needed more radical, and the degree of confused ignorance of the people and criminal immorality of the leadership greater than before. Thus, an election in which the ruling establishment demanded defeat of one of its own, a rich and unruly capitalist, in favor of one of its employees, a more reliable worker in the fields of empire, and they failed. Continue reading →

As the unexpected US president-elect took to the stage, the crowds erupted in jubilation, basking in the historic moment of populist revolution, certain that reform and change had finally come. Continue reading →

Within days of the U.S. general election, central elements of the result have already entered into American mythology: the revenge of the “white working class voter”; the unprecedented anti-establishment character of the president-elect; the populist revolution that led to Trump’s victory; and the years in the wilderness now facing Democrats and progressives in America. Continue reading →

Brushing away the extreme claims and rhetoric of much election analysis, there are some observations which deserve attention. These unfortunately mostly provide hard lessons and not a lot of encouragement for people who hold to principles of democracy, enlightenment, and progressivity. Continue reading →

It occurred to me in recent years that the act of being progressive is not a political position but rather a mental state. Continue reading →

Why would the American people elect a racist, misogynist, narcissistic, criminal to the presidency of this country? Continue reading →

A populist wave that began with Brexit in June became a tsunami as Trump’s cyclone hit Washington Tuesday night, leaving the capital in a shambles. His is a story straight out of Grimm’s fairytales. the peasants rose up. The phony civility of the neoconservative nightmare that Americans (and the world) have endured for years is cracking. Continue reading →

One likely winner to come out of the 2016 US presidential election: accuracy in polling. Obviously not past but future polling! Continue reading →

There has just been a generational political earthquake in the United States and the after shocks are potentially going to be huge. Indeed, on November 8, 2016, against all odds, the Republican candidate Donald Trump (1946- ) was elected to serve as the 45th American president, repeating ad nauseam his main slogan, “Make America Great Again.” He will be the first American president since Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) to occupy the White House without having personal political experience. Continue reading →

This columnist did not see a Donald Trump victory coming. The degree of disgust directed at an awful candidate was more than I had predicted. Neither the corporate media, nor Wall Street, nor the pundits, nor the pollsters saw this coming, either. Their defeat and proof of their uselessness is total. Those of us who rejected the elite consensus and didn’t support Hillary Clinton should be proud. Continue reading →

I will not be surprised if President-elect Trump changes the national motto from e pluribus unum to capto per naturale eius debent (grab them by the pussy). This will show the rest of the world that our leader is a celebrity and we may do whatever we want, not that the rest of the world doesn’t already know the Empire feels this way, just clarifying. Continue reading →

Well, the angry white vote did the trick and Ms. Killary went down in defeat. One hopes that many will realize that this election was not about what people voted FOR . . . but rather AGAINST. Continue reading →

Our world is on the cusp of a new era. Traditional taboos are being smashed. Respect has become an old-fashioned word. Nothing is too low or too dirty to be ignored, overlooked or even applauded by some. Continue reading →

As U.S. officials continue to accuse Russia of meddling with the U.S. presidential election, an accusation that they have provided no evidence whatsoever to support, let’s review some of the U.S. government’s history of meddling with elections in others countries. Continue reading →

As millions prepare to do just what Smith warns against, including hundreds of thousands who think themselves dedicated to ending such control, it’s time we understand American mind management’s great success at reducing voters to herds of human cattle whether from a conservative right, a liberal left, or trapped in the middle of the political desert called the two party system under one class control. Continue reading →

With less than a week until the election, just about every voter in the swing states has received dozens of robocalls, e-mails, letters, postcards, and exposure to almost-uncountable radio, TV, digital, satellite, and social media ads. Most are attack ads, with similar messages. Continue reading →

When 95-year-old Rosanell Eaton first registered to vote in the Jim Crow South, she was forced to pass a written literacy test and recite the preamble of the Constitution from memory. Seven decades after becoming one of the first African American voters in her county, Eaton once again found herself facing obstacles undermining her access to the franchise. Continue reading →

In her recent Washington Post Article, Jewish academic Cheryl Greenberg makes one valid observation. Trump’s criticism of the Jews is far more subtle than his disapproval of other groups and identities (Mexicans, Muslims, Women etc). Though Trump is not known for pulling his punches, when it comes to the Jews, Trump chooses his words very carefully. Trump, according to Greenberg, is so careful “that it’s not clear that Trump himself fully understands the implications of what he’s saying.” I guess that the Jewish academic couldn’t restrain herself from looking down at the Goy candidate. Continue reading →

If one remembers the 1994 film Forrest Gump, one should recall his famous quote: Stupid is as stupid does. Well, he must have been clairvoyant as to our Amerikan public, as least those of us who vote. Factoring out we who refuse to support this Two Party con job, we are left with the overwhelming numbers who will ‘follow the herd’ and vote for either of the two scoundrels running for president. Continue reading →

As we approach the end of our most recent contamination of the ideal of national democracy with possibly its worst example we would do well to consider the words of a democratically elected leader of a nation that could teach us about the word’s meaning. Continue reading →