The Rigging of the American election .

Who said politics was fair and square ? Remember After the grueling 36-day Florida recount battle, Al Gore finally conceded the presidency to George W. Bush on December 13, 2000.The presidential election of 2000 hinged on the outcome in Florida. First, the television networks said that (1)>>Vice President Al Gore had carried the state. Then, the state’s election was considered “too close to call.” Then, the networks declared Texas Governor George W. Bush the winner. The presidential election was so close that it took five weeks to determine the winner. Vice President Al Gore carried the East and West Coasts and inland industrial cities, while Texas Governor George W. Bush won much of the Midwest and Plains, as well as the South. Gore gained a half-million more votes than Bush, but Gore lost the Electoral College when he lost Florida. Bush's official margin in Florida was by 537 votes.With the presidency hanging on a few hundred votes in a single state, there were lawsuits and requests for recounts. Bitter disputes centered on confusing ballots, missing names from voting rolls, and subjecting minority voters to multiple requests for identification. The punch card ballots posed a major problem--they were vulnerable to voter error. Many ballots were called into question because voters failed to punch a hole all the way through the ballot. In an extraordinary late-night decision, the U.S. Supreme Court halted a recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. A narrow majority of the Justices said that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated the principle that “all votes must be treated equally.” It also ruled that there was not enough time to conduct a new count that would meet constitutional muster.The 2000 presidential election was the first in 112 years in which a president lost the popular vote but captured enough states to win the electoral vote. We could be seeing this whole scenario again , and worse.  Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump erupted on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning after a weekend that saw (2)>>Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas sweep all of Colorado’s 34 delegates without any votes being cast by citizens in a traditional primary

process.“I’ve gotten millions … of more votes than [Sen. Ted] Cruz, and I’ve gotten hundreds of delegates more, and we keep fighting, fighting, fighting, and then you have a Colorado where they just get all of these delegates, and it’s not [even] a system,” Trump said, during the Fox News broadcast. “There was no voting. I didn’t go out there to make a speech or anything. There’s no voting.”His comments came after Cruz won the remaining 13 delegates at the weekend’s convention, bringing his total for the state to 34, an outcome he described as unfair and just shy of illegal. Trump referenced Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has won eight of the past nine Democratic contests, noting that people still say he doesn't have a path to the nomination."I watch Bernie. He wins, he wins, he keeps winning, winning and winning, and then I see he's got no chance. They always say he's got no chance. Why doesn't he have a chance?" Trump asked during a rally in Rochester, N.Y."Because the system is corrupt. (3)>>And it's worse on the Republican side."Trump called the system "crooked." His Colorado campaign was steamrolled by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, even though Republicans point out that this year’s rules — in which hundreds of delegate candidates elected at the March 1 caucuses run for 34 slots at the state convention — have been known since August.The Colorado outcome was no outlier. In the last two weeks, Mr. Trump has suffered setbacks in six other states — Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, North Dakota and South Carolina — as the Cruz campaign nibbles at the front-runner’s delegate count at state conventions.

Americans Wakes UP!.

A protester dressed as Lady Liberty
is arrested at Capitol Hill DC.

The protesters arrived at the U.S. Capitol Building in D.C. after marching 150 miles from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia over the course of a week as a part of the Democracy Spring campaign. Upon arriving, they engaged in a peaceful sit-in outside the Capitol, with the goal of staying there for another week.The (4)>>Democracy Spring website says the campaign’s goal is to “demand a Congress that will take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections in which every American has an equal voice.” Furthermore, their proposals include support of the Government by the People Act & Fair Elections Now Act, the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 & Voter Empowerment Act of 2015; and the Democracy for All Amendment.The website reports that over 3,600 people have pledged to take part in this act of civic disobedience, though a final number has yet to be confirmed. Police were quickly called to the scene, and they began arresting people not even an hour after the protest begun.Capitol Police were on scene and law enforcement used buses to transport those arrested to booking stations. Demonstrators chanted "one person, one vote" as well as "where is CNN?" in response to the cable network's lack of coverage at the event. Capitol Police said the protesters were arrested when they refused to leave the steps. Over the course of the afternoon, Capitol Police had cordoned off the largest section of the crowd in the middle of the Capitol campus, sectioning off a few hundred protesters who were standing on the Capitol steps and refused to leave. Police announced that the latter group was under arrest, but would have to wait until officers could get buses out to

the Capitol to remove them.But given the significance of the issue of big money in politics, several protesters said that they were disappointed with the turnout, which organizers had pegged at approximately 1,000 people.If movement organizers have their way, there will be more. The event is mobilizing a week of sit-ins at the Capitol building — over 3,500 have pledged to be arrested — in what organizers hope will become a series of intensifying waves of protest meant to highlight the influence of money in politics. In an election cycle that's already seen Black Lives Matter and other protesters change the conversation among candidates, Democracy Spring is billing itself as 2016's first full-stage activist production.When you examine these media narratives, a troubling pattern emerges that goes beyond the political establishment’s self-interest. You begin to see that American corporate media also functions as an arm of the political machine, protecting establishment candidates while attacking — or dismissing — candidates who seem non-establishment.If we ran our elections differently, we wouldn't have to worry so much about the influence of money on elected officials. The problem is that it takes a lot of money to campaign and we don't want to get to a point where the only people who can run and hold office are the wealthy. So naturally, that means that anyone running for office has to get money to do so.  Our campaigns are too long and cost too much money. The need to constantly build a campaign war chest distracts legislators from what they are supposed to be doing. We should limit the time frame that campaigns can be conducted and they should be publicly funded - with outside money being illegal. Each candidate gets exactly the same amount of money from the gov for their campaigns and gets a limited amount of time to campaign. It's the only way to make campaigns fair and everyone is protected from accusations of having been influenced by money. The 'public' does the funding because the elected officials should be beholden to no one but the public'.The vote of the lowest beggar on the filthiest street corner matters as much as that of the richest entrepreneur in the most lavish estate. Wealth, privilege, and status afford many things in this world: luxuries, a higher standard of living, a higher degree of personal freedom, and even better access to essential services like medical care. But even granted that, the hope of liberty never ceases, because the destitute and the dispossessed are not so in the political realm. Their home, their clothes, their life may not be as valuable as those of the rich man, but their vote is worth exactly the same, and through this great equalizer, there is hope that those other iniquities may be rectified.

Cleaverly rigged outcomes.

If you believe that the ruling class would leave it up to the voters to determine who gets elected, you should really think again. Every single candidate who truly challenges the status quo becomes a target.This year is one of the worst years actually for (5)>>voter fraud, as it’s been caught on video – numerous times.What we are witnessing — for the first time on a large scale — is the political establishment’s true role in selecting the president of the United States. The illusion of choice has become apparent. The establishment anoints their two picks for president, and the country proceeds to argue vehemently over the two candidates they are spoon-fed. This dynamic is reminiscent of a prophetic 1998 quote from philosopher Noam Chomsky:“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>Vice President Al Gore had carried the state. But that dispute encompassed much more than just the US Supreme Court’s decision, which in truth did not even end the fight. Rather, the end came the next day, December 13, when Gore announced he would not attempt to renew the recount through additional proceedings in Florida’s courts. Had he done so, he and Bush conceivably might have pursued their fight all the way to Congress, as Hayes and Tilden had over the 1876 election. If Bush-versus-Gore had reached Congress it would have been the first real test of the impenetrably ambiguous Electoral Count Act of 1887, with unpredictable consequences. Thus it was Gore’s concession of December 13, and not the Court’s ruling of the previous day, that truly ended the fight for the presidency as a practical matter. The studies also show that Gore likely would have won a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes, which are ballots that included multiple votes for president and were thus not counted at all. However, his legal team never pursued this action.The studies also support the belief that more voters went to the polls in Florida on Election Day intending to vote for Gore than for Bush.Even 15 years after the election, partisans on each side cherry-pick various scenarios that would have favored their candidate.(2)>>Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Last year , sparred with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews over his proposal for judicial retention elections during an interview on “Hardball” Wednesday night, at one point debating the judicial propriety of allowing ballots to be recounted in Florida during the historically close 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.The Texas Republican senator and presidential candidate said he is “reluctant to call for elections,” adding that it “makes him sad” but that he has done so because “a majority of the justices are not honoring their judicial oaths.”“Is that the solution? Elections?” Matthews countered.“Look, if unelected judges are going to seize every major policy issue in this country — you know, there was a time…” Cruz said.Matthews interjected: “They seized the presidency in 2000. You did not complain! The Supreme Court said no to the state of Florida: ‘You can’t recount, even though it’s a close election, you are not allowed to recount. We’re giving this to our guy, 5-4 Republican vote in the Supreme Court.’ If there was ever a case of partisanship or ideology getting out of hand, it was 2000, and you loved it.” (3)>>And it's worse on the Republican side. The GOP establishment ideologues made it clear from the word GO that they were NOT going to allow Donald Trump to become the GOP nominee. They hit the airwaves, internet forums, and press with every conceivable dirty trick to taint Trump as a degenerate madman unworthy of the Oval Office - as if the present occupant embodied the ideal type. The GOP establishment have also made it equally clear that they would pull out every trick in the book to BLOCK Trump even if he should receive the number of required primary votes .(4)>>Democracy Spring .On its website and in press releases, "Democracy Spring" said "hundreds" have been arrested so far, and reports that 3,500 people from 33 different states have pledged to join the protests this week.They are pushing for a series of legislative actions, including the passage of four bills aimed at reducing "the influence of money in politics" while seeking to "expand and protect voting rights." (5)>>voter fraud. It’s easy to write software to make a “selected” candidate win an election. It’s easy to set it so that some given percentage of all votes get counted for the one who they want to win . For all our projections and detailed information for each district, please download  Monopoly Politics 2016 spreadsheet (This version has been updated to reflect the final outcomes of races not decided by 11/6/14, and will be continuously updated to reflect seats that will be open during elections in 2016. The original spreadsheet can be found here). As described more fully below, the spreadsheet allows you to simulate projections if voters nationally favor Republicans or Democrats and to simulate outcomes with all incumbents seeking re-election or if every seat were open. 80 percent of the 2016 votes will be cast on electronic voting machines, and we have no way of verifying their accuracy. And here is video of a computer programmer testifying that he was hired to rig the vote count in an election in Florida. As this man asserts, there are two ways to avoid this type of voter fraud: have a paper trail and access to the source code. Both are denied to the American public.