Top Republican official admits that they could not have won in Wisconsin without voter ID laws keeping thousands of eligible people from voting.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

Election officials and Democrats in Wisconsin have repeatedly argued that the state’s strict voter ID law allowed Donald Trump to win the state in 2016 by keeping thousands of voters—predominantly in Democratic-leaning areas—from the polls. Now a top Republican official in the state is saying the same thing. 

“We battled to get voter ID on the ballot for the November ’16 election,” Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, who defended the law in court, told conservative radio host Vicki McKenna on April 12. “How many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Sen. [Ron] Johnson was going to win reelection or President Trump was going to win Wisconsin if we didn’t have voter ID to keep Wisconsin’s elections clean and honest and have integrity?” 

The law, which went into effect in 2016, required specific forms of government-issued photo identification to vote. In a cover story last year, Mother Jones reported that the law kept tens of thousands of eligible voters from the polls and likely tipped the state to Trump. A federal court found in 2014 that 9 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin did not possess the identification necessary to vote. In a University of Wisconsin study published in September 2017, 1 in 10 registered voters in Milwaukee County and Madison’s Dane County who did not cast a ballot in 2016 cited the voter ID law as a reason why. That meant that up to 23,000 voters in the two heavily Democratic counties—and as many as 45,000 voters statewide—didn’t vote because of the voter ID law. Trump won the state by 22,000 votes.

Just another reminder that without cheating, unnecessary voter ID laws, gerrymandering, Russian meddling, Republicans cannot actually win.

For me it is not so much the winning, but rather the good that you can do once you win.

I guess that is why I'm a Democrat.

With Paul Ryan announcing his retirement it is smooth sailing for his openly racist former opponent.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Until early Wednesday morning, Paul Nehlen was little more than a racist, anti-Semitic sideshow in Wisconsin politics. Unless you happen to be a white supremacist, chances are you’ve never heard of him. His political résumé consists of one failed 2016 bid to capture the Republican nomination for a congressional race in Wisconsin, and a favorable shoutout from fellow white supremacist Donald Trump on Twitter. 

Paul Nehlen was not to be taken seriously, until suddenly he became the Republican front-runner to defend the congressional seat currently held by the most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives.

Nehlen’s first primary challenge against Ryan was unremarkable. He made a few headlines by endorsing Trump’s campaign early, something Ryan himself was reluctant to do. Sarah Palin publicly supported Nehlen’s insurgent campaign, but it ultimately did no good: Ryan captured his party’s nomination with almost 85 percent of the vote. 

But after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Nehlen — like so many other virulent white supremacists and neo-Nazis — was emboldened. He began openly embracing classic anti-Semitic rhetoric, sharing deeply offensive memes on Twitter and the online white supremacist clearinghouse Gab. Whatever hesitation he had to publicly share his racist views melted away as well. 

His online behavior finally got him banned from Twitter in February, when he attacked actress Meghan Markle for her biracial genealogy. 

He isn’t without his supporters, though. As he alienated more and more normal Americans, he gained notoriety among the drudgery of the internet. During a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year in which a peaceful protester was murdered, Nehlen tweeted messages of support for the rally’s organizers, saying “Incredible moment for white people who’ve had it up to here & aren’t going to take it anymore.” After a white supremacist participant was revealed to be the murderer, Nehlen echoed Donald Trump’s response, blaming bad actors on both sides for the incident. 

Nehlen’s comments earned him favorable coverage by white supremacist media outlets like the podcasts of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and crying Nazi Christopher Cantwell, as well as Breitbart, which tried — unsuccessfully — to scrub their fawning coverage of Nehlen.

White supremacist, early Trump supporter, endorsed by Sarah Palin, oh yeah this guy is DEFINITELY going to do well with that 30 to 40% of hard core Trump voters.

Appears to me this could be an easy pickup for the Dems if they play their cards right.

Wisconsin Scott Walker is running scared from the Blue Wave.

Courtesy of CNN: 

On Tuesday night, it happened again. 

Democrat Patty Schachtner beat Republican Adam Jarchow for a western Wisconsin state Senate seat that had been held by a Republican since 2000 and in a district that President Donald Trump won handily in 2016. 

Schachtner's win marked the first Republican-to-Democrat switch at the state legislative level of 2018 but it is the 34th state legislative seat pickup for Democrats since the start of 2017. That trend is beginning to rightly alarm smart Republicans.

I don't know if you could actually put Scott Walker in the smart category, but he is certainly deep into the alarmed category.

Tonight’s results show we are at risk of a #BlueWave in WI. The Far Left is driven by anger & hatred -- we must counter it with optimism & organization. Let’s share our positive story with voters & win in November.

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) April 4, 2018

Big government special interests flooded Wisconsin with distorted facts & misinformation. Next, they'll target me and work to undo our bold reforms. We need to keep moving #WIForward & make sure a #BlueWave of outside special interest money doesn’t take us backward.

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) April 4, 2018

Damn! You can almost smell the panic.

Walker's policy decisions have been devastating for the people of Wisconsin, and he was so afraid of this voters that he tried to change the law to get out of holding two special elections.

So yes, he has every reason to fear the Blue Wave.

Hey, maybe he IS in the smart category.

Wisconsin Federal judge tells Governor Walker that she doesn't care if his party is going to lose, he still has to hold special elections.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

A judge ruled Thursday that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) must “promptly” hold special elections for two vacant seats in the state legislature — elections that he refused to call because he was afraid his party would lose. 

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds ruled that state law requires Walker, a two-term governor and former presidential candidate, to hold the elections in order to give residents of the two districts representation in the state legislature. The seats have been vacant since December, when Walker appointed the two representatives to serve in his administration. 

“To state the obvious, if the plaintiffs have a right to vote for their representatives, they must have an election to do so,” said Reynolds, who Walker appointed to the court in 2014. 

Walker claimed he didn’t need to fill the seats because the legislative session will be ending soon, and planned to keep the seats open for more than a year. Wisconsin voters named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit called that decision unlawful. 

“We have nobody representing the interests of our Senate district right now and that upsets me,” Jennifer Meyer, one of the named plaintiffs, testified in court. “We’re entitled to representation.”

Damn! I have seen some desperate Republicans lately but absolutely refusing to hold elections because your party will be defeated is pretty fucked up.

Scott Walker reminds me of the kid that suddenly "accidentally" upends the Monopoly board when he realizes he is about to lose.

And really all he has done here is to ensure an insane Democratic turnout and definite defeat for the GOP candidates.

Doesn't anybody in this party understand the concept of "fair play" anymore?

Wisconsin GOP candidate's own parents donate the maximum to his Democratic opponent. Oh, that's gotta sting.

Sure my parents hate me, but hear me out.

Courtesy of  The Hill:

The parents of GOP Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson have maxed out their campaign contributions to the Democrat he’s challenging, CNN reported Monday. 

Each of Nicholson’s parents gave $2,700 to Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-Wis.) campaign in December, the largest amount they can give during the Democratic primary. 

Nicholson’s mother, Donna, has been documented as giving thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates over the years. However, this is the first gift either of his parents have made to Baldwin’s campaign since Nicholson announced his own bid. 

"My parents have a different worldview than I do, and it is not surprising that they would support a candidate like Tammy Baldwin who shares their perspective,” Nicholson said in a statement to CNN.

Yeah, but this is less a case of "They don't share my perspective" and more a case of "They will donate as much money as possible to see that I do not win this election."

I mean this campaign ad almost writes itself:

Kevin Nicholson, a candidate so bad that even his patents are doing everything they can to stop him from winning."

I can see the bumper sticker now.

Alt-Right Paul Ryan challenger kicked off Twitter for being a racist. Show of hands, who didn't see that coming?

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

Twitter has suspended the account of alt-right GOP candidate Paul Nehlen after he was accused of racism for a tweet about Meghan Markle, fiancée of British royal Prince Harry. 

Nehlen, who is seeking to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s November primaries, has not spoken out about the suspension.

In the tweet, he superimposed a picture on Markle’s image of the reconstructed appearance of Cheddar Man, an ancient Briton who experts now believe was dark skinned after conducting DNA tests on his 9,000-year-old remains. 

A Twitter spokesperson told Newsweek on Monday morning that "while we normally do not comment on individual accounts, I can confirm that we have permanently suspended this account for repeated violations of our terms of service." 

In recent months, Twitter has removed accounts that have spread racist or abusive messages as it seeks to make the platform more user friendly.

I know, you're probably thinking "An alt-right Republican is a racist, say it ain't so."

But of course it's so.

And we undoubtedly already realized that after this ringing endorsement.

Oh yeah, if you are ever in doubt as to whether somebody is a racist or not, just find out if Palin supports them.

That puts the whole question to rest.

Steve Bannon and Breitbart pull support from Paul Ryan challenger after his antisemitic and racist opinions come to light.

Paul Nehlen

Courtesy of the SCMP:  

Paul Nehlen, the far-right activist who is challenging House speaker Paul Ryan for his congressional seat, has lost the support of Breitbart News and Steve Bannon.

A source close to Bannon, the former White House chief strategist who is orchestrating a slate of challengers to Republican establishment figures, said Nehlen became persona non grata after he appeared on a white supremacist podcast, Fash the Nation, earlier this month. 

Bannon had never been particularly enthusiastic about Nehlen despite the wealth of coverage on Breitbart, the source said. 

Nehlen is a businessman and so-called “mini-Trump” who was backed by leading right-wing figures including Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter in the 2016 primary for Ryan’s Wisconsin congressional seat. The speaker’s eventual margin of victory was huge – 84 per cent to 16 per cent – despite aggressive pro-Nehlen coverage from Breitbart.

In recent weeks Nehlen has attracted criticism for controversial tweets on immigration and other subjects. On Tuesday, for example, he tweeted that he was reading The Culture of Critique, a book by Kevin MacDonald, which is seen as anti-Semitic. 

On Twitter on Tuesday night, Breitbart senior editor Joel Pollak said: “We don’t support him. Haven’t covered him in months ... He’s gone off the deep end.” 

Arthur Schwartz, a Bannon adviser, told CNN: “Nehlen is dead to us.”

For his part Nehlen is now saying the "globalists" from both sides are working together to undermine his campaign,  because you know in his circle hating on the Jews and being a probable white supremacist is not seen as a deal breaker.

And to be fair it is unlikely that Breitbart would have abandoned him either if they were not currently trying to reinvent themselves and move away from their racist roots.

Just for fun here is Sarah Palin on CNN in 2016 saying she will do "all she can" for Paul Nehlen.

Boy that sure worked out well, didn't it?

Homeland Security informs officials in 21 states that Russians attempted to hack their election systems in 2016.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

Russians attempted to hack elections systems in Wisconsin and 20 other states in the run-up to last year's presidential election, Wisconsin officials said Friday. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security notified states of the attempted breaches on Friday, said Michael Haas, director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The attempt in Wisconsin was unsuccessful, he said. 

According to the Associated Press, Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia and Washington were also among the 21 states targeted. 

Wisconsin's voter registration system was targeted, as were election systems in other states that have a presence on the internet, Haas said. Haas said he did not know which states other than Wisconsin were part of the attempt by what Homeland Security officials told him were “Russian government cyber actors."

I am not at all convinced that these were only "attempts."

I think there had to be some successful hacks, and I would not to at all surprised to learn that there were a number of them.

I also think that ultimately we will learn that there more than 21 states targeted.

As I have said before, we are still at the beginning of all this and it is certain that there is so much, much more we are going to learn. 

Voter ID laws in Wisconsin suppressed as many as 200,000 votes. Trump won by a mere 22,748.

Courtesy of The Nation:

According to federal court records, 300,000 registered voters, 9 percent of the electorate, lacked strict forms of voter ID in Wisconsin. A new study by Priorities USA, shared exclusively with The Nation, shows that strict voter-ID laws, in Wisconsin and other states, led to a significant reduction in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters. Wisconsin’s voter-ID law reduced turnout by 200,000 votes, according to the new analysis. Donald Trump won the state by only 22,748 votes. 

The study compared turnout in states that adopted strict voter-ID laws between 2012 and 2016, like Wisconsin, to states that did not. 

While states with no change to voter identification laws witnessed an average increased turnout of +1.3% from 2012 to 2016, Wisconsin’s turnout (where voter ID laws changed to strict) dropped by -3.3%. If turnout had instead increased by the national no-change average, we estimate that over 200,000 more voters would have voted in Wisconsin in 2016. 

This reduction in turnout particularly hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign. 

The lost voters skewed more African-American and more Democrat. For example, Wisconsin’s 2016 electorate was 6.1% more Republican, and 5.7% less Democrat, than the group of ‘lost voters’. Furthermore, the WI electorate was 3.7% more White and 3.8% less African American than the group of ‘lost voters.’ This analysis suggests that the 200,000 lost voters would have both been more racially diverse and have voted more Democratic. 

Just another reminder that Trump could not have won the 2016 election without significant cheating.

He not only had the help of the Russians and the Comey letter, but he also had voter ID laws suppressing turnout all throughout the country. 

Let's face it the man stole this election, and the sooner we get his orange tinted corpulent ass out of the People's House the better it will be for the country.

Recount update.

Problems in Michigan: 

The final result of the US presidential election is still unclear almost a month after polling day – and the recount in Michigan has now been thrown into chaos because of broken voting machines. 

As officials began a full recount in the swing state, it emerged that faulty machines mean half of all votes cast in the city of Detroit may be ineligible for recount. A third of voting precincts in Wayne County, that largest of Michigan's counties, could also be disqualified. 

The problems were discovered after voting clerks were unable to match the number of votes cast on the machines with the number of people who had been registered at polling stations.

Officials said at least 87 of Detroit’s decade-old voting machines had failed on Election Day, with many jamming when ballot papers were fed in. In 392 of the city’s 662 voting precincts, the number of votes recorded on machines was not the same as the number of voters registerered by polling station staff.

And yet they keep on using this machines.

I tell you, something is going on with this election, and it is not all due to faulty machines.

Lawsuit files in Florida: 

Three central Florida voters are mounting an unlikely bid to overturn the presidential election result in the Sunshine State. 

In a lawsuit filed Monday in Leon Circuit Court, they assert that Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, actually won Florida. The plaintiffs, who live in Osceola and Volusia counties, say the state’s official election results were off because of hacking, malfunctioning voting machines and other problems. 

They're asking for a hand recount of every paper ballot in Florida, at the expense of defendants including Trump, Gov. Rick Scott and the 29 Republican presidential electors from Florida.

The Group "Protect Our Elections" is claiming that there are over a hundred thousand uncounted votes in Florida:   

Protect Our Elections, a liberal-leaning group based in Washington, D.C., says more than 160,000 votes in Florida weren't counted during last month's presidential election. The group claims each of those votes matters a great deal because Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 112,911 votes in the Sunshine State. Trump won by roughly 1.5 percent, a margin high enough to avoid the state's automatic-recount provisions.

Well isn't that interesting?

Wisconsin is about halfway through its recount process with no huge changes in the vote tally thus far.

The lawsuit that Jill Stein filed in Pennsylvania calls the election system there a national disgrace: 

Court documents seeking a recount in Pennsylvania's presidential election paint an unflattering picture of the state's voting system, calling it a "national disgrace" that uses "vulnerable, hackable, antiquated technology," but offer no specific evidence the results of the Nov. 8 election were hacked.

And that is where we are right now.

Election recount update.

Broken seals on voting machines in Wisconsin.

There are a whole lot of moving parts on this recount thing so I thought I would try to include them in one update.

Here goes.

First off yes there are images and video of voting machines in Wisconsin with broken seals. However Snopes currently categorizes these stores as "unproven."

In other news we learned that Jill Stein has changed her strategy in the Pennsylvania recount effort by demanding an emergency federal court order: 

The announcement that it would seek an emergency federal court order on Monday for a recount came hours after it dropped a case in the state courts. 

"Make no mistake — the Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania," recount campaign lawyer Jonathan Abady said in a statement issued around 11:30 p.m. "We are committed to this fight to protect the civil and voting rights of all Americans." 

In the statement, Abady said barriers to a recount in Pennsylvania are pervasive and the state court system is ill-equipped to address the problem.

Along with that news is a report that Trump's margin of victory in Pennsylvania is now within 0.2% of a required recount:

On Friday, in response to President Elect Donald Trump’s application to stop the recounts in Pennsylvania, Green Party candidate and recount catalyst Jill Stein issued a statement where she noted that Trump’s margin of victory is now within 0.2% of an automatic recount. Stein cited this tweet from pollsters Decision Desk HQ for her figures.

Pennsylvania statewide with the Philadelphia tally now complete:
Trump 2,961,875
Clinton 2,915,440

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) December 1, 2016

Because this is coming from Stein I remain a little skeptical, however if true this could really be a game changer.

We have also learned that a federal judge ordered that a recount in Michigan happen right away.

Now ultimately all of this might be much ado about nothing, OR we could actually find evidence that this election was stolen and this could be a very big deal indeed.

Whatever the case it has certainly gotten under Trump's skin.

The Green Party just dropped its recount suit in Pennsylvania and is losing votes in Wisconsin recount. Just a Stein scam to raise money!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016

Yep, it could be a scam.

But then again this recount thing might terrify Trump because there really is something there for it to find.

All I know is that right now I am keeping an open mind. 

We might soon be able to add Florida to the states that will undergo a recount.

Courtesy of the Palmer Report:  

Yesterday a federally registered nonprofit election entity launched a fundraiser to cover the court costs of a lawsuit it intended to file in the name of forcing a statewide recount in the narrowly decided state of Florida. The attorney fees were fully crowdfunded within a matter of hours. And today the attorney in question announced that he has officially filed the lawsuit in question, creating at least some possibility that a Florida recount may happen. 

Florida state law prohibits any candidate from requesting a recount, meaning that third party candidate Jill Stein cannot force a recount in the state even if she pays for the costs, as she’s doing in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. But this lawsuit is aimed at getting a judge to order a Florida recount, whether republican state officials want to do it or not. 

Clint Curtis, the Florida attorney who has been hired to lead the legal charge in court, announced today via his official Facebook page that the election complaint is now indeed underway in the legal arena.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and now Florida.

You know if even one of these flips to Hillary there will be a cacophony of calls for ALL of the seeing states, if not all of the states, to go back and do recounts.

I have had my doubts, but this really could turn into a big deal.

Hard to imagine that it would be a big enough deal to change the outcome of this election, but it could cause our voting system to restructure itself so that ALL states will have paper ballots easily verifiable with a hand recount.

Just a reminder that Hillary Clinton's popular vote count now exceeds Trump's by over 2.5 million.

Courtesy of Time:  

Hillary Clinton’s lead in total votes over President-elect Donald Trump has reached 2,526,184 as ballots continue to be tallied. 

As Clinton’s popular lead surpasses 2.5 million votes, it grows larger than the lead with which 10 presidents have won the general election, the New York Times reports. That means Clinton is up by 1.9 percentage points overall in the popular vote — approaching the lead that polls predicted in the final days before the election, the Times notes. 

The disparity between the general election results and Trump’s electoral college lead of 306 over Clinton’s 232 shows how the electoral college system currently disadvantages Democratic voters because of their concentration in certain cities and regions.

Actually these numbers are already outdated.

According to the Cook Report Clinton now leads Trump by 2,564,276.

And that lead is only going to grow.

In fact in response to those proposed recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania Trump's lead in those targeted states is already diminishing.

You may remember that in Wisconsin the state already threw out over 1,000 Trump ballots even before the recount began.

Well as it turns out the same thing is happening in Pennsylvania:

According to this USA Today article and several other sources, the vote totals in Pennsylvania had Donald Trump winning by 70,638 votes – a number which was often quoted as a reason for why Hillary Clinton would supposedly have no chance of flipping the state in a recount. But earlier today, the respected Decision Desk HQ posted the newly revised totals from Pennsylvania, which have Donald Trump ahead by just 46,938 votes. That means Trump’s lead in the state has now shrunk by 23,700 votes, based on what it says are newly revised numbers out of Philadelphia.

It now appears that the Trump campaign is so worried abotu what they might find in Michigan that they filed a legal petition to stop Jill Stein from demanding a recount there:

The Trump campaign filed a legal petition Thursday to stop Michigan's presidential recount, saying Jill Stein has no chance of winning and no grievance, and there's no way that a hand count can be done before the Electoral College meets on December 19. 

"Despite being a blip on the electoral radar, [Green Party nominee] Stein has now commandeered Michigan's electoral process," said Trump's petition to Michigan's Board of State Canvasser. "Indeed, on the basis of nothing more than speculation, Stein asks that Michigan residents endure an expensive, time-consuming recount, and the scrutiny and hardship that comes with it."

Gee, why so defensive?

Russian hackers, FBI interference, and non-stop partisan attacks, and still Trump loses the popular vote by a huge margin.

No victory lap for you Tangerine Fuhrer.

Wisconsin rejects request for hand count, Jill Stein to sue.

Courtesy of the Journal Sentinel:  

The Wisconsin Elections Commission set a timetable Monday for a recount of the presidential election but rejected a request to require a count by hand made by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who quickly responded that she would sue. 

Also Monday, Stein filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania to force a recount there and her supporters began filing recount requests at the precinct level there. Stein — who received just a tiny piece of the vote —also plans to ask for a recount in Michigan on Wednesday. 

Unless Stein wins her lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court, officials in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties would decide on their own whether to do their recounts by hand. That could mean some counties perform recounts by machine and some by hand.

The Elections Committee Chairman, who happens to be a Democrat, stated that he did not think the recount would change the outcome of the election.

Of course the problem with rejecting a hand count, and allowing some counties to use machines, is that a large portion of Americans will remain unconvinced in the outcome of the Wisconsin election.

Besides considering the fact that Donald Trump himself recently claimed that he only lost the popular vote due to millions and millions of illegal ballots, and claims there may be voter fraud in California, New Hampshire, and Virginia, I don't see how we can trust the results coming out of ANY state until she conduct a hand count of each and every vote cast in this election.

I mean if even the guy who won the election is convinced that there was cheating going on, I do not see how we can move forward with this process until we can get to the truth.

And I am sure that if any reporter can get close enough to Donald Trump to ask him about this, that he would agree.

Right?

Donald Trump has just put to rest any question as to whether he is mentally fit to be president. (He is not.) Update!

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

Now just roll that around in your head for a bit.

Currently Hillary is ahead in the popular vote by over 2.2 million.

Is Trump REALLY suggesting that ALL of those votes were cast illegally?

(Yes he is and here is where he got that idea.)

But hey, its gets even better.

It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4--

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

states instead of the 15 states that I visited. I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten)!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

So you see Donald Trump was not really trying to win the popular vote, but if he HAD been trying to win the popular vote then buy God he WOULD have won the popular vote, which actually he DID win if not for all of those totally illegal votes.

Which begs the question, just exactly what COULD he have done to win that popular vote, which he totally already won?

Rigged the election even harder perhaps?

I'm sorry but this is not a well man.

He is clearly worried about something, and it is causing him to crack even before he takes he oath of office.

So now here's a question. You know just for shits and giggles.

It appears that this recount thing has Donald Trump a little concerned.

Worth noting that in focusing entirely on Stein, Trump is actually taking the high road here pic.twitter.com/Q6sHtUv4t1

— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) November 26, 2016

Donald Trump attacking this as a scam actually lends it an air of respectability that I am not sure it fully enjoyed before.

By the way "if the election is over" as he states, why even respond to this?

Wisconsin agrees to presidential recount, but even before it starts they are dismissing over a thousand votes for Trump. Update!

Courtesy of NPR:

The Wisconsin Elections Commission announced Friday that it would hold a statewide recount of the presidential vote. The move was in response to petitions from two candidates, the Green Party's Jill Stein and independent Rocky Roque De La Fuente. 

Federal law requires that all recounts be finished 35 days after the election, which is Dec. 13. One or both of the candidates will be required to pay for the recount.

Well that is certainly good news, and it is especially important in light of this news:

Same deal in Hortonville. Trump’s number down by 400+ votes, Clinton’s unchanged. Ballots cast now matches votes counted. 3/x pic.twitter.com/65lsNVMn6x

— dan solo (@dansolomon) November 22, 2016

The presidential election of 2016 was the most contentious and bizarre in American history. On top of the vile rhetoric that was spewed by now President-elect Donald Trump, it now appears that certain voting tallies in Wisconsin were hedged in Trump’s favor. A county in Wisconsin named Outagamie County had four precincts in the areas of Cicero, Grand Chute, Bear Creek, and Hortonville which all showed that they had fewer people overall than had voted in the presidential election. This instance, naturally, caused the Internet to fly in a fury claiming, rightly, that voter fraud was taking place. The precincts quickly adjusted their voting totals, which removed over a thousand votes from Donald Trump’s side. What a coincidence, the party which has spent years decrying voter fraud were once again benefiting from voter fraud. 

And THAT is only one county in Wisconsin.

Here is more from The Palmer Report:

At the end of election night the New York Times reported that Donald Trump had won the state of Wisconsin with a total of 1,409,467 votes, giving him a winning margin of 27,257 votes over Hillary Clinton’s total of 1,382,210. These numbers were based on what the individual counties and precincts were reporting that night. But now seventeen days later, based on various Wisconsin precincts revising their own totals, Dave Wasserman of the respected Cook Political Report has updated the totals. Donald Trump now has 1,404,536 total votes in Wisconsin, while Hillary Clinton now has 1,382,011 total votes. 

Two things immediately jump out, as first spotted by music critic Dave Greenwald. The first is that, even ahead of the forthcoming recount in Wisconsin, Donald Trump’s lead has already shrunk to just 22,525 votes. That means 18% of his “lead” has already vanished, based on precincts catching some of their own incorrect numbers, and internet gawkers catching others. But the second thing that jumps out is that the revisions have served to erase thousands of votes from Trump, while affirming that Clinton’s vote total was essentially correct to begin with.

So is it possible that Philadelphia and Michigan also have disparities like this among their election results? Do you really even need to ask?

Which brings me to my Saturday morning rant.

I am sick and tired of people saying some version of "Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate," or "The Democrats simply did not get their message out," or "The Clinton Campaign's arrogance cost them this election."

No, No, and NO!

This election was not lost. This election was stolen.

Even if you dismiss this stuff in Wisconsin as being nothing more than a few aberrations which did not affect the outcome, the evidence that this election was stolen is still overwhelming.

First there is the incredible disparity between the electoral vote and the popular vote which now shows Hillary Clinton ahead by 2.2 million votes.

Add to that the fact that the Republicans launched an investigation designed to implant in the American psyche the idea that Hillary was a criminal of some kind.

Then add Russian hackers who targeted ONLY institutions that might have dirt on Hillary, Wikileaks who then dumped that data for public consumption, a media that gleefully reported that illegally attained information to the public while also exaggerating it to attract consumers, and then finally FBI Director James Comey who gambled with his very future by coming out and alluding to the possibility that Hillary might still be indicted.

So you tell me, which presidential candidate could have withstood all of that and emerged victorious?

Bernie Sanders? Don't make me laugh.

Donald Trump? Not on your life.

Barack Obama? No, probably not even him.

NO candidate in American history has had to weather this kind of shit storm.

And now it turns out that the final vote tally might not be accurate.

The Republicans are counting on Democrats to blame ourselves or each other for this "loss," after all that's the same thing we did back in 2000

"Oh if only AL Gore had not been so stiff, or maybe if he had allowed Bill Clinton to campaign for him, or maybe if he had not used the term 'blind trust' so much."

No we won that election, and we allowed it to be stolen from us.

And the same thing just happened again.

So go ahead and blame the most qualified candidate that we have ever run for office, or blame the DNC for not "allowing" Sanders to win instead, or maybe just blame yourselves. After all that is what we do.

And that is what the Republicans, the Right Wing media, and Vladimir Putin are counting on.

But if we don't start looking at the reality of what went on in this election, we are going to find ourselves right back here again in four, eight, or twelve years.

Update: Well now the Clinton Campaign is officially participating in this recount effort.

Good for them!

Wisconsin Republican lawmakers were "giddy" at prospect of suppressing the Democratic vote.

Courtesy of The Nation:  

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Republican legislative allies were “giddy” at the prospect that a radical rewrite of voting laws would benefit their political prospects. 

So said a former Republican legislative aide who was in the room in 2011, when Republican members of the Wisconsin state Senate were scheming to enact one of the most rigid voter-identification laws in the nation. Recalling that top legislators talked openly about how the new law would impact prospective voters in the heavily Democratic city of Milwaukee, and on college campuses that have leaned Democratic in recent years—and that one legislator told his colleagues: “What I’m concerned about here is winning, and that’s what really matters here.… We better get this done quickly while we have the opportunity”—Todd Allbaugh told a hushed federal courtroom that the Republican legislators were visibly excited about what the voter-ID law could mean for them politically. 

“I’ve characterized it as giddy and that’s part of what bothered me so much,” Allbaugh said Monday, in testimony on the opening day of a trial before US District Judge James Peterson.

The trial is examining issues raised in a lawsuit brought by 10 Wisconsin voters and a pair of activist groups—the One Wisconsin Institute and the Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund—charging that Republican legislators (most of whom were closely allied with Walker) enacted a number of laws that were designed to disenfranchise minorities, students, and other groups of prospective voters that often back Democrats. 

It's so nice when people enjoy their work, don't you think?

And nothing seems to please the Republicans more than taking away the rights of their fellow citizens, whether it be the right to choose, the right to free speech, or the right to vote.

This, this is why we need to turn out in large numbers, much like we did in 2008 and 2012, to vote in this next election.

Because while Democrats argue and fight like little children, the Republicans are throwing up roadblocks to make it ever harder for us to exercise our rights as citizens. 

Showtime's "The Circus" certainly captured the mood of audience members during Sarah Palin's now infamous Wisconsin speech.

Courtesy of The Scoop: 

THE CIRCUS is produced in cooperation with BLOOMBERG POLITICS and features managing editors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann (co-authors of the New York Times best-sellers Game Change and Double Down, and co-hosts of the nightly political show "With All Due Respect" on Bloomberg Television) and noted campaign strategist Mark McKinnon. THE CIRCUS is produced by Left/Right, a part of RED ARROW Entertainment Group, for SHOWTIME. Mark Halperin, John Heilemann, Mark McKinnon, Banks Tarver and Ken Druckerman serve as executive producers.

You gotta love the audience's reaction to Palins' "speechifying."

I wonder if Palin knew that she was talking to Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the two men who wrote the great book "Game Change," that was then turned into an HBO movie starring Julianne Moore.

In fact didn't Moore win an Emmy for her portrayal of Sarah Palin in that movie?

Why yes she did.

In other Palin news of the day, a rapper that I have never heard of went off on Sarah Palin in a rather unnecessarily aggressive manner.

In response Palin tried to take the high road and asked if we could all just work together on something worthwhile, like condoning racism. Wait, what?

As it turns out Palin did not understand what the word "condoning" means (Yeah right!) and now the Facebook post has been corrected.

Hey look what do you expect from a person who went to five different colleges for a degree?

White supremacist group floods Wisconsin with robo-calls on Donald Trump's behalf.

NOW: Did you get this call? Utahns report getting robo-calls from a white supremacist group. Hear it on #2NEWSAM pic.twitter.com/D9z3UrNrRM

— Jeremy Harris (@jeremykharris) March 4, 2016

Courtesy of Injustice.in: 

William Johnson, the leader of a self-proclaimed “white nationalist” group is sponsoring robocalls claiming to flood “every Wisconsin landline” urging voters to support Donald Trump ahead of the State’s Republican primary Tuesday, continuing a disturbing trend of public support and funding from white supremacists/neo-Nazis that began with the Iowa caucuses. 

According to the Journal Sentinel, Johnson spent $6,000 to call every Wisconsin landline with a recorded massage, which begins with an older woman saying that “Trump will be a fine president,” promises that he “will respect all women and help preserve western civilization,” and then concludes by describing Johnson as a “farmer and a white nationalist,” mentioning his American Freedom Party and the American National super PAC.

Well nice to know that despite a dip in the polls there is one group willing to stand firmly with Donald Trump.