White House suggests that reason states are not complying with requests for voter information is due to fear that it will prove Trump won popular vote. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

White House officials told Fox News on Tuesday that states weren’t cooperating with the commission because they are “concerned they will find fraud” which will “raise doubts about Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote.”

Clinton won the popular vote by about 2.9 million votes. 

The idea that partisan politics is motivating the states is belied by the fact that many of the states refusing to cooperate with the commission are run by Republicans.

Okay has Trump's insanity now spread throughout the entire White House?

This is such a bizarre notion that it almost makes me paranoid that the reason behind this entire project was to somehow massage to make it appear that Trump WAS the actual winner of the popular vote.

But that's just crazy, right?

Well crazy or not there is at least on official who has simply had enough.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Amid a wave of states refusing requests for personal voter data and a new legal complaint filed against its leader, the Trump administration’s “election integrity” panel saw its first resignation Monday night: Maryland’s Republican deputy secretary of state Luis E. Borunda. 

Borunda, who did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for an interview, was appointed to the controversial panel on June 21. Unlike in most U.S. states, however, the Secretary of State’s office in Maryland has nothing to do with registering voters or administering elections. That falls to Maryland’s Attorney General and State Board of Elections, which on Tuesday joined the growing list of states refusing to cooperate with the national voter fraud panel’s demand for a long list of personal voter information, including the Social Security numbers, addresses and party affiliation of millions of citizens.

Well this is at least one Republican who recognized that he needed to jump out of the clown car before it careened off a cliff. 

So it appears that this popular vote loss is really getting under Donald Trump's orange tinged skin.

Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016

I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote - but would campaign differently

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016

I have not heard any of the pundits or commentators discussing the fact that I spent FAR LESS MONEY on the win than Hillary on the loss!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016

(By the way as I reported before, Hillary won the popular vote by an amazing 2,864,974.)

Yeah it must be a bummer when even the Russian government, Wikileaks, and the FBI working together cannot steal the popular vote for you.

By the way for the few holdouts who are still clinging to the false belief that Wikileaks was not working with the Russians to help steal this election, remember that they released those Podesta e-mails less than an hour after Trump's "pussy grabbing" tape was released.

I actually do believe in something called a "coincidence" but this one strains incredulity.

Here is the final election vote tally.

Final popular vote tally: Clinton: 65,844,610, Trump: 62,979,636, Johnson 4,488,912, Stein 1,457,038.

— Dave Leip (@uselectionatlas) December 17, 2016

I confirmed these numbers over at the Cook Report. They are only off by a small handful, not enough to make much of a difference.

Using either set of numbers it appears that Hillary Clinton lost this election with a lead of just slightly under 2,865,000 votes.

And I mean JUST under.

As Donald Trump would say, "That is unpresidented."

But what it really means that just a handful less than 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for the Orange stubby fingered Orangutan.

In other words Trump has no mandate, and in fact if there is any mandate at all it is to fight him every step of the way and then make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

Oh and one more thing, since the combined totals for Stein and Johnson are just shy of 6 million votes, more than enough to have kept Trump out of the White House, perhaps these childish amateurs who selfishly vote third party will finally recognize how important it is to participate in the REAL election process.

A lesson by the way that most Americans should have learned way back in 2000.

Clinton campaign publicly supports an effort by the Electoral College to request an intelligence briefing concerning Russia's involvement with the election before casting their ballots.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Hillary Clinton’s top political adviser John Podesta said the campaign is supporting an effort by members of the Electoral College to request an intelligence briefing on foreign intervention in the presidential election. 

“The bipartisan electors' letter raises very grave issues involving our national security,” Podesta said in a statement Monday. “Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed.”

“Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” he said. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia's interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.” 

Podesta's statement is the first public statement from the Clinton campaign raising questions about the legitimacy of Donald Trump's victory.

This is a great idea.

I think that knowing for sure that your election was legitimate is a good idea before you cast your vote for the President of the United States.

But hey, that's just me.

By the way it should also be pointed out that Hillary's popular vote victory is now over 2.8 million. (2,843,860 to be exact.)

Courtesy of the Independent:  

Donald Trump lost the popular vote in last month’s US presidential election by a bigger margin than any other US president in history. 

The Republican is currently trailing Democrat rival Hillary Clinton by 2.8 million votes as the last remaining postal ballots are counted – despite him winning the November 8 election because of the Electoral College system. 

That deficit is more than five times bigger than the 544,000 by which George W. Bush lost to Al Gore in 2000 - the second biggest popular vote deficit in history for a candidate who has still gone on to become President. 

It appears that James Comey, Wikileaks, and Vladimir Putin did not do such a bang up job of stealing this election after all.

"Bad candidate" Hillary Clinton is now less than 400,000 votes from President Obama's 2012 total. And may soon surpass it.

Courtesy of the Independent:  

Hillary Clinton has 2.7 million more votes than Donald Trump, despite losing the presidential election, and the number is expected to rise. 

Ms Clinton is on track to get more votes than president Barack Obama did in 2012. He won 65.9 million, and she is only about 400,000 votes behind him. 

The votes are being tallied by David Wasserman for the Cook Political Report. Votes are still streaming in from states like California, New York and Washington due to late counting of mail-in and absentee ballots.

Dave Wasserman also made this prediction.

It now looks quite possible Clinton will end up w/ more votes than Obama 65.9 million in '12. Now ~400k behind: https://t.co/j58GaxfPmH

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 6, 2016

So answer me this question.

How can you be slammed as being the wrong candidate at the wrong time, and accused of having lost voters that President Obama won, if you come up with almost as many or even more votes than he had?

Currently, according to the Cook Report, Hillary has 65,525,364, which gives her 2,675,035 more votes than Donald Trump, who has 62,850,329.

Which means that while she has almost as many votes as President Obama won in 2012, Trump has 3 million less votes.

And yet HE is the winner, and Hillary is the loser.

Something DEFINITELY needs to change.

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.

Well this is going to drive Donald Trump off the deep end.

@HillaryClinton popular vote win projected to exceed
total of Trump votes in 11 states combined. @TheDemocrats @realDonaldTrump @timkaine pic.twitter.com/c6t1pRHLjJ

— James Q. Jacobs (@jqjacobs) November 27, 2016

Yes I realize that Trump lives off the deep end, but I have a feeling this is going to plunge him even further.

However not quite the distance that he is from winning the popular vote.

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.

Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead has now reached over 2 million. Just a little ammo for you as you head off to face that conservative uncle this Thanksgiving day.

Our real President at a Rhode Island bookstore.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump in the popular vote surpassed 2 million Wednesday morning, according to Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. 

Clinton has garnered 64,223,958 votes, compared to Trump’s 62,206,395 votes. 

By Nov. 15, the Democratic nominee’s advantage had crossed the 1-million mark and ballooned to 1.5 million by Sunday.

This is now the largest discrepancy between the electoral college and the popular vote in American history.

So when that conservative family member starts strutting around the dinner table crowing about how your side lost and their side won, remind them that it is only because of our archaic voting system. And that in hearts of the majority of the American people Hillary Clinton is the actual winner.

Also remind them that Hillary Clinton was unjustifiably investigated and attacked by the Republicans over her private e-mail server in the early days of the campaign, even though the Bush administration also used private servers and destroyed 22 million e-mails that the American people were never allowed to see.

That led to a completely unprecedented FBI "investigation" which ultimately exonerated her. 

Then remind them that the Russian government hacked the White House, the State Department, the DNC, and the Clinton Campaign all in an attempt to get a hold of Hillary's e-mails, most of which she managed to keep out of their clutches by utilizing that private server.

You might also remind them that the Russians then leaked what they DID find to Wikileaks who distributed it for media consumption in an attempt to help Donald Trump win this election.

At that point you should mention that when it looked like that might not be enough, and Clinton was handily leading in the polls, that FBI Director James Comey then broke longstanding protocol to essentially suggest that Hillary Clinton might still be under investigation due to new evidence that might or might not exist. (Of course it did not exist which is something Comey could easily have discovered well before his announcement.)

You may or may not inject into the conversation at that point the fact that there are also a number of top computer experts who are urging the Clinton campaign to call for a recount after finding numerous troubling discrepancies in the vote count.

To sum the whole thing up you might look into that smug face of theirs and declare that maybe Trump won, and maybe he didn't.

But what we know for sure is that he not only lied about his opponent at every opportunity, but that also he benefited from the criminal cyber attacks against our country by a foreign nation and the interference of the FBI, without whom he would NEVER have had a shot at wining.

In other words he would have lost if he had not cheated, and if others had not cheated on his behalf.

Then you reach over and grab that last serving of pumpkin pie, because you just won the argument and you totally deserve it.

Hillary Clinton now leads Donald Trump in the popular vote by almost 1.7 million.

Courtesy of Slate: 

Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote over President-elect Donald Trump keeps growing and currently stands at 1.677 million votes. On Election Day, Clinton received 63,541,056 votes compared to Trump’s 61,864,015 while other candidates received 7,034,595 votes, according to the latest numbers published by the Cook Political Report. So far the numbers show Clinton obtained 48 percent of the popular vote, compared to Trump’s 46.7 percent. 

The numbers mean that Clinton’s lead in the popular vote is, so far at least, much greater than Al Gore’s advantage when he won the most number of votes but still did not become president. In 2000, Gore received 50,996,582 votes compared to 50,456,062 for George W. Bush—an advantage of 540,520 votes.

This of course is unprecedented and it frustrates the crap out of a whole lot of us who think the electoral college is now interfering with our democracy. 

However I really believe that petitions like this one encouraging members of the Electoral College to become "faithless electors" and vote their conscience instead of representing the outcome in their state are a waste of time, and very short sighted.

Remember something that seems like a good idea while partisan passions are high, might come back and bite us in the ass when the shoe is on the other foot.

Should we ultimately do away with the electoral college, as Senator Barbara Boxer is proposing?

Sure I think that it is well past time to do so.

Will it happen?

Nope, not while the Republicans are in charge of the House and the Senate.

But someday, yes I think we need to bring back the concept of one person one vote.

As it stands right now we appear to be the least democratic member of the democratic nations of the world.

And for America that is a very troubling position indeed.

Hillary Clinton now has more than one million more votes than Donald Trump.

Courtesy of The Hill:  

Hillary Clinton has surpassed 1 million in her popular vote margin over President-elect Donald Trump, according to a Tuesday tally from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. 

Trump won the White House via the Electoral College a week ago, while the former secretary of State is now the fifth nominee in American history to win the popular vote but lose the presidency. 

At first I was a little confused by this post because the numbers they used actually did now show Hillary ahead by a million.

However when I clicked this link it proved that she was indeed ahead 62,414,099 to 61,255,290, so yes she is comfortably ahead by well over a million votes.

Of course in our current system it doesn't mean anything. And no, signing petitions and arguing against the electoral system is not going to change that.

However it does provide a least some solace to those of us who voted based on reality, that the majority of American voters are not slack jawed simpletons who actually believed that Donald Trump would make a better president than Hillary Clinton.

Don't get me wrong, it still means that almost half of the Americans who bothered to vote probably can't tie their shoes without referring to the manual, but at least it's a little better.

Cold comfort from Nate Silver.

Clinton will finish with widest popular vote margin among Electoral College losers, excluding years (1824, 1876) where not all states voted.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 13, 2016

Well great, so now we know that America did NOT chooses Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

And yet due to our ridiculous electoral college the tangerine colored internet troll is packing his bags to move into the White House.

Something needs to change.

Hillary Clinton not only won the popular vote, she won the popular vote by a large margin.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

Hillary Clinton didn’t just win the popular vote. She won it by a substantial margin. 

By the time all the ballots are counted, she seems likely to be ahead by more than 2 million votes and more than 1.5 percentage points, according to my Times colleague Nate Cohn. She will have won by a wider percentage margin than not only Al Gore in 2000 but also Richard Nixon in 1968 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.

You notice that when I write about the Trump presidency I will use a lower case "p," whereas I also used the upper case "P" when talking about Obama.

The reason for that is President Obama was indeed our duly elected President, while a president Trump is Putin's choice for president. 

The American people elected their first female President in 2016, others such as the FBI, Wikileaks, and Russia used terrorist techniques and an antiquated electoral system to put the guy headed to the White House into office.

#Notmypresident