It is finally official, Roy Moore will NOT be the newly elected Senator from Alabama.

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner: 

After coming up short on Election Day, Judge Roy Moore urged his supporters to keep the faith. Praying for a recount, the Republican reminded his supporters that “God is in control.” But either the Almighty just didn’t hear or the divine decided to vote Democrat in Alabama for the first in more than two decades. 

The Alabama secretary of state’s office just announced that it has received 5,333 overseas and provision ballots well below the number needed to trigger a recount, let alone overcome the 20,715-vote lead of Democrat Doug Jones. It is now numerically impossible for Moore to win. 

Candidates must come within 0.5 percent or less to trigger a recount according to state law, and currently, Jones is ahead of Moore by 1.5 points. 

Hoping that the candidate’s Army service would play well with troops stationed overseas, the Moore campaign pinned its fate to military absentee votes. “A lot of votes are in, but they’re not all in yet,” said campaign chairman Bill Armistead. “There’s a law in Alabama that requires a recount if the vote is one half of 1 percent.” 

That optimism was swiftly dashed Wednesday when the secretary of state announced that just 4,967 provisional ballots had been received and declared that “no additional ballots are eligible to be received.” Those results could be certified as early as the day after Christmas.

You know the funny part is that everybody else had already moved on and Doug Jones was all but sworn in, which left old Roy Moore stomping his feet and cussing into the wind about how unfair it all was essentially almost all by his lonesome.

Of course that did not stop Moore from continuing to fleece the morons.

Roy Moore just sent out this new fundraising email: pic.twitter.com/kqFTc8fVZw

— Lauren Walsh (@LaurenWalshTV) December 18, 2017

Well, what can you say?

He is definitely a Republican.

More evidence that the Russian hack was more invasive than previously reported.

Courtesy of Bloomberg: 

Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. 

In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.

The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by the Intercept, show the scope of alleged hacking that federal investigators are scrutinizing as they look into whether Trump campaign officials may have colluded in the efforts. But they also paint a worrisome picture for future elections: The newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.’s patchwork of voting technologies comes less than a week after former FBI Director James Comey warned Congress that Moscow isn’t done meddling. 

“They’re coming after America,” Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the election. “They will be back.”

Thirty nine states is significantly more than we were told about before.

Which makes me concerned that there is still more to be uncovered about these hacks and how deeply they actually reached into out election system.

Check how deeply they were able to penetrate in to Illinois' voting systems:

Illinois, which was among the states that gave the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security almost full access to investigate its systems, provides a window into the hackers’ successes and failures. 

In early July 2016, a contractor who works two or three days a week at the state board of elections detected unauthorized data leaving the network, according to Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois board of elections. The hackers had gained access to the state’s voter database, which contained information such as names, dates of birth, genders, driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers on 15 million people, half of whom were active voters. As many as 90,000 records were ultimately compromised. 

But even if the entire database had been deleted, it might not have affected the election, according to Menzel. Counties upload records to the state, not the other way around, and no data moves from the database back to the counties, which run the elections. 

The hackers had no way of knowing that when they attacked the state database, Menzel said. The state does, however, process online voter registration applications that are sent to the counties for approval, Menzel said. When voters are added to the county rolls, that information is then sent back to the state and added to the central database. This process, which is common across states, does present an opportunity for attackers to manipulate records at their inception.

This could have allowed the hackers to change the voter registration to be affiliated with another party, or changed their home address so that they were shown to no longer living in their voting district. 

It only takes a few manipulations to invalidate a person's vote, or frustrate them into giving up the attempt. 

The only thing I can take away from such a huge and determined operation is that Putin REALLY did not want Hillary Clinton to win the election, or else he REALLY wanted Trump to emerge victorious, or perhaps a combination of the two.

This is simply not like any other attempts that we have heard of in the past.

Leaked top secret NSA report suggests that the Russian hacking reached deeper into our election than previously believed.

Courtesy of The Intercept:  

Russian Military Intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election, according to a highly classified intelligence report obtained by The Intercept. 

The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure. 

The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the document: 

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.

The NSA analysis does not draw conclusions about whether the interference had any effect on the election’s outcome and concedes that much remains unknown about the extent of the hackers’ accomplishments. However, the report raises the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results.

This essentially supports other reports that the Russians tried to hack several voting sites.

We are continually told that the Russian hacking did not actually change any votes, but with this kind of evidence surfacing I am becoming less convinced of that.

According to Business Insider this has stunned some security experts:  

"This is indeed a big deal," said Bob Deitz, a veteran of the NSA and CIA who worked under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "We are lucky that US presidential elections are so localized that it is difficult to do an effective hack." 

Claire Finkelstein, a professor and national security expert at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said of the document, "Wow, this is huge." 

The leaked report is "evidence for the public now to see yet another example of quite a coherent operation" by the Russians, said Glenn Carle, a CIA veteran and former spy. "And that is significant."

 Just the other day Vladimir Putin once again denied that Russia had anything to do with the hacks, and now we have proof he is lying.

Unfortunately the young woman who provided it was immediately arrested.

Reality Winner, arrested for alleged classified leak, is a former US Air Force linguist who speaks Pashto, Farsi & Dari, her mother tells me pic.twitter.com/SQjt13wRw6

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) June 5, 2017

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

The Department of Justice on Monday filed a criminal complaint against Reality Leigh Winner, a federal contractor from Georgia, on charges of removing classified information and disseminating it to the Intercept, NBC News reports.

According to the complaint, Winner, a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation, held Top Secret security clearance at a U.S. government facility. She allegedly printed classified information and sent it to an online news organization. Per the DOJ, she admitted to the offense while the FBI executed a search warrant at her home. 

Personally I am not at all sure if the public would ever have known this information without this young woman's help and that concerns me.

Without those willing to risk incarceration to leak some of this information we may all have gone our merry ways, without ever really understanding how our election was hijacked by the Russians.

Trumpcare vote cancelled! Republicans simply do not have the votes.

Courtesy of CNN: 

The House will not vote on the Republican health care bill Thursday, a GOP aide said, further putting efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare in jeopardy. 

The decision came after multiple high-level and tense meetings at the White House and Capitol that failed to broker a compromise. 

House Speaker Paul Ryan abruptly postponed, for a second time, a scheduled press briefing, instead staying behind closed doors to negotiate. 

The conservative House Freedom Caucus, whose members appear to hold the key to any agreement on a final bill, met with President Donald Trump earlier Thursday. The session started with a standing ovation for the President, but there was little obvious progress they could point to, a GOP source said. 

One senior administration official described the meeting with one word: "Intense."

Apparently Trump had been on the phones last night and today desperately trying to convince holdouts to vote on the bill, but in the end it was not enough.

You were given many lies with #Obamacare! Go with our plan! Call your Rep & let them know you're behind #AHCA ➡️ https://t.co/xAX4GJiO8z pic.twitter.com/qp90G49e0j

— President Trump (@POTUS) March 23, 2017

Trump has already stripped the bill down to its bare bones in order to get conservatives on board, making it essentially dead on arrival in the Senate.

Get a load of this courtesy of the New York Times:  

President Trump had agreed to many of the demands that the most conservative House Republicans had made, including ending requirements that health insurance plans provide a basic set of benefits like maternity care, emergency services, mental health and wellness visits.

I bet the bill still covers Viagra though. What do you want to bet?

I have no idea if Ryan and Trump will eventually be able to finally whip up the votes needed to pass this thing in the House, but there is no doubt that whatever pernicious piece of legislation passes muster with rabid Right will never make it through the Senate.

This thing is as dead as Trump's hopes of winning a second term.

Here is Nancy Pelosi schooling Donald Trump and Paul Ryan on how to get a bill passed.

Pelosi with 🔥🔥 for GOP decision to insist on vote today.

"Rookie's error, Donald Trump… Clearly you're not ready." pic.twitter.com/zBmTUtruxy

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) March 23, 2017

That my friends is an epic burn!

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.

Forty members of the Electoral College demand an intelligence briefing before casting this vote, while Trump campaign threatens members with a "political reprisal."

Courtesy of The Hill:  

Forty members of the Electoral College on Tuesday signed a letter demanding an intelligence briefing on Russian interference in the election ahead of their Dec. 19 vote. 

Ten electors originally signed the letter when it was published Monday, and 30 more have since added their names. 

The open letter — led by Christine Pelosi, the daughter of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) — urged Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to give a detailed briefing on President-elect Donald Trump's ties to Russia. 

“We further require a briefing on all investigative findings, as these matters directly impact the core factors in our deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to serve as President of the United States,” the letter read. The Clinton campaign applauded the effort Monday, saying it had repeatedly warned about Russian interference aimed at swaying the election in Trump’s favor.

Now there are 538 electors altogether and it only requires 270 electors to give Trump the presidency, however if enough of these electors receive a briefing and then decide that they cannot in good conscience cast their ballot for Donald Trump that could throw a monkey wrench into this whole thing.

And as unlikely as that scenario might feel, there is at least some concern on the part of the Trump campaign.

Courtesy of Salon:

Donald Trump’s campaign is pressuring Republican electors into voting for them under “threats of political reprisal,” according to a member of the Electoral College who spoke to Salon under the condition of anonymity. 

“We have gotten reports from multiple people,” the elector said, “that the Donald Trump campaign is putting pressure on Republican electors to vote for him based on . . . future political outcomes based on whether they vote for Donald Trump or not.” 

The elector emphasized that these reports had come straight from the Republican electors themselves, with the threats steering clear of violence but instead focusing on “career pressure.” 

“It’s all political, basically,” the elector said. “If Trump becomes the president, he’s going to be able to put pressure on the state parties and they won’t be involved anymore.”

Sounds like somebody might be a little worried.

Interestingly enough I happened to catch a little of MTP Daily on MSNBC the other day, and after discussing the fact that the Electoral College was created in order to protect America from a candidate put in place and controlled by another country, Chuck Todd made this statement:

"If we are not going to use the Electoral College we should abolish it."

His point being that if the Electoral College was created to prevent the very thing we are witnessing right now, and it fails to stop it, then what use is it?

And while I rarely agree with Chuck Todd on anything, I thought that was a very valid point to make.

What we gleaned from the voter recount. Michigan's voting system is FUBAR.

This is the first hand account from a man who participated in the recount.

See if you can pick out any nuance to suggest how afraid of this recount the Trump folks were.

Courtesy of Medium: 

On December 7, 2016, I volunteered as an observer with Recount Michigan 2016. I showed up at 9:00am sharp in the heart of Detroit, in heavily democratic Wayne County, Michigan. 

It was a bloodbath. 

I did not count a single vote during my entire first four-hour shift. 

Trump’s legal team was there in force, circling the room like sharks. They were challenging everything, gumming up the works and disqualifying whole precincts. I was only aware of a single Green Party attorney plus one law student in my (large) room. Many challenges had one or more Trump lawyers speaking with election officials, and no legal advocate present for the other side; they were simply outnumbered and outgunned. 

Every recount table had 1–2 Trump observers present, each one holding written scripts to challenge every single precinct, regardless of the facts.

At the end of his post Mr. Sharp wonders if this same scenario played out in other places in Michigan. I think that is a fairly safe assumption.

But if Trump won by the "landslide" that he claims to have won by why would they be so nervous?

Perhaps this is why?

Courtesy of News One:

According to officials, over 80 machines were deemed faulty on November 8 which may have caused electronic vote tallies to be off in over half of the precincts in Detroit as well as one-third of the precincts in Wayne County. The elections director for the city of Detroit, Daniel Baxter, says that the issue could have a problematic impact on a recount. “It’s not good,” he told the Detroit News. “It’s a challenge, but we’re confident the ballots will match. I don’t think it’s going to be 100 percent, but it never is with a recount.” He claims that many of the voting machines were over 10-years-old. 

In Detroit, where African-Americans make up 82 percent of the population, the number of ballots in the precinct poll books didn’t align with the voting machine reports in 59 percent of the city’s precincts. 

Since Clinton received the lion’s share of support from Black voters–88 percent compared to Trump’s 8 percent–questions arise about how he won the state.

So could it be that the Trump campaign KNOWS that there is some hinky shit happening with those voting machines in Michigan, and perhaps even took advantage of that, and are now seriously concerned  that too much scrutiny will bring that to the attention of the public?

Well that would explain all of those expensive lawyers. 

And sadly now thanks to a federal judge we will never know if the Michigan votes were accurately tallied or not.

But I know what I think.

After a month the Republican candidate for North Carolina governor has admitted that he lost the election.

Courtesy of Slate:  

North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory finally admitted defeat on Monday, conceding to his Democratic rival, current state Attorney General Roy Cooper. In a video message, McCrory asserted that he has “continued questions” about possible voter fraud, but that “I personally believe that the majority of our citizens have spoken.” He noted that the election was “the closest North Carolina governor’s race in modern history.” 

McCrory’s concession was not at all inevitable. Although he faced a deficit of more than 4,000 votes the morning after Election Day—a gap that has since grown to more than 10,000—he insisted that he might be the rightful winner. For weeks, McCrory alleged that rampant voter fraud swung the election to Cooper, launching a series of baseless challenges at county election boards in an effort to disqualify as many votes for Cooper as possible. Eventually, the Republican-controlled state election board ordered a recount in Democrat-heavy Durham County. By Monday morning, it was clear that the recount would not close McCrory’s deficit, likely spurring the governor to concede formally.

Just a reminder to all of the conservatives complaining about these recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, that McCrory refused to accept defeat for a month even though it was pretty clear that he lost the day after the election.

And it should also be noted that he made the accusation that there was voter fraud in North Carolina.

Gee maybe somebody should suggest a recount for president there as well.

Just a thought.

(Remember to like us on Facebook.)

Well you have to admit that is weird.

Exit polling has Hillary winning NCAROLINA, WISCONSIN, FLORIDA & PA
This data combined with popular vote?
We demand a recount!#Recount2016 pic.twitter.com/YXQn7lArbF

— Mo-#NotMyPresident (@MeLovesMLE) November 17, 2016

I mean one state sure, but all three states?

(Oops, make that four states. Sorry.)

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.

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!

Citing “compelling evidence of voting anomalies” the Green Party's Jill Stein raises over 3 million dollars for a recount in three states.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Jill Stein, the Green party’s presidential candidate, is prepared to request recounts of the election result in several key battleground states, her campaign said on Wednesday. 

Stein launched an online fundraising page seeking donations toward a multimillion-dollar fund she said was needed to request reviews of the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

Before midnight EST on Wednesday, the drive had already raised more than the $2m necessary to file for a recount in Wisconsin, where the deadline to challenge is on Friday. The campaign had reached $2.5m by 5am EST. 

Stein said she was acting due to “compelling evidence of voting anomalies” and that data analysis had indicated “significant discrepancies in vote totals” that were released by state authorities. 

“These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” she said in a statement. “We deserve elections we can trust.”

(Since this article was written the amount raised hos increased to over 3 million.)

I'm not gonna lie when I first heard about this I was a little suspicious of Stein's motives. 

She has always seemed like a loose cannon to me, and this seemed like it could just be an attempt to keep herself in the news.

But since she WAS one of the presidential candidates she is in a unique position to demand a recount, and clearly her fundraising is on point, so I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and see how this thing plays out.

Now before any of you get too excited I still do not think this will change the outcome of his election in Hillary's favor. She has already conceded and if the Democrats tried to fight this thing I do not think it would work out well for anybody in the end.

However I would certainly like to know what exactly happened in this election, and if we do find those anomalies perhaps we can ensure that our next elections are free of manipulations.

I don't always drunkenly live tweet a political speech, but when I do you can bet it is a Donald Trump crazy ass anti-immigrant speech.

So many flags behind @realDonaldTrump but not enough to hide his bullshit.

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

To be fair I started off being perfectly sober.

Kind of surprised it's not stapled onto his head. https://t.co/e0M8gzv9v5

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

But then things got crazy.

Well so much for @realDonaldTrump outreach to the Hispanic community.

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

I bet the President of Mexico is banging his head against a wall right now going "por que, por que, por que?"

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

So in a nutshell, global warming is NOT dangerous, but Mexicans ARE dangerous. I get that right? @realDonaldTrump

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

Now @realDonaldTrump said once again that Mexico will pay for the wall. Yet he flaked out when he had the chance to tell them that in person

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

On the plus side just look how much new material @realDonaldTrump is giving @HillaryClinton for future campaign ads.

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

I also think that somewhere @KellyannePolls is beating her head against the wall crying "por que, por que, por que?"

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

And then I went a little Gif crazy.

Every reporter who earlier today called Trump "presidential." pic.twitter.com/jq1atmeiOR

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

Every Hispanic in the country responding to this speech. pic.twitter.com/mhCN2NtGUn

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

And then I started to go a little crazy crazy.

If we turned finding actual facts in a speech by @realDonaldTrump into a drinking game everybody could be the designated driver.

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

That's right, you cannot come and stay on a temporary Visa unless you are a hot model. So says @realDonaldTrump

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

So @realDonaldTrump asks "What do you have to lose?" After spending over an hour explaining what we might lose.

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

I guess it's only a REAL murder in America if you are shot by an undocumented immigrant. Other murders are not as bad. @realDonaldTrump

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

And then thankfully it all came to an end.

Finally! He's finished. pic.twitter.com/WGs9WRuu3d

— Gryphen 2009 (@Gryphen2009) September 1, 2016

Afterwards I felt drained and like I should be searching for affordable housing in Canada.

But I pulled my shit together and realized that Donald Trump had just taken the long predicted pivot and shoved it right up the Hispanic community's ass.

And yep, they noticed.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Several major Latino surrogates for Donald Trump are reconsidering their support for him following the Republican nominee’s hardline speech on immigration Wednesday night. 

Jacob Monty, a member of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council, has resigned, and Alfonso Aguilar, the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said in an interview that he is “inclined” to pull his support. 

“I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump when I believed he was going to address the immigration problem realistically and compassionately,” said Monty, a Houston attorney who has aggressively made the Latino case for Trump. “What I heard today was not realistic and not compassionate.” 

He withdrew from the board following Trump’s speech in Phoenix, which was heavy on calls for border security and emphasized that all immigrants in the country illegally were subject to deportation. 

Yeah I think Trump's chances of attracting more than a handful of Hispanic votes is somewhere between slim and no fucking way.

And any argument that he is willing, or even capable of change is now completely off the table.

In other words everything is right back to where everybody with half a brain should have already realized it would end up.

Now I am simply awaiting the sweet sweet political ads the Clinton campaign is throwing together with Trump's own words from last night.

GOP Chairman Reince Priebus speaks a little truth about the future of his party.

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

"So I think that — I do think that we're cooked as a party for quite a while as a party if we don't win in 2016. So I do think that it's going to be hard to dig out of something like that," Priebus told the Examiner. "I don't anticipate that. I think ... history is on our side." 

This is not the first time Priebus has hinted at the troubles facing the GOP on the national stage. In June, Priebus told radio host Laura Ingraham that a third straight presidential loss for the party would result in them relinquishing their spot as a national party.

Okay Liberals do we really need ANY more incentive to get out and vote in 2016? 

I mean if the average age of the Supreme Court Justices was not enough to motivate you, surely the possibility of your vote destroying the Republican party will do that and more.

Hell as for me personally I am hoping that I vote so hard and so aggressively that it drives Priebus to his knees.

In fact I think I will envision driving a stake through the heart of some gigantic demonic beast while I cast my vote.

Because essentially that might be exactly what I am doing.

Runoff for Anchorage mayor now between Ethan Berkowitz and Amy Demboski. Seriously?

Photo courtesy of the Alaska Commons.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:  

With more than 99 percent of the vote counted in the Anchorage municipal election early Wednesday morning, Ethan Berkowitz held a commanding lead with nearly 37 percent of the vote, but was shy of the 45 percent he would need to avoid a runoff. 

Amy Demboski held almost a 3-point lead for the second-place spot and the other runoff position over Andrew Halcro. She had more than 24 percent; he was close to 22 percent. Former two-term Anchorage Assemblyman Dan Coffey, initially the front-runner in the mayor's race, was in fourth place with 14 percent of the vote. 

“Feeling strong -- this is a great night,” Berkowitz said as he walked out of his campaign party downtown to Election Central at the Dena'ina Convention Center. “My campaign team has been terrific. The numbers suggest there will be a runoff. We’ll continue to talk about the goals we have for Anchorage, make sure this continues to be a safe, strong and secure community and make sure we’re ready for the opportunities that come our way.” 

Demboski was also upbeat in a brief interview at Election Central. She described herself as “cautiously optimistic” about the count. 

“No matter what happens, I know that we ran a great campaign,” Demboski said. “We did everything we could with what we had. And the message that’s really resonating is though you may not be the candidate with the most amount of money, if you have a strong message and that message resonates with voters, you absolutely can prevail.” Demboski raised the least amount of campaign money of the four leading candidates.

Okay color me surprised on this one.

I knew there would be a runoff but I really thought it would come down to Berkowitz and Halcro. 

Demboski is a fucking lunatic and might actually be worse for our city than even Dan Sullivan, who is to Anchorage politics what skidmarks are to a clean pair of underwear.

I have little doubt that Berkowitz will win, but I have to admit I find it troubling that Demboski received this much support.

The top nine Senators who miss the most votes are all Republicans. Not especially surprised.

Courtesy of Vocativ: 

Of the lawmakers currently serving in the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is the least likely to show up for work. He’s been in office for four years, and of 1,198 opportunities to vote, he has declined to do so 99 times. That’s an absentee rate of 8.2 percent—four times the Senate average of 2.01 percent. 

Working with GovTrack.us, Vocativ examined the voting records of every sitting congressman to determine who plays hooky the most. When looking into the Senate, we omitted Mark Kirk, who is technically No. 1, because he missed a year of work in 2012 while recovering from a stroke. We also omitted John McCain, who is technically No. 2, because he ran for president on two separate occasions. In the House, we gave Bobby Rush (D-IL) a pass because he took extended leaves of absence for personal and family health reasons. We considered all other members of both chambers eligible.

Gee aren't Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham making noise about wanting to run for President? This should really help. 

It should be noted on the House side of things the Democrats miss votes far more than the Republicans though that might partly be due to the fact that the Republicans can pass any damn thing they want and it really does not matter if the Dems vote or not.

However as it turns out Alaska's sole Congressman Don Young still manages to come in second on missed votes.

Yep, he makes us so proud.

It's time to face the facts.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:  

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan appeared to grab an insurmountable lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Begich early Wednesday, with all of Alaska's precincts reporting. 

With results from all 441 precincts counted, Sullivan led 49 percent to 45 percent. The margin remained essentially the same from the first returns early in the evening. 

Speaking just after midnight at his election night party in a packed ballroom at the Hotel Captain Cook, Sullivan praised his supporters and told them: “We are taking back our country!” 

“We’re still going to be respectful of the process,” Sullivan said. But he nonetheless touted Republicans’ successes in Senate races across the country Tuesday, and to hearty cheers, he proclaimed that the party had sidelined Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate.

Look I am as much of an optimist as you could expect from a liberal living in Alaska, but currently Sullivan leads Begich by  over 8,000 votes with all precincts having reported in.

Even if EVERY SINGLE uncounted absentee ballot had the circle next to Mark's name colored in it would probably still not be enough to give him the victory.

I understand why Mark does not want to concede yet, and I seriously doubt it has anything to do with his faith that he can still pull this off.

He can't. And as much as I hate to say it out loud, it looks like the Koch brothers bought themselves a Senator from the once great state of Alaska.

I am incredibly disappointed in my state right now. And while many of the election outcomes put a smile on my face, this one was for all the marbles, and the voters just did not make the right call in my opinion.

Now I could bitch about the political strategy of making distance between the candidates and President Obama, I really feel if they had embraced the successes of the last six years and bragged about the accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act and saving the economy that might have made a difference, but this is no time to throw stones or trot out "I told you so's."

No this is the time to learn from our mistakes and move forward. 

So that is what I am going to do. But first I want to say that I was proud of having helped elect our first Democratic Senator since Mike Gravel was elected back in 1974. I think Mark did a good job, and the reason he lost had almost nothing to do with him, and everything to do with corporate money and the irrational hatred for our President.

Hold you head up high Senator Begich, ya done good.

Sarah Palin endorsed Iowa Senate candidate blames her numerous missed votes in the state senate on her National Guard duties. Yeah, not so much.

Courtesy of TPM:  

Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst (R) has said she's missed votes because of National Guard duty, but a review by The Cedar Rapids Gazette of Iowa suggests that Ernst's National Guard duties actually haven't kept her from attending that many votes in the Iowa Senate. 

Ernst, according to the Gazette, has repeatedly cited National Guard duty to defend herself against criticism that she's been missing too many votes in the state Senate. But a report by the Gazette on Monday said there's actually "very little overlap between Iowa Senate votes and her National Guard service." 

"I don't know what the actual count is," Ernst said in an interview with WHO-TV. "I know I have missed five days for other campaign reasons, but what they've included in those votes is time I've been serving on orders with Iowa Army National Guard." 

The Gazette, through a Freedom of Information and Iowa open open records request of the Iowa Senate Journal, found that 12 of the 117 votes Ernst missed were on days when she was on active duty. 

So only 12 of the 117 votes she missed were due to her duties with the National Guard?

Then what, pray tell, were the other missed days due to?

When Ernst was pressed on whether she had missed some votes because of campaigning, Ernst said she had. 

"Yes they were," Ernst said of the missed votes because of her Senate campaign. "They were for other scheduled activities, and not knowing what the debate calendar is before they come up, it is hard to schedule if you are out of town." 

"So yes, a few of those votes were due to other activities," Ernst added.

You know missing votes is one thing, but using your military service to cover for them is pretty damn low. 

Of course she realized that the demographic she was attempting to attract would accept her bullshit about military responsibilities, at face value.

Sadly for her the "lamestream" media in her area is less easily manipulated.

Yep, another loser for Sarah Palin's stable of "also rans. "

Today the House voted for the 40th time to either repeal or keep Obamacare from being implemented. So in response the Administration gives you forty reasons why that should piss you off.

Today the House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that would bar the IRS from any role in carrying out the Obamacare law or in collecting taxes to help pay for it. It was the fortieth time Congress has voted to defund, repeal, or sabotage the Affordable Care Act since it was signed into law in 2010.

This was the Administration's response, courtesy of Organizing for Action:

To mark the occasion, here's a quick rundown of 40 ways that Obamacare is already working for millions of Americans and will impact more beginning in 2014. 

1. Say goodbye to lifetime limits: Insurance companies will no longer be able to place an arbitrary cap on coverage. 

2. Children can no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. 

3. Starting in 2014, adults will no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Free preventive care, including: 

4. Annual check-ups 

 5. Contraception 

6. Vaccinations 

7. Gestational diabetes screenings 

8. Mammograms 

9. Screening and counselling for HIV 

10. Cholesterol screenings 

 11. Colonoscopies 

12. Blood pressure screenings 

 13. Cancer screenings 

 14. Osteoporosis screenings 

 15. Young adults can stay on their parents' insurance plans until the age of 26. 

16. If insurance companies aren't spending your premium dollars on your health care—at least 80 percent—they've got to give you some money back. 

17. Insurance companies can't raise your rates by double-digits without justification. 

18. Insurance plans can’t require higher co-payments or co-insurance if you get emergency care from an out-of-network hospital. 

19. Women will no longer be charged more than men just because they're women. 

20. The health insurance marketplace will be ready to go in every state starting October 1 of this year. 

21. No-hassle comparisons: The online marketplace provides easy access to information on all available plans, so you can do a side-by-side comparison and find a plan that works for you. 

22. Many Americans will be eligible for financial assistance to help them buy health insurance on their own, so you can afford a plan that will be there if you get sick. 

23. When you buy insurance through the marketplace, premiums can be determined based only on these four factors: where you live, how old your are, how large your family is, and whether or not you are a smoker. 

 24. In the marketplace, you can choose a plan that matches your budget and needs: Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze. 

25. By 2020, the Medicare prescriptions drug "donut hole" will be closed for good. 

These are the essential benefits that all health plans in the marketplace must cover: 

26. Ambulatory patient services 

27. Emergency services 

28. Hospitalization 

 29. Prenatal care 

30. Neonatal care 

31. Mental health services 

 32. Prescription drugs 

33. Rehabilitative services and devices 

34. Laboratory services like bloodwork 

35. Preventive care 

 36. Wellness services 

37. Chronic disease management 

38. Pediatric services, including oral and vision care 

39. Lower prescription drug costs for people on Medicare. 

40. These states are already foreseeing dramatic drops in premiums: New York, California, Nevada, Connecticut, Oregon. 

There you have it. 40 ways Obamacare is helping and will help Americans—benefits the House of Representatives is about to try to take away for the 40th time.

Oh but don't think that is the ONLY trick up the conservative's sleeve, they are also trying to undermine it by convincing young people not to buy into it,

This courtesy of Salon:

First, some background. The “plan,” such as it is, works like this: Young people tend to be healthier and thus cheaper to insure, so they essentially subsidize the cost of older and sick people. If enough young people don’t sign up, and the pool is mostly older and sick people, costs will skyrocket. A price “death spiral” is health policy experts’ biggest fear with the law, but it’s exactly what the conservative groups want to artificially induce, thus dooming the law. 

To that end, conservatives are trying to rally young people to skip the healthcare exchange and pay the fine for violating the individual mandate to have health insurance. They’re making their case with GIFs, Op-Eds and a campaign to burn Obamacare draft cards (which don’t actually exist, but can be downloaded from FreedomWorks’ website for later incineration). Americans for Prosperity is even considering setting up kiosks at Universal Fighting Championship matches and college football games to tell people not to enroll. 

But, if this gambit is successful, wouldn’t that lead to millions of young people living without health insurance, and older and sick people paying higher health insurance premiums? And since Obama will never repeal his signature law, we’re talking about at least three years of intentionally inflicted misery, all for a shot at repealing Obamacare sometime in the future and replacing it with something that doesn’t even exist yet. What about the human toll?

Pissed off yet? Yeah, me too!

Panel at CPAC explores way to reach out to African Americans. Does not appear audience was on board with that idea.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

The exchange occurred after an audience member from North Carolina, 30-year-old Scott Terry, asked whether Republicans could endorse races remaining separate but equal. After the presenter, K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans, answered by referencing a letter by Frederick Douglass forgiving his former master, the audience member said “For what? For feeding him and housing him?” Several people in the audience cheered and applauded Terry’s outburst. 

After the exchange, Terry muttered under his breath, “why can’t we just have segregation?” noting the Constitution’s protections for freedom of association. 

ThinkProgress spoke with Terry, who sported a Rick Santorum sticker and attended CPAC with a friend who wore a Confederate Flag-emblazoned t-shirt, about his views after the panel. Terry maintained that white people have been “systematically disenfranchised” by federal legislation. 

When asked by ThinkProgress if he’d accept a society where African-Americans were permanently subservient to whites, he said “I’d be fine with that.” He also claimed that African-Americans “should be allowed to vote in Africa,” and that “all the Tea Parties” were concerned with the same racial problems that he was. 

At one point, a woman challenged him on the Republican Party’s roots, to which Terry responded, “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.” 

He claimed to be a direct descendent of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Holy shit! Not only is this dickwad a racist, he is sexist to boot!

There you go folks. THAT is the conservative wing of the Republican party in a nutshell.

Boy do I see a lot of losses in Presidential elections in THEIR future!