Jill Stein refuses to fully cooperate with Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation. Hmm.

Courtesy of The Intercept:

The Jill Stein campaign is refusing to comply fully with a Senate intelligence committee request for documents and other correspondence, made as part of the committee’s probe into Russian activities in the 2016 election, according to a letter to be delivered Thursday to the panel by an attorney for the campaign. 

The Green Party campaign will agree to turn over some documents, but raised constitutional objections to the breadth of the inquiry, which was first made in November 2017, arguing that elements of it infringe on basic political rights enshrined in the First Amendment. 

In the letter responding to committee chair Richard Burr, R-N.C., and ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., Stein’s campaign has now said it will refuse some of the requests, calling them “so overbroad in reach as to demand constitutionally protected materials.”

The article goes on to say that the Stein campaign did provide documents pertaining to communications between them and "Russia media outlets."

However they are balking at providing the campaign's policy discussions regarding Russia, claiming it infringes on their First Amendment rights.

Personally I think that having access to those documents could prove very enlightening, and hope that both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Mueller investigation get their hands on them.

I have not trusted Jill Stein from the word go, and I would not be at all surprised to learn that she was deeply involved in the Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election.

Did you see former Green Party candidate Jill Stein essentially lose her shit on MSNBC yesterday?

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Speaking with MSNBC’s Alex Witt, the two-time nominee at times shouted over the host, after deflecting questions about Russian involvement in her campaign, saying she knew of only one post on her Facebook page out of “trillions” posted on the social media site. 

As Witt attempted to ask the candidate if she was aware of Russian’s helping her campaign, Stein talked over the host, complaining that they should be discussing the “$6 billion dollars” in free advertising the networks gave to then-candidate Donald Trump. 

“No, we were not aware,” Stein exclaimed. “Let me say we were aware of other kinds of interference. For example, we know that $6 billion in free air time was given to Donald Trump by the big networks. Six billion, this was twice as much as Hillary Clinton’s campaign and four times as much as Bernie Sanders’ campaign and way more than the independent candidates.” 

“But it is not Russian interference, and I am proud to say that we had you on our broadcast several times and I had you on in person,” Witt reminded the former candidate. 

“Donald Trump, he was damn good, that was the word — he was damn good for the networks even though he was not good for America.,” Stein pressed on, ignoring Witt. “The point I am making here, Alex, is we don’t want to miss the forest here through the trees. Yes, there was Russia interference but there was compelling interference going on by way of media and the DNC. Did the DNC did not rig the primaries?”

No they didn't.

And that conspiracy theory has already been debunked multiple times. 

You know I could almost understand people supporting Bernie Sanders, I mean he seemed reasonable and intelligent.

But Jill Stein is a fucking lunatic.

Third party candidates, and protest votes, are a waste of time, and I hope after what we saw in 2016 that simple fact is now universally understood.

We are in war here, and standing on the sidelines, or backing a loser candidate to "make a point," is a luxury that we simply do not have.

The Senate Intelligence Committee turns its attention to Jill Stein.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:  

The top congressional committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has set its sights on the Green Party and its nominee, Jill Stein. 

Dennis Trainor Jr., who worked for the Stein campaign from January to August of 2015, says Stein contacted him on Friday saying the Senate Intelligence Committee had requested that the campaign comply with a document search. 

Trainor, who served as the campaign’s communications director and acting manager during that time, told BuzzFeed News that he was informed of the committee’s request because during his time on the campaign, his personal cell phone was “a primary point of contact” for those looking to reach Stein or the campaign. That included producers from RT News, the Russian state-funded media company that booked Stein for several appearances, Trainor said. 

When asked Monday what the committee was looking for from the Stein campaign, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the committee’s chairman, responded, "collusion with the Russians." Burr said that the committee is "just starting" its work investigating two campaigns, but did not elaborate. 

Stein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

I have long believed that Stein was a Russian asset and now I am very interested in what an investigation of her connections to the Kremlin will reveal. 

I'm going to need a whole new batch of popcorn for this one.

Jill Stein is starting to sound more and more like Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Vanity Fair:

Amid the ever-expanding investigations into the Russian government’s interference in the presidential election, some Democrats have called for Stein to appear before Congress to testify under oath about her Kremlin ties. “We’re certainly interested in any efforts the Russians made to influence our election,” Adam Schiff, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Politico. “There have been public reports, I think, that Jill Stein was also in Russia attending the RT function, so we’re going to need to look at any efforts the Russians made through whatever means to influence our elections.” 

But for her part, Stein has no qualms about the role she played in last year’s election. In fact, she has begun to rely on certain defenses similar to those invoked by the man she is accused of helping elect. When asked about Russia during an interview with Politico, Stein was quick to dismiss speculation and leaned on many of the same arguments as the Trump team has in recent months. After rebuking claims that she espoused the merits of Putin as “fake news”, the erstwhile presidential hopeful said, “Putin is an authoritarian and has a very troubled, disturbing record.” On the other hand, she also noted, “It’s important to look at where Putin comes from. . . . It was Larry Summers and the guys from Harvard who basically privatized the public domain [in post-Soviet Russia] and created the oligarchs.” Stein also expressed skepticism toward the United States intelligence community’s conclusion that the Kremlin meddled in the 2016 election. “Most people are saying, ‘Oh it’s the Russians,’ but there is not a lot of evidence,” she said. 

And in terms of whether she blames herself for Trump’s victory, Stein argues that neither candidate was a good choice. “There are differences between Clinton and Trump, no doubt, but they’re not different enough to save your life, to save your job, to save the planet,” she says. “We deserve more than two lethal choices.” 

I have long suspected that Stein was more involved in this Russian interference thing than she has let on.

So it is not at all surprising to hear her continue to spout the Russian troll talking points.

I would not be at all shocked to learn that she has been on Putin's payroll since the beginning. 

Nope, not a bit.

Jill Stein a Russian puppet? Yeah, probably.

Courtesy of Bustle:

Stein argued that South Korea and the U.S. were guilty of provoking North Korea, not the other way around. But she didn't acknowledge that, unlike North Korea, South Korea hasn't developed its own nuclear weapons, withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or conducted intercontinental ballistics missile tests that violate United Nations resolutions.

Stein's claim that U.S. sanctions against Russia actually benefit the Russian government also raised eyebrows. She asserted that sanctions "play right into Russia's hand" — but all reporting suggests that the last round of sanctions have taken a serious toll on Russia's economy, specifically on state-run businesses.

The sanctions "play right into Russia's hand?"

Has anybody told Vladimir Putin that, because he seems really pissed off by them.

I have believed that Stein was up to some shady shit since way before the election, and all this does is confirm to me that she was, and still is, a tool of the Kremlin.

Lest we forget, that is Jill Stein sitting only two seat away from Vladimir Putin during that famous dinner in Moscow celebrating Russia Today's 10th anniversary.

Jill Stein is now among the folks the Senate Judiciary Committee wants to talk to concerning the Russia probe. Let the speculation begin.

REMINDER a picture of treason in action, Jill Stein seated with Mike Flynn and Vlad Putin....Stein is now a part of russiagate investigation pic.twitter.com/2MPeCMLy6b

— mark john junor (@markjunor3) July 20, 2017

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

There are 41 names included in the document requests sent to Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, and Paul Manafort’s lawyer, Reginald Brown, by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The requests include communications involving many individuals known to be ensnared in the Russia investigation, from President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

But while this roster of characters would have made for a fine John Le Carré novel, one name included therein immediately attracted online speculation: that of former Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein.

What, exactly, Stein has to do with Trump Jr.’s meeting last summer with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya is unclear, as the Senate Judiciary Committee provided no context for its demands, which are to be honored by August 2. A request for an explanation to Stein’s former campaign manager remains unanswered at this time. And though she is active on Twitter, Stein has made no acknowledgement on that social media network of her name’s appearance in the Trump Jr. inquest.

I know what you're all thinking. I'm thinking it as well.

Still we should not jump to the conclusion that Jill Stein is a secret agent for the Kremlin who was sent to help Doanld Trump steal the election away from Hillary Clinton.

Not until that gets proven of course.

Unlike the Dems, I didn't sabotage Bernie Sanders in the primaries, then try to cover my tracks with ludicrous Russia conspiracy theories.

— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) July 21, 2017

Yep, that shouldn't take too much longer. 

Green party candidate Jill Stein has no regrets about potentially helping Donald Trump win the presidency, calls claims that her campaign was co-opted by Russians "pathetic excuses" by the Democrats.

Courtesy of Politico: 

So does Stein, with the benefit of hindsight, have any regrets? “I don’t think so,” she tells me by phone from her home in Lexington, Massachusetts. Decrying “fake news,” citing the “sabotage of Bernie Sanders” and talking up the “tremendous” campaign she could have run with more money, Stein is projecting a Trump-worthy level of defiance. “I consider it a great honor that the party and our prior campaign for president is suddenly being attacked outside of an election season,” she says. 

Those attacks aren’t merely sour grapes from a party still reeling from its stunning defeat in November. Some Democrats would like to see Stein hauled in front of Congress to explain mysteries like what, exactly, she was doing at a 2015 Moscow gala thrown by a Russian state-owned broadcaster—the same RT event that got Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in such trouble. 

“We're certainly interested in any efforts the Russians made to influence our election,” says California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia’s alleged meddling in the election. “There have been public reports, I think, that Jill Stein was also in Russia attending the RT function, so we’re going to need to look at any efforts the Russians made through whatever means to influence our elections." 

Stein didn’t just attend the gala—dressed in a shimmering silver shawl, she sat at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has barely disguised his glee at the political chaos that what he calls “patriotic” Russian hackers have unleashed in the United States. And she recorded a video from Moscow’s famous Red Square, in which she talked about “the need to rein in American exceptionalism” and replace “a U.S. policy based on domination”—words that sounded like they were ripped from Putin’s talking points. 

Stein isn’t sorry about any of it. She says she’d welcome the opportunity to testify before Congress and dismisses the idea that she was a spoiler or that her campaign was co-opted as a tool of Russian influence as Democrats’ “pathetic excuses” for losing the election.

Well she seems nice.

And don;t think that Stein is some outlier among Green Party folks either, get a load of what the Green Party's Michigan Chairwoman had to say: 

“In some ways, Trump is one of the best things to happen to this country because look at how many people are getting off their posteriors,” says Sherry Wells, the Green Party’s Michigan chairwoman. “So part of me is giggling.” 

Americans, she reasons, would be hypocritical for crying foul over foreign meddling in their political system. “I am so comforted to hear that the United States never interfered in the election of other countries,” cracks Wells, who volunteers that she is fluent in Esperanto.

I personally have never been a fan of third party candidates, and I was quick to dismiss Jill Stein during the 2016 election. 

But now I'm beginning to wonder if there is not something a little more subversive going on here.

Bill Maher has a message for liberal purists, "Go f**k yourself!"

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

“That begins learning the difference between an imperfect friend and a deadly enemy,” Maher said. He went on to quote Jill Stein, who famously said both candidates were like being murdered just in different ways. “Well, I’m sure with Trump in charge and a racist attorney general there will be a lot more of both.” 

Before the election, Edward Snowden tweeted “2016: The difference between Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs.” Maher noted that Trump has actually hired Goldman Sachs executives and former staffers to work for him. “The only people he hasn’t hired from Goldman Sachs is Goldman and Sachs.” 

He then cited Cornell West who called Trump a neofascist and Clinton a ‘neoliberal disaster.’ “I don’t even know what a neoliberal disaster even means but whatever it is, isn’t it better than a fascist one? Have you people lost your f*cking minds? 

“If Hillary was president now, would we be turning the clock back on the one issue on which there is no more time: climate change?” Maher asked. “Would we have to wonder if our president’s fascination with dictators is foreshadowing a coup here? Would we ever have to wonder if she was Putin’s b*tch? And instead of trying to kick millions off health care to pay tax cuts for herself, she would be trying to raise her own taxes to get more people covered. She wouldn’t be complaining, ‘It’s complicated! Who knew?’ She knew.”

At the end of his rant Maher suggests that the liberal purists who refused to recognize the clear and obvious differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton should go fuck themselves with "a locally grown organic cucumber."

That's a little crude for my tastes, but I certainly agree with the sentiment.

Our country would be in such better shape if these idiots had not allowed themselves to be manipulated by the Russians into believing that Hillary was winning because she was "the anointed one," and had put on their big boy pants and cast their vote for the good of the nation instead of pouting like children because they did not get their way.

Rachel Maddow points out Jill Stein's odd silence on the Russia/Trump connection.

.@maddow spots something fishy going on between Jill Stein and Vladimir Putin. pic.twitter.com/Cah10YWx8p

— DESUS & MERO (@desusandmero) February 15, 2017

Courtesy of Deadstate: 

During an appearance on VICELAND’s Desus & Mero, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pointed to a certain political figure who’s been largely silent during the Trump-Russia debacle. 

Maddow started out her comments by referring to the now-infamous picture of Trump’s ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn sitting at a table with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Also in the picture sitting in the foreground is 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein. 

“So everybody’s like, ‘Wow, how come this like super, super aggressive opposition that we saw from these third-party candidates — how come they haven’t said anything since this scandal has broken?'” Maddow said. 

“I don’t know, Jill! I can’t pronounce it in Russian!” Maddow said sarcastically. “Hope you’re really psyched about you Wisconsin vote totals!”

Well, she has a point.

And don't forget the findings of the intelligence agencies were that the Russians did not simply help Trump with their hacks, but also undermined Hillary during the primaries in an attempt to peel off support. 

Which clearly they did.

Makes a lot of sense.

Last spring during primaries social media was so consumed w anti-HRC vitriol from the left it was difficult to speak out in support. 1/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

Most HRC supporters just kept quiet, as hateful rhetoric rose to near hysteria by Bernie supporters. Two main reasons for silence. 2/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

a) It was obvious that publicly and strongly supporting HRC would result in immediate attack on social media. Because corrupt, obv. 3/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

b) HRC supporters knew that to engage with the furious Bernie supporters risked alienating badly needed support during the general. 4/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

Consequently, very strong HRC support was muted, and anti-Clinton clamour rose to near hysteria. “She’s going to be INDICTED!” 5/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

The Steele memo suggests that much of this rhetoric was deliberately driven by Russians acting in concert w Trump campaign. 6/ pic.twitter.com/FOPRIbt3CP

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

Further, to an unknown extent, Steele memo suggests that Jill Stein was pulled into Putin’s orbit as part of anti-Clinton pro-Trump plan. 7/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

Steele memo outlining Putin paid to bring Stein, Carter Page, and Flynn to Moscow; photo of Stein, Flynn, Putin at RT dinner. 8/ pic.twitter.com/xtjAnAI4Tc

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

Interesting, in light of Trump pro-Sanders strategy, that Bernie has been absolutely silent on Russian hacks and election interference. 9/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

What’s especially interesting about Sanders’ silence on the Russian hacks is the CV of his chief strategist, Tad Devine. 10/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

Sanders’ chief strategist Devine worked on TWO election campaigns for Putin’s man in Ukraine, Yanukovich.

And so did Paul Manafort. 11/ pic.twitter.com/NQmDUlm0nm

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

The whole world watched as Hillary Clinton was dragged through the mud in & humiliated in the most abusive campaign in US history. 12/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

13/ https://t.co/dpklmApjtV

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

And it all worked like a charm. HRC’s approval ratings, which averaged around 60% during/after SoS tenure, suddenly plummeted to 37%. 14/ pic.twitter.com/3wTBvrexum

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

Media danced to the tune like puppets. "Emails Emails Emails!"

Comey/Wikileaks, reinforced message that HRC emails = untrustworthy. 15/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

If Steele memo is to be believed, a great deal of pro-Sanders & Stein/anti-HRC hysteria was a Russian propaganda op. 16/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

It was EXTREMELY effective in silencing HRC supporters early & building the CrookedHillary theme that finally took her out. In 3 states. 17/

— Sandy Garossino (@Garossino) January 14, 2017

I actually was going to write something very much like this, until I stumbled upon these tweets.

And don't think Garossino and I are alone in this either.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

Perhaps the starkest case in point is Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her constituency. In December 2015, the Kremlin feted Stein by inviting her to the gala celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Kremlin-funded propaganda network RT. Over a year later, it remains unclear who paid for Stein’s trip to Moscow and her accommodations there. Her campaign ignored multiple questions on this score. We do know, however, that Stein sat at the same table as both Putin and Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, Trump’s soon-to-be national security adviser. She further spoke at an RT-sponsored panel, using her presence to criticize the U.S.’s “disastrous militarism.” Afterward, straddling Moscow’s Red Square, Stein described the panel as “inspiring,” going on to claim that Putin, whom she painted as a political novice, told her he “agree[d]” with her “on many issues.” 

Stein presents herself as a champion of the underclass and the environment, and an opponent of the surveillance state and corporate media, and yet she seemed to take pleasure in her marriage of true minds with a kleptocratic intelligence officer who levels forests and arrests or kills critical journalists and invades foreign countries. Their true commonality, of course, is that both Putin and Stein are dogged opponents of U.S. foreign policy.

To sum up, though we are correct in giving a large amount of the blame for Trump's "victory" to the ease in which the Russians were able to manipulate the Right Wing, we also have to recognize that there are those on our side of the ideological fence who are just as easily manipulated.

Putin's victory was in recognizing that the fringe in both parties are searching for validation, and that once given can be a ring by which to lead them around by their proverbial noses.

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. 

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?

Trump team now coming out pretty aggressively against this recount effort.

 

"But this is the president-elect’s position right now and I would say he has been incredibly gracious and magnanimous to Secretary Clinton at a time when, for whatever reason, her folks are saying they will join in a recount to try to somehow undo the 70 plus electoral votes that he beat her by. I mean this — you know, I was asked on CNN and elsewhere, goodness a thousand times, will Donald Trump accept the election results? And now you’ve got the Democrats and Jill Stein saying they do not accept the election results? She congratulated him and conceded to him on election night. I was right there. And the idea that we are going to drag this out now where the president-elect has been incredibly magnanimous to the Clintons and to the Obamas is incredible."

 The above was from this morning, but Conway was also talking about it yesterday: 

“What a pack of sore losers,” she said in a statement on Saturday. “After asking Mr. Trump and his team a million times on the trail, ‘Will HE accept the election results?’ it turns out Team Hillary and their new BFF Jill Stein can’t accept reality.” 

“Rather than adhere to the tradition of graciously conceding and wishing the winner well, they’ve opted to waste millions of dollars and dismiss the democratic process. The people have spoken. Time to listen up. #YesYourPresident,” Conway said.

And then both she and Reince Priebus talked on NBC and Fox News about the recount:

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Conway said the recount effort was “confounding and disappointing.” And Reince Priebus, the incoming White House chief of staff, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the planned recount would serve “only to divide this country when we need to come together.”

No, actually this recount can serve to bring the country together by proving beyond any doubt that Trump legitimately won this election, (You know aside from all of that Russian hacking, unnecessary GOP investigations, and FBI putting their thumb on the scale of course.)

The only way it would further divide the country would be if.....Oh, so perhaps there is something to find here?

By the way do I even need to remind everybody that Trump once said this: 

"I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States, that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election - if I win," he said. 

He added he would accept "a clear election result," but reserved the right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result.

And that was BEFORE the election even took place.

Yet now that he has "won," he would fault the Hillary campaign, or anybody else, for wanting to request a recount?

I guess it really doesn't matter that my irony meter has been broken for over a year now, because this would probably just break in anyhow.

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?

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.

So who exactly is ready for that 3 AM phone call?

Green Party candidate Jill Stein says that Hillary Clinton is worse than Donald Trump and that Bernie Sanders has been in Washington too long. Well she seems nice.

Courtesy of Politico: 

As much as Stein despises Trump — and she really, really does — she describes the choice between him and Hillary Clinton as an abominable binary offering “death by gunshot or death by strangulation.” 

But her contempt has a more cutting quality when she talks about Clinton. She mocks Trump as braying menace; Stein thinks he’s, at heart, a bumbler who would be neutered by his own party after being elected. But it’s Clinton who poses the greater threat, in Stein’s estimation, because she knows how to move the levers of Washington. 

“Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress,” Stein explains. “Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won’t. … Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars faster, to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his.”

Gee I wonder why people claim that Stein has a screw loose?

Oh, because she does.

Don't believe me? The check out what she says about Bernie:

“I’ve tried to talk with Bernie, but, you know, Bernie is — he is a team player,” she said, lamenting his refusal to even chat with her. “I think he’s on the wrong team, perhaps because he’s been in Washington, D.C., too long, because he used to really understand independent politics and why we cannot have a viable political system unless we have independent political parties. … Maybe it’s a generational thing.” 

So not only has he been corrupted by Washington, but he is also too old.

Is there anybody this lunatic didn't just take a giant shit on?

And that my friends is the end of that campaign.

Third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will NOT be at the debates.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein failed to make the cut for the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday afternoon, in a significant blow for their campaigns. 

Though Johnson and Stein satisfied two of the criteria necessary to participate – that they be constitutionally eligible and have achieved ballot access in a sufficient number of states to win a theoretical Electoral College majority – neither met the threshold on polling.

This is a very good thing for Hillary as it allows her to focus all of her attention on her one true opponent, and bad news for Trump who has never debated one on one and likes to use others on the stage for distraction.

And let's face in this election Stein and Johnson are really nothing more than a dangerous distraction which can undermine the seriousness of this contest.

This first debate is incredibly important, and could really define this race in many ways.

My prediction is that Trump will do badly, but that the bar will be set so low for him that if he does not vomit on himself or fall off the stage some media outlets will suggest that he held his own.

On the other hand Hillary will have to answer each question, and follow up question, in complete sentences while standing on one foot and juggling chainsaws just to meet expectations.

The positive thing for her is that she can probably do that.

Green Party supporters mill around in confusion after Jill Stein mistakenly flies to the wrong city.

Empty podium at Capital U as Green Party's Jill Stein mistakenly flies to Cincy rather than Columbus. pic.twitter.com/JABpIRTquZ

— Randy Ludlow (@RandyLudlow) September 2, 2016

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Columbus Dispatch reporter Randy Ludlow has posted a photo on Twitter that shows Green Party supporters standing around an empty podium at Capital University after Green Party nominee Jill Stein accidentally boarded a flight to Cincinnati instead of to Columbus.

In his official report on Stein’s mistaken flight, Ludlow writes that “about 100 people are waiting at Schaaf Lawn on campus” for Stein, although he notes that “it’s unclear if they will all hang around while Stein drives up from Cincinnati.” 

There’s good news, however, as he says that “pizzas are being ordered to thank people for their patience.”

Oh well if there's pizza coming. After all I think most of these third party supporters really only show up for the free food anyway.

Rule number one in politics, get on the right flight.