Last go around (2016) three states from the so-called "blue wall" (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) voted for Trump over Clinton by these differences:
Michigan: 10,704 more votes for Trump
Pennsylvania: 44,292 more votes for Trump
Wisconsin: 22,748 more votes for Trump
That's a combined tally of 77,744.
So what do we have here?
So far Biden has won more votes in Pennsylvania, a must-get "pivot point" state, than Trump won in those three states combined.
This message is not for Trump voters. This message is for all those -- but especially those on the left -- who didn't want Trump, but couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary in the general election. You didn't want her to be president and she isn't.
Congratulations! You did it!
You refused to vote for Clinton but were depending on others to do your 'dirty work' for you so that you could stay 'pure' (admit it, you thought she would win).
So we now learn that the CIA confirmed that Russia wasn't just trying to undermine confidence in the election, they were actively trying to get Trump elected. Most people with half a brain could see this already, but of course, this confirmation didn't come out before the damn election.
According to the article, they secretly briefed a bipartisan group of Congressional leaders in September, but "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voiced doubts about the veracity of the intelligence, according to officials present." Well no shit he would! And now his wife has been chosen by Trump to be the next Secretary of Transportation. The motherfucker decided to put party before country. What a surprise! And, because President Obama refused to release this information without bipartisan support, it's only coming out now. (Sorry, Obama. You should have brought on the drama with this one.)
There was also that report by David Corn in Mother Jones on October 31st:
Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him." It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on "bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls."
The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was "shock and horror."
This was published just a couple of days after Comey's letter apprising Congress of new emails "that appear to be pertinent" to the investigation of Hillary Clinton. A letter which broke with all tradition, and the law, regarding the FBI interfering with elections. And, we know now, that while Comey had no problem slinging mud Clinton's way, the FBI and CIA were investigating Trump on far more serious matters -- like being a goddamn Manchurian Candidate!
So fuck this whole 'It's all Hillary's fault for fucking up with white working class males' meme. She had the Russians and our FBI actively fighting against her...and she knew it. And she still got 2.8 million more votes than Trump...and counting.
Fuck Мистер Trump. Fuck Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republicans. Fuck Putin and the KGB. Fuck Comey and the FBI. And fuck the certain set of so called progressives who said it didn't matter if it was the Russians who were behind the hacked emails, it was more important that some things in those emails could hurt Bernie's feelings, and then cried 'red baiting.'
You can read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "A guide to decide: Twelve tests to choose between Clinton and Trump" embarrassing non-endorsement here, or you can save some time and just watch this dumpster fire:
According to the editorial in today's paper, the "test" is meant to be "a useful exercise for the citizen’s own decision-making" lovingly curated by...we assume the Block Family (owners of the P-G).
If you're not familiar with the Blocks, here's John Block on Trump's private plane:
His brother Allan was notably heard in a NYC restaurant loudly voicing his support for Trump, and who "according to FEC filings, donated tens of thousands to Republican political candidates across the country since the late nineties."
There were even reports earlier this year that some P-G journalists were "worried about their paper’s credibility should it support the billionaire candidate who’s campaigned on a platform that includes deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, building a wall between the United States and Mexico and banning Muslims from entering the country." (Sorry! Mission accomplished!)
So far, the P-G's endorsements have been running a bit heavy on the R side, especially for what was once considered a liberal paper:
Post-Gazette 2016 General Election Endorsements
REPUBLICANS
Pat Toomey, U.S. Senate
John Rafferty Jr., Pennsylvania Attorney General
Guy Reschenthaler, State Senate
Mike Turzai, State Representative
John Maher, State Representative
Jason Ortitay, State Representative
DEMOCRATS
Mike Doyle, U.S. Representative
Erin McClelland, U.S. Representative
Eugene DePasquale, Auditor General
Joe Torsella, Pennsylvania Treasurer
Mike Turzai? Doesn't this forever disqualify him from public office?
But, I digress. Back to the "test."
I assume the editorial board was, oh let's say, grabbed by their metaphorical pussies by the Blocks and had to come up with...something. What they came up with is mostly nonsense and false equivalence that ignores the worst that is Donald Trump. The absolute nadir of the editorial comes in the "Character" portion of the "Leadership Traits."
While acknowledging that Trump is "a vulgarian who never seems to study, to apologize or to learn" and a "sexist and a cad," they feel the need to throw in a bash at Bill Clinton, who is not the one running for office. Moreover, Trump is not just a "cad" (how purposely quaint!), he is according to his own words, a serial sexual predator. And a misogynist, and a racist, and a bigot, and a xenophobe, and a proponent of torturing innocent Muslims. He's a terrible businessman who doesn't pay his vendors, who declared bankruptcy six times, who wrote-off nearly a billion dollars in debt, who refuses to release his taxes because he hasn't paid any federal taxes in decades. He's a man who has a fraud trial starting later this month over his fake "university" and who has hundreds of lawsuits pending against him. He's a man who declared a war hero not a hero because he was captured and who tormented a Gold Star mother. He's a man with questionable ties to Russia's President Vladimir Putin and who doesn't understand why we have nukes if we don't use them.
He is a man who so thin-skinned, he can be provoked by a tweet. Reliably. Repeatedly.
He is a man who has called for his political opponent to be jailed and has alluded to her assassination.
And dozens and dozens of other horrors too many to list -- or even recall at this point.
All this, the P-G ignores.
But it gets worse. Here's what they say about Hillary Clinton's character:
Ms. Clinton would begin her presidential term under criminal investigation. Impeachment is a very real possibility from Day 1. How would she function? Like Richard Nixon, who won in a landslide in 1972, she might not serve out her term. But her dishonesty is more than legal — it is deeply embedded in her every word and gesture. The WikiLeaks provide us many smoking guns, not least of which is this: Nothing about her is genuine.
Christ Almighty!
She is not under criminal investigation.
Impeachment may be "a very real possibility from Day 1" only because the Republican Party, along with their standard-bearer, is determined to turn us into a banana republic.
And her dishonesty? Her dishonesty?!?PolitiFact, the nonpartisan fact-checking outlet, has found that '78 percent of all of Trump's fact-checked claims have been scored "mostly false" or worse.' They also awarded their "2015 Lie of the Year" to the collective campaign misstatements of Donald Trump!
Lastly, the Post-Gazette is on the wrong side of history. 456 newspapers and magazines have endorsed Hillary Clinton. 22 have endorsed Donald Trump (including the KKK’s official newspaper).
Post-Gazette Editorial Board -- you all cisgender, all-but-one white men -- you had a choice to make and you chose instead to make no choice. You chose to cover yourself in shame. You chose to write a dumpster fire of an editorial.
In all the Sturm und Drang around Hillary Clinton's email, can we please keep in mind two things:
1) Once it became known that Clinton's emails were to be made public, a virtual classification blizzard occurred as not only State, but other departments, retroactively started classifying emails. This is somewhat understandable as no one wants things originally said in private to be made public (whether a government, a company, or a private citizen). This is also a main complaint that people and organizations have when they make a FOIA request: Suddenly, everything gets marked as Classified.
2) None of the real Classified stuff was ever supposed to be sent over unclassified State Department e-mail addresses in the first place by anyone! There is a whole other system in place for top secret information or, really, any information “classified at birth.” The State Dept. -- like the Pentagon, the White House, and other agencies -- has two systems for email, one for classified messages and one for more routine business. The emails to and from Clinton we're all discussing are ones from the regular, unclassified system (and her system). No one is sending nuclear codes over this system in the first place. And, yeah, out of tens of thousands of emails, 3 "(C)"s buried in the body of emails/documents could be easily missed as *anything* marked that way isn't supposed to be in this system to begin with. It's also why she stated confidently that nothing she received or that she sent was marked Classified. It would have stuck out like a red thumb if it had been because it would have been on the wrong damn system.
Josh Rager -- a friend of my sister, Gina -- took the above photos this weekend. The display is located on Curtin Hollow Road by Route 150/North Eagle Valley Rd in Howard, PA. This would be between State College and Bald Eagle State Park in the center of the state.
If you look at the closeup of the photo below, that would be Hillary in a cage in prison stripes on the back of the truck and Trump on top with a machine gun. What is most disturbing, however, is the depiction of Hillary inside the truck. It's not that clear in the photograph, but it looks like Hillary with a plastic bag over her head and a noose around her neck.
WTH?
Someone thought it funny enough to give it its own Facebook page (though it looks like that page was made before the cage was added).
Googling "CHBP" found a plausible explanation for that acronym as "Curtin Hollow Border Patrol" which makes perfect sense in the paranoid, hate-filled world of far too many Trump supporters.
Even if Trump loses in November (PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE), the mentality that is behind this display will still survive...
I'm here in Cleveland and I managed to get some video of the rehearsal for the last night of the GOP convention. Rehearsal? Right! I guess there have been so many missteps, they're leaving nothing to chance for the grand finale. Anyway, the rock group Queen has repeatedly requested that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump no longer use their song "We are the Champions" as his theme song, so the Trump campaign has gone in a different -- and some might say -- a more appropriate direction. From my iPhone:
Looks like the focus group of delegates are eating it up! Can't wait to see Trump enter to this!
They will also be revealing the new campaign poster:
I'd say another winner!
As per the program notes for the evening, directly after Trump gives his speech, Hillary Clinton -- having been tried in absentia and found guilty by potential Attorney General Chris Christie -- will be dragged into the Quicken Loans Arena where her head will be shaved and she'll be "shot for treason."
Hillary Clinton made history yesterday by becoming the first woman to become the presumptive nominee of a major party in the U.S. Hell, she's been making history all her life. Congratulations, Secretary Clinton!
And to think, it only took 96 years for this to happen after women won the right to vote and 227 years after the first presidential race.
Notes for the Haters: 1) Obama was declared the presumptive nominee in 2008 when he reached the magic number on June 3rd -- months before the convention -- which he was only able to do with the aid of superdelegates. He wasn't declared the presumptive nominee until after the last primary election only because it took him that long to clinch it. 2) Despite what Bernie Sanders has to say about superdelegates now, back in 2008 he endorsed Obama two days after Obama had clinched the nomination acknowledging that Obama was then the presumptive nominee.
