Women's March Organisation Dishonors Hillary Clinton

Hillary and Bill Clinton at the 2017 Inauguration

How could it have happened that the Women's March organization didn't want to have Hillary Clinton at the top of their list of honorees? It's a disgrace that can only be put down to partisanship. Which the march was not about. It was about inclusion, human rights, equality. Hillary Clinton made an enormous contribution to equality throughout her public life and especially throughout her campaign.

She endured terrible, relentless persecution and horrific double standards. She didn't fold in the face of the nightmare lies that were told about her and spread so liberally around the internet. She never gave up, she never gave in, and she never stopped believing that women could achieve equality.

She has always behaved with superhuman dignity in the face of challenges that would floor any of us within a very short period of time. She has worked harder than any of us, been a phenomenal role model. She inspired me hugely. Her example, her inner strength, her willingness to fight for rights that I and so many struggle with, her belief in women's right to total equality, changed how millions of girls and women saw themselves. Changed how I felt about myself; the way I see myself.

I've always felt like an outsider and never knew what it felt like to believe that I belonged in the world, that there really was a place for me. When Hillary Clinton won the primaries and began to campaign against Donald Trump, something shifted in me. Tectonic plates of belief. I began to see that I do have a place.

My grief when she lost the election was overwhelming. The refusal to honor her was as painful for me as if the Women's March organization had thrown acid on a festering wound. And on their home page they say let us Make History! Why not say History Made and add the hashtag for good measure? They have blatantly used the essence of her campaign hashtag, piggy-backed on her achievements and her sacrifices. And they couldn't honor her?

And all the speakers; they didn't want to honor her either? I would like to have seen each of them refuse to speak until she was given her due, and then to talk at length about the incredible role she played, the important place she will always have in history.

I marched in Cape Town for Hillary Clinton and have celebrated that so many marched around the world. But some part of me feels queasy. I don't trust the foundation on which this movement is built. On the one hand there's Donald Trump and his crew with their blatant lies, which we're all raging about, as we should be. 

On the other hand there's the Women's March being blatantly dishonest in refusing to honor the woman who gave herself throughout her career to improving life for women and children. The first American woman presidential candidate, the first American woman to win the popular vote. The woman who would now be Madam President if there had been no outside interference. The woman who made history for women but was robbed of the triumph of wearing the badge. ]

Women's March organization is saying that woman, Hillary Clinton, isn't important. Doesn't that belong under #AlternativeFacts?

I'm angry, I'm hurt and sickened at the ingratitude and the agenda, whatever it is, but worst of all I'm beyond disappointed. This isn't what women who change the world are about. We're better than this. We're about inclusion, respect for all, especially those who fight on our behalf and do make history. We're also about fierce honesty. Without it, we're no better than Donald Trump.

#HistoryMade? Will Electoral College Electors Tell Trump "You're Fired"?

Embed from Getty Images

“Everyone during the election perceived accurately—that in fact what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign. There’s no doubt that it contributed to an atmosphere in which the only focus for weeks at a time, months at a time were Hillary's emails, the Clinton Foundation, political gossip surrounding the DNC...  

I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action, and we will—at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.” - President Barack Obama

The Electoral College votes on America's next president on Monday. Anti-Trump voters have been at work since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the election in circumstances that are highly suspect. Apart from the country-wide protests, a petition was started by Daniel Brezenoff, asking the electors to elect Hillary Clinton. It now has close to 5 million signatures. People in every state have signed it.

There has also been a storm of protest from President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and other Democrat and Republican senators and representatives, and some electors, triggered by 17 intelligence agencies unanimously reporting that Russians intervened in the election through hacking and that “only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities”  

Vladimir Putin, of course, laughed the Intelligence report off. But he did that when the scandal first broke of Russian State sponsored Olympic doping. And now it's undeniable fact. Trump also laughed it off, as did his vacuous mouthpiece Rep Chris Collins. Speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer he said it was time to "put this nonsense aside." Blitzer shot him down, as he did when Collins said that President Obama had never acknowledged Trump's win.

A bipartisan group of electors, calling themselves the Hamilton Electors, published an open letter to the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, requesting that he release all the facts on Russian interference before they vote.

“...We intend to discharge our duties as Electors by ensuring that we select a candidate for president who, as our Founding Fathers envisioned, would be “endowed with the requisite qualifications.” As Electors, we also believe that deliberation is at the heart of democracy itself, not an empty or formalistic task…

The Constitution envisions the Electoral College as a deliberative body that plays a critical role in our system of government — ensuring that the American people elect a president who is constitutionally qualified and fit to serve. Accordingly, to fulfill our role as Electors, we seek an informed and unrestrained opportunity to fulfill our constitutional role leading up to December 19th — that is, the ability to investigate, discuss, and deliberate with our colleagues about whom to vote for in the Electoral College.

We further emphasize Alexander Hamilton’s assertion in Federalist Paper #68 that a core purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent a “desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.”

To date eighty Presidential electors have signed the letter. Those wishing to add their names can contact ElectoralCollege16@gmail.com

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told Buzzfeed News that he supports that call for an Intelligence briefing on the Russian interference before they vote. Reid said he believed this was as "big a deal as Watergate, as 9/11 and he believes, along with US Senators Dianne Feinstein and Ben Cardin, that a 9/11 type commission should be set up to investigate.

Reid also blamed FBI Director James Comey for his role in Hillary Clinton's surprise loss. A view shared by many, including Hillary Clinton and her supporters. The FBI agents received Weiner's computer from the NYPD and held onto it for two weeks before sending it up the chain of command to Comey. Their later excuse was that they needed time to better assess the emails. But they were prohibited by law from reading any of them without a warrant, for which they needed Comey's OK. 

If they had sent it immediately, Comey's 2nd letter acknowledging that there was nothing to investigate, would have been released before early voting began, instead of 48 hours before the election, and probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton spoke to donors about how Comey's letter to Congress swung the election in Trump's favor, and added that Putin had a longstanding grudge against her for her 2011 accusation that Russian parliamentary elections had been rigged.

But, she said, “Make no mistake as the press is finally catching up to the facts, which we desperately tried to present to them during the last months of the campaign. This is not just an attack on me and my campaign, although that may have added fuel to it. This is an attack against our country. We are well beyond normal political concerns here. This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation.”

California attorney Michael Hawley said to The Hollywood Reporter that electors have received thousands of emails, and some have received death threats. Hawley, Mark Lemley and Larry Lessig co-founded the Electors Trust, an organization that provides free and confidential legal counsel and defence to electors who "wish to vote their conscience." 

An Elector, speaking to Salon on condition of anonymity, said “We have gotten reports from multiple people that the Donald Trump campaign is putting [career] pressure on Republican electors to vote for him based on…future political outcomes based on whether they vote for Donald Trump or not.”

Legally and constitutionally Trump isn't president yet. The number of electors who have voted their conscience is rare throughout American history, but as everybody has been pointing out for a year, this is no ordinary American election. Never has there been a candidate who has:

And that's the short list.

This degree of protest from electors, politicians and the general public is unprecedented, and the highest number of electors to ever break from a presidential candidate was in 1808, when six Democratic-Republican electors voted against James Madison. But, as everybody keeps reiterating, it's been an unusual American presidential election, so one final unusual event will fit right in.

History has already been made, for better or for worse. Why not go for broke and eliminate the worse? All it needs is for 37 electors to vote their conscience and Donald Trump is history. I'm going to let myself hope for two more days that Hillary Clinton can still be America's next president.

She won the popular vote by 2.8 million, which means a clear majority of Americans want her. The world wants her. #ImStillWithHer.

The Worst of Times: America's Dark Days, From a Superlative President to an Abhorrence

As a whole lot of TV news anchors and hosts with their panels crawl like flies over a pile of horseshit, backtracking from positions they almost took about Trump or even actually did, I stare in horror. What happened? Was there suddenly a discount on lobotomies? Have one and get one free for a colleague?  

As David Remnick said on Fareed Zakaria's GPS, "I think I'm hallucinating".

You'd never know from any of it that Trump is a conspiracy theory nut, the man who in 2011, when he was mulling over running for president, launched his birther conspiracy theory persecution against Obama and didn't drop it even when Obama produced his certificate. Who then did, glibly drop the story and accuse Hillary Clinton of starting it all. [She didn't.]

A clod who can't finish sentences, who talks about penises in the presidential primaries, whose own campaign people had to take his Twitter account away from him to stop him being an abusive idiot at 3 in the morning.

A businessman who vastly overestimates his wealth, avoids taxes, who has gone bankrupt with properties countless times and with some casinos made a profit through the bankruptcy whilst the small businesses who built the buildings went broke. An employer who cheats and stiffs his workers. A fraud who is facing a big lawsuit over his fraudulent 'university, a demagogue who has shady dealings with and something of a crush on Putin. Whose own business life started with a small million dollar loan from his father—and that would be the guy who made a fortune in Stalin's Russia—which he squandered and went on to several bankruptcies. A fool who wants to dismantle NATO and bomb the hell out of the Middle East. Yeah!

A man who mocked the disabled at a rally, insulted the parents of a Gold Star Muslim soldier who died in action, who lies anything from a score to 70 times a day, calls women pigs, calls Mexicans rapists and murderers and promotes hate against Muslims and Jews.

Who is celebrated by the KKK and white supremacists. Who talked in sexual terms about his baby daughter and later, when she was all grown up, said that she was so hot he would date her if she wasn't his daughter. Who was caught on tape acknowledging that he gropes women and loves the entitlement he has to do it. Who has threatened to destroy the women he abused and who had the courage to finally tell the truth. A serial abuser who is facing a lawsuit for child rape and who wants to close Planned Parenthood and punish women for having abortions.

A greedy, corrupt wanna-be mogul who paid off Scottish local politicians and the police so he could destroy a community and vast tracts of pristine and ecologically precious land in Scotland for his golf course. Who said of the poorer people who lived in houses that his guests would be able to see from his golf course hotel that they were disgusting. "Who lives like that?" Trump said, his face twisted grotesquely. He wanted to get rid of them.

That's the guy who will be sworn in as America's next president. I keep trying to hit replay and edit; it's beyond belief. I experience shock and grief a thousand times a day.

Hillary Clinton, introduced in a moving attribute to her and her campaign by her running mate Tim Kaine, gave a graceful and dignified concession speech, in which she said, "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power." Yes indeed, and the rest of her speech was a rousing call to action, to not let bigotry prevail. Understandably, her Twitter account has gone silent for a while, as has her daughter's and husband's.

But I miss them and Tim Kaine. I miss their optimism, their grace and intelligence, their decency, their message of preserving everything that's good, of unity and the importance of equality and tolerance.

I miss the hope I had, the faith that good prevails and it's all going to be okay. I miss knowing that Obama's legacy will be honored. I miss the ads!

Barack Obama met with Trump in the White House. It was an assault to see the man of such tremendous stature sitting with the stinking bigot, although I got a savage satisfaction from seeing how Mr. White guy the racist had to sit between an African American president and the bust of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Obama said they had an excellent meeting, and that "My number one priority in the next two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful." He did it because he's a responsible guy and it comes with the job.

It doesn't mean that he suddenly thinks Trump has changed or that he wants everybody to forgive and forget although he's been quoted by the slavering media as if he did. Representative John Lewis tweeted what the President can't, yet. Not until he's out of the Oval Office, anyway.

What a terrible blow. It's bad enough to see the end of an era that was too short, to say goodbye to a President and First Lady who have led America out of the gates of hell, who have not a single tiny teeny blemish on them, who truly madly deeply care, who have worked diligently to improve equality and lay the foundation for a healthy society. Who have gained the respect of everybody around the world, and even that impossible to please American public, who have moved us, inspired us, led us, even entertained us. Certainly touched our hearts and souls in ways that we'll never forget.

Yes, it's hard enough to see them go; my world feels empty at the thought of it. But to have them followed by this. It's a travesty. Of epic proportions.

Van Jones Speaks for Millions on the Aftermath of America's 2016 Elections

"People have talked about a miracle. I'm hearing about a nightmare. It's hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids 'don't be a bully.' You tell your kids 'don't be a bigot.' You tell your kids 'do your homework and be prepared.'

And then you have this outcome. And you have people putting children to bed tonight and they're afraid of breakfast. They're afraid of 'how do I explain this to my children?' I have families of immigrants who are terrified tonight. This was many things... We've talked everything but race tonight. This was a white lash against a changing country. A white lash against a black president, in part. And that's where the pain comes."

Yesterday I was afraid that the election would be close, but mostly optimistic that America consisted mostly of people like Van Jones. Decent, sane, intelligent people who don't buy into conspiracy theories, who can distinguish between truth and lies, who don't blame politicians for their own personal challenges, who can recognize the dangers of media-driven hyperbole and innuendo, who care deeply about inequality, racism, sexual abuse, bigotry in all its disgusting manifestations and not just when it hits the headlines.

That would be because most Americans I know are like that. I was so sure that the land of the free and the home of the brave still described the main part of the country.

Today I have to live with the truth. And worse, the reality that some of the people I called friends voted directly for bigotry. Or took great pride in their independence of mind and voted Gary Johnson. Who siphoned off Hillary Clinton's winning edge in Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and handed the Presidency to Trump. Recklessly visiting disaster on millions, in America and round the world, adding terrifying weight to a growing body of white supremacists, enabling men who think it's okay to abuse those with disabilities, anybody who isn't white, women; empowering businessmen who think it's okay to cheat and steal and stiff your workers; disabling the middle class, giving renewed vigor to the NRA, the military industrial complex and a GOP committed to trickle-up economics, where the poor feed the wealthy.

My heart breaks for Hillary Clinton and her family. And for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama - great Gods, what a terrible thing for them. And for Joe Biden, and Tim Kaine, and all the Democrat groups and politicians who have worked so hard to uphold values, not just during the Hillary Clinton campaign, but for their whole careers and especially during Barack Obama's presidency, fighting against an intractable Republican Party. For the great minds and great journalists who had the courage to call Trump for what he is.

My heart breaks for every wonderful, courageous Democrat who poured their life into the campaign and who took the trouble to vote and who just got bludgeoned; whose uphill battle against slavish ignorance, prejudice, discrimination, injustice, racism, sexism, inequality, a tilted Supreme Court just became a cliff-face.

I had to ask the question that millions are asking: is America still the land of the free and the home of the brave? 

The answer is an unqualified yes, of course it still is and it always will be. The free and the brave are still in the majority - Hillary Clinton won the popular vote - but they are a threatened group now, so much so that they're almost a minority. One thing we all know about American minorities: they fight through unimaginable obstacles and they never give up.