Will Donald Trump Quit Before The Inauguration? Can Republicans Hold Onto Their Power?

Participants in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. 

From Library of Congress. Photo by Peter Pettus

25 March 1965. The day Martin Luther King led thousands to the capitol steps in Montgomery, Alabama, after marching for five days from Selma, Alabama, to support African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership had campaigned for voting rights. King told the assembled crowd:

 "There never was a moment in American history more honorable and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger at the side of its embattled Negroes." 

African Americans had endured generations of violence and assault to every part of their being, but they endured and their spirit of resistance slowly gained momentum until it peaked under the leadership of Martin Luther King. The world lost one of its greatest men, and thousands endured further assaults and violence for the Civil Rights Movement to succeed, but it prevailed in the end.

Fast forward to Nov 9 2016. The day the world got pretty damn dark again for millions. The day the quintessential banana republic bigot was elected as president of the most powerful country in the world—the country thought of as the most advanced democracy—with the help of a rogue FBI Director and the Russian government and now America is on the brink of being rolled backwards at the speed of light, to pre Civil Rights Movement days.

We share joy and triumph and hope, but grief is the most isolating experience. A predominant fear among many has been that with time grief will heal and the outrage will fade. Don't let this be the new normal has been a common theme.

This being Donald Trump's ignorance, stupidity, racism, bigotry and sexism, and culture of covert and overt white supremacy, promotion of inequality, discrimination against women, minorities and Muslims, exploitation of people and the earth's resources, the many being sacrificed to the few, rolling back clean energy, embracing policies that will enrich the few, destroy the poor, erode the middle class again and accelerate climate change.

How could what Trump personifies, and has exposed as the underbelly of our lovely Western culture, ever become a new standard for what's acceptable, the new normal? Because we do become inured unless we make a conscious choice not to be. But a huge body of people have already made that choice to fight for and preserve a coherent world for everybody. Including some powerful legislators and media organisations who aren't allowing Trump to become the new normal. As an example, the New York Times, which made a decisive switch from sitting on the fence to condemning Trump and endorsing Hillary Clinton during the primaries, actually increased its digital readership by 21% in the third quarter of 2016.

The investigation into Trump's charity foundation continues and he's powerless to stop it. Democrats in the Senate are delaying their acceptance of eight of Trump's cabinet picks while they call for more information, tax returns, and ethics investigations. They can't block the posts because they don't have the votes but they can delay and jam up the process. And that's what they're doing.

In North Carolina, a judge delayed the law overhauling the elections panel, a law that would severely restrict the powers of the soon-to-be Democrat Governor.

It's obvious from Trump's body language and his utter inarticulacy when questioned on matters of state that he's totally out of his depth and very uncomfortable with the heavy investigative spotlight on him and his family. Whatever he's hiding by not releasing his tax returns will come out in the wash somewhere.

He's been horribly—or wonderfully—humiliated by so many celebrities refusing to perform for his inauguration, and by the recent defection of performers in two of the groups that he did manage to secure, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Rockettes. Trump's response was to say that he'll have a protracted inauguration day parade and he'll only attend three balls (Obama attended eleven), because he wants to get to work immediately. The notion of Trump working is ludicrous; all he's doing is showing his vulnerability.

His transition team is a shambles, his tweeting is still out of control and now he's intimating that the Intelligence report on Russia's hacking prior to the election was inadequate. Even GOP politicians who have weak-mindedly endorsed him are putting boundaries down. So he'll be up against his own team as president.

Trump never wanted this job, but when he 'won' the election he obviously thought he could carry on lying, cheating and exploiting. Now that he and his posse of children are waking up to reality they're scrabbling around like crazy.

Trouble is, he's made a lot of very smart, very informed people very angry. And they have the law on their side. It's ironic. Trump craves constant approbation and to be able to do whatever he wants, and he only ran for president to pump up his profile so he could expand his businesses. Now he is being excoriated every day by the press, he's despised by millions in America and around the world; he's in a job that's virtual straitjacket for somebody like him; his charity foundation is under investigation; and he's having to divest!

Poetic justice. Speaking to Seth Meyers, Michael Moore predicted Trump will find a way to quit the presidency before the inauguration. I'm half inclined to agree with him but even if that happens, the battle has just begun. 

"Collectively we come together and we say, you know, we're going to preserve some things that last beyond our individual lives, that we're going to pass that on. And we have to do it together. You know, that is hopefully part of what is best about our government. And so every once in a while we need the ability to step back from our personal wants and project something finer and better for future generations." 

Barack Obama said this in 2010. He was in Yellowstone talking about the preservation of State Parks, but his words apply to preserving anything important. Throughout history, when decency and democratic legitimacy have been under threat, people with integrity have instinctively come together and fight, and it's happening now. A force like this might isn't bully-driven so it might not seem powerful at first, but it gathers momentum that's unassailable and it sustains itself until it succeeds, no matter how long that takes.

Liberals and Democrats are already looking to 2018. If they can reach Democrat voters for those mid-terms, they could regain control of Congress because all 435 House seats, and 33 out of 100 Senate seats are up for grabs. And to illustrate the interest, if you Google "what congressional…" the sentence completes as "seats are up for reelection in 2018". With 27 million search results.

Enjoy your power while you have it, Republicans. It's not going to last very long.

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

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“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.

Dark Days As US Democracy Sinks Into The Swamp

Photo and Art by Jennifer Stewart

It’s nearly a month since the world feel apart for me and millions like me in a presidential election of allegedly the greatest democracy on earth.

Where the odds stacked against Hillary Clinton went from massive double standards, Russian interference and Julian Assange  gimmicks— is there any difference? — to an FBI director, to fake news, to a populace that sucks up any misinformation so long as it creates a justification for their bigotry, sexism, racism, you name it, to GOP policies skewed towards disenfranchising minorities.

In hindsight, it seems clear that Clinton never stood a chance of winning playing by the rules. Although those recounts are happening...

Every day I read of new travesties, and watch how the liberal media also sinks deeper and deeper into the swamp, either selectively reporting or flat out misconstruing what’s been said by the president-elect and his crew. Normalizing him and them in ways that make a mockery of the word liberal.

Every day I scour that media, desperately searching for the clarion call, for the voice of pure outrage. I seldom find it.

I think we’ve been here before. How long did it take the liberal media to get off the fence and take a stand to unequivocally endorse Hillary Clinton? I and I presume all NYT subscribers received an email asking what we wanted to read. My response was that I wanted to see unequivocal condemnation of Trump and for the NYT to be the leader in it. I presume I was one of many, because the NYT gave us what we wanted. Too late to be the leader of the liberal media, though. And it was too little too late to save the election.

Then as soon as the election results were called, Hillary Clinton disappeared off everybody’s radar and every single damn headline was about the president-elect. But was it, is it, real investigative reporting? Not all of it, no. Some of it was bland comment often, or writing about him as if he was a normal human being, or taking what he or one of his right wing minions said out of context.

It’s all very civilized. The excuse I hear everywhere is that the liberal media is facing extinction and can’t afford real investigative journalism.

I don’t buy it. Real investigation into what was wrong with this election, passionate reporting and continued unequivocal condemnation of Trump would draw readers, including Trump supporters.

Because it’s dramatic and that’s what people lust for. Charles M. Blow, NYT columnist, dashed off a piece in response to Trump’s meeting with the NYT, entitled “No Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along”. It’s outright condemnatory of Trump and received 2310 comments, which collectively got about 80,000 likes.

Every waking moment I have to fight against a wave of helplessness and hopelessness that washes over me as the US moves inexorably towards a government characterized by the worst in humanity, led back to pre Civil Rights Movement days by a con-man who has the animal instincts of a serial predator but no real intelligence, no intellectual capacity.

A fool utterly devoid of ethic. So pathetically needy that anybody can suck up to him and he’ll give them a position of power.

These are dark days.