Voter Intimidation

Though I promised myself I would not write about this election (what could I possibly add to the fray that is original?) I did not promise I would stay silent on the voting process.

I love to vote. It may or may not make a difference but I feel good when casting my vote, and I feel good about the nations we have given this privilege to.

We have early voting in Florida so today I voted.

Today was one of those hard hitting days when what you knew in the abstract smacks you in the reality and things become surreal. I feel like I fell down a rabbit hole.

I live in a predominantly poor, predominantly black district. Everyone is very nice, very neighborly, and I loved being able to wear my Bernie Sanders tee shirt without fear of being insulted (that seems like ages ago).

Now that Trump has entered the arena I would be afraid for my personal safety, as others are. Don’t believe me? Count the number of Trump bumper stickers and compare that number to the number of Clinton stickers you see. Trump stickers are overwhelmingly around us, but not Clinton. You see, after watching the violence that ensues whenever Master Trump hints at bloodshed (“wouldn’t it be a shame if they ended up in the hospital” kind of rhetoric) I asked around a little and, like myself, many people are too intimidated to express their support for Clinton on a public bumper sticker, afraid of what a Trump supporter might start.

This is, and should be, appalling to all of us. No American should ever feel threatened by his/her political choices. Therein lies another strength in Trump. He makes people feel the ugly side of their core is okay, that everyone is against “us” and “we” need to protect ourselves so we can protect our  Founders principles and our God given..blah blah blah.

Except it’s not that easy this time, to “blah blah blah” away the Republican candidate for

Violence at Trump Rally

president. This is where I am finally getting to my point.

Trump has encouraged his minions to go to his website and fill out a form, then print out a “badge” and stand outside voting locations to “make sure no voter fraud happens”. HOW they are supposed to do this is never clear, nor is it clear what they are looking for exactly. Trump, in his psychopathic paranoia, has convinced himself that he is so popular, if he doesn’t win this election then the only alternative would be voter fraud or tampering with votes.

When we parked at the school we were to vote in, there were 2 women standing in the lot. One was a young black woman, dressed comfortably for the warm afternoon weather. The other, a middle aged woman who was dressed like an old-fashioned school marm. She had no makeup and unkempt hair, not the kind that shows slovenliness, the kind that shows piety, humility, purity, the religious kind of boring you see in the deep south at times. I looked down and she had on her “official” polling monitor badge. In her hand, as in the other woman’s, was a glossy flyer for Clinton.

The black woman gave us a smile and general instructions and we began just chit-chatting with her. The other woman asked us to “see if they offer sample ballots and keep an eye out for anything suspicious”. Suspicious? Ok, if the grooming and the badge didn’t make me certain she was a Trumpster, the conspiratorial request did. I asked her what, exactly, am I looking for? She had no clue, she just wanted us to watch out for anything unusual.

During this exchange, the black woman would catch my eye and roll hers which almost made me laugh outright. As Mark was engaging the Trumpster, I slipped over and asked the other woman if School Marm was one of those Trumpster. She couldn’t say yes for some reason but facial expressions and eyeballs can tell a lot. I asked the black woman where she was from. “Mississippi” she said. I thanked her for coming so far and shook her hand. The white woman immediately piped up “I am from Georgia”. I ignored her comment as I was not about to shake her hand. Then I asked her several times what organization she was from but her only reply was “Democratic”. No, I would ask, what is the name of the company that sent you here? Same reply. Because she wasn’t anyone, she was a Trump supporter pretending to be innocuous. She outright lied, between saying it and holding the Clinton flyer. So far the only thing suspicious about this voting place was a Trumpster asking us for information about the inside of polling place that was far from her district and her nosy business and lying about being a Democrat, both in words and by holding the flyer. I think the other woman was going to lose it before the day was over, she was so annoyed at this Trump oddity.

Voting was easy. There were more real security guards there than there were voters but everything went well. When we came out, school Marm and Mississippi were still there. Mark assured Marm there was nothing “suspicious” going on in there and I tried one last time to pin her down…exactly what would we have found? What dastardly thing did she think we were planning in there?

I left there feeling a deep sense of fear. This woman believed so deeply in the fantasies spun by a madman that she filled out a form (obviously just to make her feel official) put on a bogus badge and drove all the way from Georgia so she could stand in our little neighborhood (overwhelmingly Democrat I am sure) and make sure there was no fraud, as Trump will cry about if he loses. But what I am not sure she realizes is that her mission has a deeper, more sinister agenda – intimidation. Her question, her very presence there, her being undercover and lying about what she stood for, this was all orchestrated to make us feel Trumps presence. Imagine this kind of person interacting with every voter going into the polls. It’s a chilling feeling, a feeling I had no idea would surface in me.

If Trump has followers willing to travel and to lie for him so easily, what else can he get his followers to do? What will they do when he screams “voter fraud” if he loses?

Personally, I am outraged that I was made to feel uncomfortable while doing the one thing I am NOT supposed to be intimidated doing; voting. And how is it legal for someone who lives way outside your district to come up to you and ask you to scope out what is going on inside? To accuse these good people of attempting fraud ,when she herself is the one with the mask, pretending to keep things fair while lying to us about her intent and her beliefs. Certainly we are all going to talk differently to someone we know is voting the same party we are, especially this election. She had no business there, none at all, and she wouldn’t have been there if Trump himself had not encouraged her to “keep it fair”. So what if you have to lie to the voters a little, if it stops voters from….from what? Voting twice? Impossible. Stealing votes? How could that be done?

This is a small example of why I think we will be either branded or wearing the Trump equivalent of a swastika if he wins.

Say what you want about “crooked Hillary” but she did not have an undercover spy intimidating voters today. 

Trumpsters

As soon as Trump came on the scene I vowed not to blog on him and the more writings and television spots I saw about him the more determined I became. The longer this has gone on the more I have realized I have nothing unique to contribute so why bother everyone with the same rhetoric?

My change of heart has come because I have realized not voicing my opinions is damaging me physically and emotionally so I am going to write and you, as an American, are free to read or not to read. Hopefully I have contributed something different than everyone else and if not I may at least save myself from an aneurism.

This will involve a couple of things. Foremost on my mind, though not the most important issue is how perplexed I am at the American people. I will be addressing Trump supporters directly here. How can so many of you be enamored with a badly coiffed snake oil salesman? I have no doubt Trump is an intelligent man, but that doesn’t mean he is sane as well. He is obviously manipulative, and has the coldhearted attitude about business that has made American millionaires throughout history “great” by stepping on the backs of others. I do not dare quote here unless I am certain of who said what so I will point out when I do not know .

Having said that, at one point Clinton was talking about how many contractors have complained Trump never paid them. Trump (who was interrupting) was saying things like “well maybe I didn’t like their work” with Clinton replying “Shouldn’t they be paid for their materials and labor” and I believe this is where Trump said “no it’s called good business”. Wow. Even if I did not get the exact quote correct, he did say that. When Clinton stated that Trump had not paid taxes and that could be one reason he would not show his tax returns, he boasted,” That is called being smart”. So, at times we do get some insight into who this man really is   through his boastfulness. He is so in love with himself that he sees his humanitarian shortcomings as something to be proud of.

I do not understand why you (Trump supporters) let him get away with non-answers. When repeatedly asked for his tax return he keeps saying his attorney says not to show it until after the audit and yet each time the person asking for it tells him that is incorrect, he can show them anytime. H* just ignores the whole thing. Are you not suspicious of this?

How did he earn such blind faith? We know he has been in bankruptcy what, 4? 6 times?  His answer to that? He was taking advantage of existing laws and if we do not like it we need to change the laws. So there is no morality mixed with his decisions;  if it’s legal it’s okay.

Why are you, Trump supporters, not more concerned about his temperament? He has made it obvious he cannot let even a small slight go unpunished, he cannot keep his intelligence when he loses his cool ( I am waiting for him to use the old “I am rubber you are glue” bit).  Do his followers see this as strength of character? Do they not see the danger in this when dealing with domestic issues he doesn’t agree with but must deal with, or foreign dignitaries who are straight up assholes? This man was only able to stay composed for the first 10 minutes of a 90 minute debate and then shouted, interrupted, went way, way over time, ignored the rules and the moderator - basically took over the room. That sounds great when you need a best friend to protect you from the school bully, but as the leader of the most influential nation on earth, can we afford that kind of rigidity? Do we want the bully running the school? His “small loan” from his father was a million dollars. This shows his perception of what a dollar is worth, or he is a liar. Actually, he IS a huge liar and when fact -  checked you followers just call it some kind of conspiracy against him. Is this a campaign or a religion? One of my biggest questions is this; when you agree with Trump’s slogan “makeAmerica great again” what EXACTLY do you mean? Define “great” and then tell me when this “great” of yours was. I want specifics because he will have to come up with them. And if you can do it without being a racist or sexist or homophobe I will vote for the man.

I understand the burning need for an outsider. But you have to have someone with experience. Any old outsider is not good enough. Please question yourselves; what makes you think he is an “everyman”? Why do I see you folks talking about how he understands you and your problems and how he is like you? He is the opposite of you. He has never had to struggle, he has no idea what it’s like to decide between rent and electricity. He only relates to you because he can be a bully and talk bad about everyone else. Sorry to say that Trumpkins, but when was the last time anyone in government made you

happy? You keep voting for the wrong party.

Trump will not make you rich.

Trump will not make better jobs.

Trump will not build a wall and keep Mexicans out.

Trump will not bring jobs back to the USA

Trump doesn’t give a damn about you.

But what he will do is what he has already begun to do. Widen the gap between the races, between the law and the people, between you and the rich, between anyone another person hates for no reason. He is divisive and antagonistic and enjoys the power he has over you to make you bend to his will. Do not believe me? Then at his rallies, when he mentions doing violence to dissenters does it happen?  You are his puppets and you do not even see it. Snake oil my friends.

He is a liar. He is a con artist. He is conning you right now. He is a narcissist who buys his wives from a catalog and lusts openly after his daughter.

So please tell me, honestly, I want to know, what, in great detail, makes you think he has the brains for this job? Business acumen is not a measurement of intelligence, if he has a successful business at all. I need a tax return, a financial statement and a look at why he went bankrupt all those times to buy into him being a good businessman. And YOU should demand the same thing! You act like obedient children or his employees. He is trying to win YOUR vote, but you act as if you are desperate for his approval. Stop it! Be the American you so want to be!

What makes you think he has the temperament to be the leader of the free world? This is not a game. This is not The Apprentice. This is a volatile personality ?? (codes?)with his hand on the codes.

Why do see morality in a man who talks of bringing back jobs from overseas but has all his clothes made in Mexico? A man who has openly sexually harassed his own daughter? A man who thinks not paying hard working laborers is a good business decision (hey, it was only a handshake agreement).

Clinton is not perfect. But she is not any less perfect than other presidents we have had and she has a record of a lifetime of service. David Duke (the king of the KKK) supports Trump. The 9-11 Responders support Clinton. That right there speaks volumes.

The remainder of this blog is an excerpt from an article from A PLUS by Isaac Saul. You can read more at A PLUS, A Grain of Saul. I chose this because it sums up many other resource materials, so please do not accuse me of using just one source - this information is public and, in many circles is common knowledge.

Let’s start with a simple but important position: Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to ever run for president.

Measuring qualifications, of course, is somewhat subjective. She’s never served in the military and never run her own business, something previous candidates have done. But she was a secretary of state for four years, a U.S. senator for eight years, a first lady who lived in the White House, saw the challenges of being president up close and personal for eight years, a first lady of Arkansas, and a law professor to boot. If she were elected, she’d be the first former cabinet member to become president in almost 100 years.

Just months before 9/11, Hillary Clinton became a U.S. senator in New York. She served for eight years in the city and was a key architect of the $21 billion federal aid bill that helped rebuild the city after her term started with the worst tragedy New York had ever seen. But perhaps what she is most remembered for is fighting for the health bill that served first responders in the first 48 hours after the attack. While Donald Trump bragged about his building now being the tallest in New York City, Clinton was fighting the Environmental Protection Agency to admit the air wasn’t safe to breathe. That’s why Clinton has the support of so many 9/11 first responders and survivors: they remember her work as a senator of New York.

But guess what? Google “Clinton health bill 9/11” and you’ll find nothing but results about her nearly fainting outside a 9/11 memorial service, one she attended while diagnosed with pneumonia.

That wasn’t the first time Clinton had advocated for a strong health care bill, though. In 1994, a universal health care bill that Hillary Clinton pushed for had failed as the Clinton administration came into office. Then Democrats lost the House and then lost the Senate for the first time in 40 years. Democrats had essentially given up on health care reform, until First Lady Clinton helped the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). She’s largely credited with getting the bill into law, and it became the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance in three decades.

[Hillary] Clinton has traveled the world advocating a better life for women in places where that concept wasn’t even on the radar.

Today, the bill has resounding bi-partisan support, and 8.4 million children — many of them low-income — are enrolled in its program.

As she mentioned in the debate, her time as secretary of state required everything from traveling to 112 countries and debating peace deals and ceasefires, to negotiating the release of dissidents — men and women who pushed back against authoritarian regimes. What she didn’t mention was just how real that “stamina” was: She set records for travel as secretary of state.

But during Clinton’s time as secretary, she also advocated a powerful, important worldview: that the United States could be a force of good and progressivism across the world, advocating for human rights, development, and equality in nations that may not know any of those things. She pushed for investment and accommodation with Asian powers such as China, who she knows we can share mutual goals with like preventing war in the Asian Pacific and spurring economic growth by investing in the future of technology.

In the beginning of her term as secretary of state, Clinton had to win over President Barack Obama — something that, at the time, was not guaranteed. They had a heated primary battle and many thought they may never mend those wounds. But today, Obama is one of her biggest advocates. Despite publicly disagreeing with her at times, most notably on the specifics of Syrian intervention, he’s come to trust her counsel and had her present for some of their biggest moments in the situation room, such as when she helped him coordinate the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Perhaps Clinton’s greatest blemish on her record is the destabilizing of Libya, which led to the Benghazi diplomatic compound attack. Certainly, it was one of the career bullet points that made me despise her. But despite $7 million dollars spent on Benghazi investigations, 1,982 published pages of reports on Benghazi, 10 congressional committees participating in investigations, 3,194 questions asked in a public forum, Clinton and her administration have been found guilty of zero wrongdoing. No “stand down” call was ever found, one of the cornerstones of the Republican claims. The family of Chris Stevens — the ambassador who became the face of the Benghazi tragedy after he was killed in the siege — has publicly objected to blaming Clinton for Benghazi.

Even more lost in the Benghazi witch hunt is a simple reality: during George W. Bush’s presidency, there were 13 attacks on U.S. embassies that killed 60 people. Yet his career and record were not marred by these. Despite that, Trump and his campaign still thought it should have been brought up in last night’s debate.

Throughout her time in public service, Hillary Clinton has negotiated ceasefires in Israel, put the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Act into law, authored the Pediatric Research Equity Act (which helped re-label drugs to keep millions of children safe), and she got the EU, Russia, China and other world powers to participate in the crippling sanctions on Iran that forced the country to negotiate its nuclear plan out of existence. All while enduring propaganda that thrust Benghazi and the Clinton Foundation — from which there’s also been no evidence of wrongdoing, in fact, quite the contrary — into the public’s mind.

And throughout all that time, Clinton has traveled the world advocating a better life for women in places where that concept wasn’t even on the radar. She’s pushed for paternity leave here in the United States, and became a symbol of women’s rights and women’s progress everywhere. Looking at Secretary Clinton and reading about her accomplishments, it’s tough to think that it was just 100 years ago the U.S. elected the first woman to Congress. That 100 years later, she’s our first female candidate for president to win a primary.

Secretary Clinton, I’m sorry. ... You have accomplished far more in your life as a public servant than just about anyone that’s run for this office...

And what does she get for all of this work? As the debate wrapped up on Monday night, Clinton endured Trump’s threats to mention her husband’s adultery despite the fact he’s had three marriages, and been accused of rapeand is a known adulterer. As she eviscerated him on calling women pigs and dogs, Trump lied about his position on the Iraq War, lied about his reasons for not releasing his tax returns, lied about his belief that climate change is a hoaxcreated by the Chinese, lied about his feeling that pregnancy is an “inconvenience” for businesses, lied during his defense of unconstitutional stop and frisk, lied that crime is getting worse in New York, and then lied when he said his temperament was his greatest quality. And what did Clinton get?

On Fox News, they cut to their political analyst Brit Hume describing Clinton: “The TV audience saw the faces of the two candidates,” Hume said. “And she looked composed, smug sometimes ... not necessarily attractive.”