BY JOHN SHAFFER We’ll have to admit that until one of Hillary Clinton’s “faithless electors” in Washington cast his vote for her, we didn’t know who Faith Spotted Eagle was. Turns out she is a member of the Yankton Sioux nation and opponent of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. It is delicious that this woman received more electoral votes for president than did Jill Stein, who made a name for herself through pointless and counter-productive recounts. “Faithless elector” is used to describe members of the electoral college who cast their votes for someone other than the candidate who carried the state he or she represents. Faith Spotted Eagle wasn’t the only beneficiary of “faithless electors” this year. Donald Trump lost two votes, both from Texas. One was cast for former Congressman and Libertarian Presidential Candidate Ron Paul and the other for Ohio Governor John Kasich. Mrs. Clinton set a record of sorts, losing a total of five votes to “faithless electors.” In addition to the vote for Faith Spotted Eagle, three of Mrs. Clinton’s electors in Washington voted for Republican Colin Powell; one in Hawaii voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders. Interestingly, former President Bill Clinton was an elector from New York State, and he voted for his wife. A wag pointed out that this may have been the first time Bill Clinton was “faithful” to her.
BY JOHN SHAFFER The world experienced three terrible acts of terrorism in the past few days. The Russian ambassador to Turkey was assassinated; a mosque in Switzerland was attacked; and, the most horrific incident of the three, a dozen people were killed and many more injured when a Islamic terrorist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Germany. There were many people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere who warned of the dangers of allowing unrestricted immigration; the political and intellectual elites have consistently rejected the use of the terms “Islamic” and “terrorism,” and react with special horror when the two terms are combined. But the ground may be shifting. In contrast to the rest of his term, the Obama administration has already said that the act “appears to be terrorism,” and some reports are that the President used the phrase “Islamic terrorism” to describe the attack.
By John Shaffer Well, Jill Stein got her wish and Wisconsin has completed its recount of the votes cast in the November general election. Going in to the recount, Donald Trump had a lead of 22,617. 2.976 million ballot Were cast in Wisconsin, and everyone of them has been recounted. Ms. Stein, seconded by Mrs. Clinton, wanted the recount. Mr. Trump did not, saying it was a waste of time and money and little more than an effort to delegitimatize his election. The results, after the full recount from every one of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, shows that although Hillary Clinton gained 713 votes, Donald Trump gained 844, so his lead expanded by 131 votes. Jill Stein, by the way, gained 66 votes and Libertarian Gary Johnson gained 74, so Mrs. Stein, who had the idea of a recount in the first place, actually lost ground to each of the other major candidates on the Wisconsin ballot . Now. Mr. Trump’s final lead over Mrs. Clinton has expanded to 22,748 votes. The cost of Mrs. Stein’s recount cost an estimated $3.5 million. She came in fourth in the election and the recount was the equivalent of a coach asking for a measurement when the ball carrier is tackled eight yards short of a first down. He may have the right to do so, but it is a largely pointless waste of time. That pretty well describes the Wisconsin recount. In Pennsylvania, Mrs. Stein withdrew her state case request for a recount – perhaps because she missed the deadline, or perhaps because she had no evidence that there were any mistakes in the original count.
By John Shaffer There are a lot of things that we don’t comprehend. For instance – the US government signed agreements with Iran and released millions (or billions) of dollars to them, a regime that foments revolution, does not respect human rights, oppresses women and religious minorities, and furthermore is a government which our government does not even recognize as legitimate. Also, the United States government recognizes as legitimate the Communist government of Cuba (something the previous ten US administrations had not done), yet did not obtain any meaningful or lasting acts of good faith from Cuba in exchange – such as not arresting or holding political prisoners, allowing free and fair elections, having an independent judiciary, compensating those whose assets had been expropriated, etc.
Yet, both actions were lionized in the mainstream media and by most of the foreign-policy establishment. But just as they heavily supported those foreign-policy shifts, they almost unanimously oppose the President-elect taking a congratulatory phone call from the democratically-elected president of Taiwan. Taiwan is a nation to which we sell hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons. Taiwan was a founding member of the United Nations and held a seat on the Security Council until 1971, when the UN conveyed its membership and gave the seat to Communist China. Taiwan has a population of 23 million, giving it a rank of 53rd out of the 195 places considered “countries” by the United Nations. By John Shaffer We all have been told not to speak ill of the dead, and, just as Hillary Clinton has always “tried” to tell the truth, we have “tried” to follow that advice; but the death of Fidel Castro has made that all but impossible.
He was a wicked tyrant, who ran the most repressive totalitarian regime in the Western Hemisphere; denied basic human rights, murdered thousands, forced millions into exile, imprisoned tens of thousands of political prisoners (while giving sanctuary to killers and criminals from the USA and other places), expropriated wealth, fomented revolution and destabilized governments. Of course, one wouldn’t know any of that if one relied on the statements from President Obama, former President Jimmy Carter, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Secretary of State John Kerry, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, and almost everyone in the main stream media – all of whom ignored the truth and slavered the chuminess and puffery on thick. The world’s progressive left has been whitewashing Communism for just about the last one hundred years, and they keep doing it. By John Shaffer Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is challenging the outcome the the vote in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania where Hillary Clinton “expected” to win but did not. Ms. Stein barely hit the 1% mark in the popular vote and finished not third, but FOURTH in each of those three states as well as nationwide. Interestingly, Ms. Stein’s vote total, added to Mrs. Clinton’s, would have been enough to win Wisconsin and Michigan (but not Pennsylvania). The smallest difference between the Trump vote and the Clinton vote in any of the three states is in Michigan, which Mr. Trump carried by about 10,700. Ms. Stein received 50,700 votes – but Libertarian Gary Johnson got 173,057 votes! There have been 27 recounts since 2000. Three of them saw a change in the result. The average swing was 282 votes. The most votes “swung” in a recount in the last 16 years is 1,247 – which Al Gore gained on George Bush in the 2000 Florida recount – but it was still not enough to surpass Bush’s vote and overturn the results.
Hillary Clinton conceded the election. President Obama had urged her to concede and has stated that there was no “hacking” that could have affected the outcome. Election officials in the three states have meticulously counted the votes, added the votes, certified the votes and in some cases, audited the votes. |
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