@Blickers,
Blickers wrote:Given the fact that Trump's support comes largely from older white folks who worked 40 years to contribute to Social Security and Medicare, and Trump has broken every promise he's ever made to deliver the money at the appointed time, it astonishes me how older white people can even consider voting for Trump.
I don't know if I count as "older" but for me it is simply a matter of Trump being the one who will try to protect the Second Amendment and Hillary being the one who will try to violate the Second Amendment.
I would love if the Democrats didn't try to violate my rights and I could vote for them. But....
@bobsal u1553115,
Why did McCain serve in the military for if he's against our president nominating a supreme court justice? Doesn't he understand our Constitution?
"The President...shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law...."
ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 2
I swear to God, I'm hearing republicans and others talking about the "autopsy" the GOP is going to have to undergo... the self-examination... the honest appraisal of where they went wrong, and where to go from here...
I was trying to think - where have I heard this before? Oh yeah! It was in 2008 - after Obama beat McCain... AND in 2012 after Obama beat Romney. They trotted out the exact same spiel - "The party has to take a long, sober look at itself."
Do you think they even believe their own bullshit?
@snood,
Guess they didn't learn too much the last time they looked in the mirror and realized they needed to do more minority outreach since they turned right around and nominated Trump. They act as though Trump just snuck up and became the nominee while they weren't looking or something. Hardly any of them will admit to supporting him or voting for him during the primaries.
Indiana Officials Target A Black Voter Registration Drive On A Technicality
The Indiana secretary of state claimed a voter registration group had forged applications — but there’s no clear evidence that happened.
10/22/2016 03:59 pm ET
3.1k
Ryan J. Reilly Senior Justice Reporter, The Huffington Post
Julia Craven Reporter, The Huffington Post
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson (R) sent a letter to state election officials warning that “nefarious actors are operating” in the Hoosier state.
WASHINGTON ― Earlier this month, just ahead of Indiana’s voter registration deadline, state police executed a search warrant at the office of an organization that had set out to register black voters in a state with the worst voter turnout in the country.
Officers conducted their search on the Indiana Voter Registration Project’s headquarters just a few weeks after Republican Secretary of State Connie Lawson sent a letter to state election officials warning that “nefarious actors are operating” in the Hoosier state and asking them to inform authorities if they received any voter registration forms from the group.
The letter from Lawson ― who, when she was a state legislator, co-sponsored Indiana’s controversial voter ID law ― amounted to “the voter suppression equivalent of an Amber alert,” said Craig Varoga, the president of Patriot Majority USA, a liberal nonprofit group that ran the Indiana Voter Registration Project.
The publicity surrounding the actions taken by Lawson and Indiana’s state police have cast a shadow over the nonprofits, with many stories accusing them of voter fraud.
Varoga said the Oct. 4 police action prevented the group from registering 5,000 to 10,000 additional voters ahead of Indiana’s Oct. 11 voter registration deadline. He’s worried that clerks won’t count some of the 45,000 applications the group had already collected.
So why did state officials take such a dramatic step in interrupting the IVRP’s work just days ahead of the voter registration deadline?
From what we’ve gathered, it’s not because there’s any mass “voter fraud” scheme to steal an election. Instead, it seems the extraordinary investigation is likely to find no more than potential technical violations of obscure regulations for third-party voter registration groups.
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ballots sit on a table as a precinct worker waits for residents in a polling station during the presidential primary vote in South Bend, Indiana on May 3.
This all seems to have started after a county clerk’s office received 10 potentially problematic forms allegedly submitted by IVRP canvassers. In mid-September, Lawson issued a press release accusing IVRP of turning in “forged voter registration applications,” even though the evidence wasn’t clear that those forms were actually forged.
Lawson’s office and the Indiana State Police insist that their investigations are separate. Valerie Warycha, deputy chief of staff and communications director for Lawson, said the office had no prior knowledge of the police action on Oct. 4.
“At the onset of the state police investigation they told her they were going to conduct an investigation. They will not brief us on the details of their investigation until the end,” Warycha said. She also said that despite Lawson’s talk of “nefarious” actors, she never directly accused the group of voter fraud.
“She never said fraud or accused anyone of fraud ― including the Indiana Voter Registration Project,” Warycha said. “I am not sure why they are so defensive. Have they done something wrong?”
Despite the public shaming from state officials, IVRP was following the law when it turned in the forms ― even if they were fraudulent.
Individuals conducting voter registration drives are required to turn in each and every voter registration application they receive, even those they believe may not be legitimate. Many states have similar protections in place to make sure organizations are not filtering out voters based on their political party. Bill Buck, a spokesman for Patriot Majority USA, said that IVRP canvassers worked with officials and “flagged applications it thought might have omissions or other problems and asked the clerks to examine them as part of their standard review.”
Sounds responsible, right? But here’s where it gets tricky. Indiana law requires that a person who receives a voter registration application they have “reason to believe” is false, fictitious or fraudulent submit the application “with a statement sworn or affirmed to under the penalties for perjury, setting forth the reasons why the person believes the application may be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”
That requirement isn’t mentioned in the voter registration drive flyer published on the Indiana secretary of state’s website, but it is mentioned in a voter registration drive guide published by one Indiana county. A state police official said that part of the investigation is looking at whether IVRP canvassers submitted affidavits when they believed an application was fraudulent.
“You’ve got to comply with all aspects of the law ― not just the part of the law that you like,” Capt. David Bursten, a spokesman for the Indiana State Police, said when he pointed The Huffington Post to that statute.
Asked if IVRP had failed to submit affidavits, Bursten said that’s one piece of the investigation. “We would have no reason for doing this investigation unless there were indications that there are potential violations of state law,” he said.
The Indiana State Police said they have more than two dozen officers working on this case. But it doesn’t take too much effort to figure out that IVRP didn’t submit any affidavits.
“To my knowledge, we did not submit any affidavits,” says Buck, the Patriot Majority USA spokesman. “Canvassers did not know with certainty that the information on any forms was false or fraudulent.”
And it gets more complicated. Under the law, the state police don’t seem to have a role in an investigation into a potential fraudulent voter registration form. Instead, it is up to the county election board to investigate before turning any findings over to a prosecutor.
TASOS KATOPODIS/Getty Images
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (R) and Indiana Governor Mike Pence (L) take the stage during a campaign rally at Grant Park Event Center in Westfield, Indiana in July.
What makes a form fraudulent depends on who you ask. To the county officials who initially called in the state police, it was missing or inaccurate information. But IVRP could not determine whether those inaccuracies were an attempt at fraud or simple human error. Lawson, it seems, is now leaning toward the latter.
“It’s very possible that because of heightened activity this year that many of those changes are changes that the individual made,” Lawson told the Associated Press on Thursday, walking back her initial comments. “That should give Indiana voters the comfort that we are vigilant and we are protecting their rights and the elections here are not rigged.”
State Democrats condemned Lawson’s earlier language as “inflammatory” since she claimed thousands of fraudulent applications had been found but did not release an exact number. But Varoga thinks that comments from other Republicans in an IndyStar story caused her to soften her language.
“The only reason she would walk it back is because members of her own party must have told her she was being reckless,” he said.
The idea that police officers could target a voter registration drive aimed at black voters doesn’t look too good for the state. One registration worker told The New Republic that state police were repeatedly trying to get her to say that the voter registration group set quotas for canvassers and paid them per voter registration received, an allegation the group says is simply untrue.
Voter fraud is incredibly rare. In fact, there’s a greater chance of someone getting struck by lightning than of in-person fraud occurring. A 2014 study from Loyola University analyzed 14 years of voting and found 241 fraudulent ballots out of one billion cast, and just 31 that were potential instances of in-person voter fraud.
But claims of voter fraud and demonization of black voter registration drives have been a component of election cycles long before Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump started warning about “rigged” elections.
Doug Carter, the head of the state police, said the investigation will likely go past Election Day. He denied that Gov. Mike Pence (R) ― the man who appointed him to his job and Trump’s running mate ― had any involvement in an investigation that Pence has mentioned on the campaign trail. (Bursten, the police spokesman, told HuffPost that Carter did not make the decision to launch an investigation into IVRP).
“I wish people could know Mike Pence like I do,” Carter, a Republican donor, said.
The Justice Department, which does not typically say whether it has opened up a voting rights investigation into a particular jurisdiction, declined to comment.
Hillary Clinton is done with Donald Trump.
Using her most dismissive language of the campaign — “I don’t even think about responding to him anymore” — Clinton said Saturday she is now more focused on electing other Democrats in the final days of the 2016 campaign than her Republican opponent.
“As we’re traveling in these last 17 days we’re going to be emphasizing the importance of electing Democrats down the ballot,” Clinton told reporters aboard her campaign plane.
It was the surest declaration of confidence yet from a candidate and a campaign that enters the home stretch in so commanding a position that they are redirecting cash and manpower to traditionally red states, including Arizona, Missouri, Indiana and Georgia.
Clinton delivered a preview of her coming rhetorical focus at a rally in Pittsburgh, as she excoriated Republican Sen. Pat Toomey for standing with Trump and sought to saddle Toomey with some of Trump’s most incendiary remarks.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-non-response-230195#ixzz4Nt47qs2G
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
@bobsal u1553115,
that could be a dangerous move, Toomey is liked and respected an McGinty is really an airhead. She used to be in charge of the ENvironmental Control in the state and her ideas were, kinda wacky
@bobsal u1553115,
I saw that the night Pence talked about having election investigation in his state, wondered about it. My sister lives in Indiana, she is about to lose it she is so surrounded by Trump/Pence supporters at her work place and in social settings. Apparently she is big on twitter, I haven't ever really used Twitter or face book, listening to her, I am glad I don't.
@farmerman,
I think trivializing him is good idea. I think his support is weak enough that responding to him only legitimizes him. In the debates she pretty much used him to debate himself. And she scored points selling her policies.
I think he may also be the best campaigner to campaign against himself. All she got to do is keep sane and sell her program. I think she's done very well in this campaign, especially considering the bagage she carried into the Primaries. I admit: I might have voted for Trump over her if the election were held cold last year.
I think she pretty much put her Presidential campaign on hold and is now concentrating on down ticket candidates. I think she will be very helpful. And successful.
@revelette2,
I don't use twitter or Facebook. Here in Tea Party, Texas, I am surprised how many people glued to Trump are how leaning Hillary.
@revelette2,
Quote:◾Trump is getting only about 80 percent of the Republican vote, whereas candidates typically finish at about 90 percent of their party’s vote or above.
80% means women are also supporting Trump.
For a party that have promoted "family values" sure has lost its way with Trump. I find 80% of the republican vote to be much too high; it only proves their values are sellable and didn't mean much to begin with.
How does republican women vote for him? It boggles.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/republican-women-supporting-trump-ashamed-article-1.2822728
