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| Hat-tip to Kevin Henkes |
As well as the uncertainty caused by re-counting votes, there will also be a question mark hanging over the Electoral College vote on 19 December. It appears there's a possibility that some Electoral Voters might decide, or be persuaded, to vote against the candidate who was declared winner in their state, in an attempt to ensure that Donald Trump would not become president. How likely it is that such votes would swing the presidency from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton - or even be the cause of neither of those candidates reaching the necessary 270 votes to be declared president - isn't clear. Back in England we'd describe such mucky, messy muddles by declaring: "What a flippin' dog's breakfast this is!"3) Are politics the real motivation? If this recount were truly about the election’s integrity and improving public confidence in the process, why not include recounts in New Hampshire and Nevada — which were states that Clinton won with very narrow margins? In New Hampshire, Clinton won by 2,700 votes — which is the smallest margin of victory in any state. In Nevada, the Hillary Clinton margin of victory was 26,000 votes — far less than the Trump margin of victory in Pennsylvania.
The Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes. Congress may pass a law to change this date.
The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results of the Electoral College vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.
If a State submits conflicting sets of electoral votes to Congress, the two Houses acting concurrently may accept or reject the votes. If they do not concur, the votes of the electors certified by the Governor of the State on the Certificate of Ascertainment would be counted in Congress.
If no Presidential candidate wins 270 or more electoral votes, a majority, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides for the House of Representatives to decide the Presidential election. If necessary the House would elect the President by majority vote, choosing from the three candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by state, with each state having one vote.
If no Vice Presidential candidate wins 270 or more electoral votes, a majority, the 12th Amendment provides for the Senate to elect the Vice President. If necessary, the Senate would elect the Vice President by majority vote, choosing from the two candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by state, with each Senator having one vote...........
I guess the doctor, his predecessor or one of his staff had placed the sign above the appointments desk window as a rather strange way of saying "That's it, yer good for now - need another appointment?" Alternatively implicit in the word also is: "Paid in full." Maybe a polite hint that as well as being an appointments window, this is the window where one pays the piper...I mean doctor. For a heretic like me, though, this oblique hint might as well have been stated in Swahili!In John 19, verse 30, Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished.” In English it may be three words, but in Greek, it’s one word - Tetelesti. When Jesus died on the cross, there were some things that were completed, for the word means paid in full, completed, summed up in essence.
fresno dan (10 Nov 11 32am)
........I really didn’t think Trump could win the presidency, but at least in getting rid of Hillary, Trump is also causing a re-evaluation that is much more critical and open to reality than I thought possible so soon.
Will the dem establishment (i.e., the Clinton foundation) rebound?
I can only hope this is the end of both the conventional dem and repubs….
Tom (10 Nov 10.11am)
I agree that Trump represents a risk.
In terms of what happens when he encounters obstacles/obstructions, I would say look back on what just happened.
Trump almost single-handedly closed the biggest political deal on the planet after successfully facing down opposition of almost incomprehensible magnitude from every quarter — political, media, corporate, Wall Street etc.
If that doesn’t represent one of the most determined accomplishments by anyone in recent history, I don’t know what does.
At the risk of being overly dramatic, Trump took on the world all by himself — and he won.
Same commenter,
Tom at 10.44am)
I was mainly talking about Trump’s accomplishment as a remarkable example of sheer willpower and determination.
As to what happens next, yes, it could get ugly.
However, if he follows through on:
1) Normalizing relations with Russia
2) Reducing military misadventures around the world
3) Killing TPP
and
4) Implementing an infrastructure program
then I think we will already be light years ahead of where we are right now.
fresno dan (10Nov 9.20am)
The Source of our Rage: The Ruling Elite Is Protected from the Consequences of its Dominance Charles Hugh Smith.
Always like Charles Hugh Smith’s links to FRED graphs that irrefutably show the downward slide – uh, I didn’t say that right. I enjoy his use of data to show the point that it is pretty easy to understand why our politics is collapsing – most people are in fact getting poorer. And a very few are getting much richer.
Trump is the beginning of the collapse. I doubt Trump will be very successful at rebuilding, but he is a necessary precursor.
IMHO the repubs are even more “politically correct” than the dems ever were.
Poor Hillary got in a situation where the first repub in history unabashedly said that the country is not great (as opposed to temporary economic difficulties) and had to had to carry the awkward phrase “America never stopped being great”
Just like Nixon had to be the one to go to China, Trump had to be the repub to say this place isn’t so great. – – what with Bush as president and another in the offing.
Trump won’t be able to fix it, but like they say in 12 step programs, the first step is admitting you have a problem. And if Trump fails, Trump opens the resulting brawl to a much wider debate than we have had going on 50 years. Maybe even its NOT JUST a bigger pie inanity we hear so often, but who has been getting to cut the pie???? And maybe the person with the knife isn’t just some nice official (NPL – national pie league referee) who is always scrupulously fair and gives everybody the precise meritocratic earned slice of pie
Remember – Trump at least started the first step: got rid of the Bush and Clinton dynasties….
Vatch (10 Nov 10.12 am)
It’s great that Clinton lost, and it’s a disaster that Trump won.
The Democratic party insiders who torpedoed the Sanders candidacy are responsible for this catastrophe.
grayslady. November 11,3:46 pm
Once Bernie was out of the race, I was convinced Trump would win. There were so many indicators of a Trump victory. This was the year of the anti-establishment candidate–not out of pique, but out of real desperation by millions of Americans. The press (and the Hillary surrogates) tried to shame potential Trump voters as racists and bigots, and Bernie’s voters as anti-capitalists, all the while forgetting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Faced with the choice of unaffordable health care or being called a socialist, thousands of people suddenly found themselves saying, Yeah, I’d rather be a live socialist than a dead capitalist. On the Trump side, he never denigrated blue collar workers, who would be quite content with a decent-paying factory job instead of a white collar high tech job, so they were willing to give him a pass on being politically incorrect. These are very basic issues that polls can’t capture and that newspapers chose to ignore. There were many other indicators, but,again, they couldn’t neatly be placed into the categories that pollsters seem to favor.
Reply ↓
Iowan X. November 11, 6:52 pm
I think you hit the nail on the head. This was a “change” election–they always are after a two-term run by an incumbent in either party–and Hillary was by far the weaker D candidate. The Super-Delegates did not do their jobs. I got an email today from Allen Grayson, saying he did a poll at the end of the campaign, Bernie v. Trump, and it was 56-44 Bernie. That sounds right to me.
Pollyanna-ish, I tried not to give up hope, yet, that Trump as Prez would not be as horrendous as Trump as candidate. His reported cabinet choices soon silenced Pollyanna. Whatever else he does, though, he will be unlikely to get us, and much of the world, into a war with Russia. That, for starters, is not to be sniffed at! I came into this world within months of the start of an horrendous bloody World War, I'd like to leave it (whenever I have to) in a peace that was hard fought for, at great cost to so many.
The S & M Election by Chris HedgesSo.... off to the voting station soon, in my head an old but still relevant song by Leonard Cohen:
Against Voting: "As long as we live we shall have to live together with ourselves" by Arthur Silber at Once Upon A Time
(4 November 2012)
.....These rose colored glasses, that I'm looking through
Show only the beauty, 'cos they hide all the truth,
And they let me hold on to the good times, the good lines....
"I don't disagree with the premise that things might not work out - but our job right now is to try. And to work with the tools at hand.
But we can't just ride the tide to victory. The poets of ancient Greece described the whitecaps on waves as "the manes of Poseidon's horses." It takes millions of horses, moving together, to turn the tide.
We're Poseidon's horses. It's not Obama's tide. It's ours. But it can only turn if we move together."
Three of Wands signifies a time of watching and waiting to discover whether ideas and enterprises will bear fruit - literally from the illustration, waiting for the ships to come in.
10 of Coins denotes wealth and family. The culmination of an enterprise, which has brough success. The illustration shows a couple, their child and elderly relative, and a house, earned or inherited wealth. In this context perhaps the house is a literal house - The White House.
The Fool - The first card of the tarot's major arcana. Astrologically connected to Aries. The start of a cycle. There is an aura of innocent optimism here, that whatever lies ahead, all will be well. There's a feel of inexperience, or a willful ignoring of dangers to come, and blind faith that these can and will be overcome. The illustration tells a story quite clearly. The figure trips along his path happily, unaware of the precipice before him, the dog scampering beside him barks a warning, but the figure remains unperturbed, head thrown back, in confidence that nothing can harm his golden vision. There has to be a certain amount of ego here, and an unwillingness to heed warning signs, yet the overall feel of this card is exciting, optimistic, a new beginning..JPG)
"However, when the tropical zodiac was introduced around the 6th century BC, the point of the Vernal Equinox was not firmly established but variously placed among the early degrees of Aries. Older authorities placed it at the 15th degree, so it is not beyond credibility that a symbolic association attached itself to the region that extended from the 15th degree of Libra, (opposite 15 Aries)as the area of the Sun's seasonal 'death' at the Autumn Equinox. Certainly the name of this traditionally afflicted area suggests some connection with the process of being 'hidden' and certainly, amongst the Egyptians, all things connected with absence from the visible world, (including deceased men and stars disappearing from view, either by falling beneath the western horizon or entering into helical setting), were considered to enter the dark, uncharted region of Duat."
"Via Combusta is specifically a destructive force that can overrule positive focus. Because of this via combusta has been traditionally used by magicians for banishing, bindings, exorcisms and spells of destruction and decay. Whatever is intended or released in a positive and creative way at this time may well find manifestation through a destructive route. This is NOT a time for experimentation and amateur magick."
Judgement - a card of the Major Arcana, and it does set the scene very aptly.
9 of Swords: Worry, doubt, anxiety are indicated. This might relate to negative campaigning, expected to intensify during coming weeks. There are still some unresolved matters regarding Senator Obama's background, which troubled me in the past. His eligibility to hold the position of President of the USA is still in question in some quarters, a judge is currently considering matters relating to this issue. There's room for doubt about some of Obama's past associations too. I chose to push these things to the back of my mind, as being part of his past, perhaps other voters have done the same, bearing in mind the horrendous prospect of 4 more years of Republican rule, as bad as, if not worse than the last eight. The more I listen to Obama though, I'm finding that he is not simply "the lesser of two evils" - I'm convinced that he and Joe Biden would be good for the country. I do wonder what could ensue if Senator Obama were to be found constitutionally ineligible to be President after winning the election. Joe Biden would step in, I suppose, and that's something to be thankful for, but it's pretty certain that unrest among the more fervent Obama supporters could blow up into something very serious. 
6 of Swords: Change of scene, getting over a tough or worrying time, new frame of mind, and best of all - feeling hope again. A traditional "happy ending". Taking the illustration at its literal meaning -sailing (moving) away from danger."The Symbolism of Judgement
The element Fire shows the energy of heaven which shatters structures to unite humanity, and Pluto which shows the required destruction of existing forms before regeneration occurs. Death and destruction are only preludes to rebirth in a new and higher state, as all causes must be transcended. The coffin is life’s structure, within which humanity is trapped, floating on the surface of the unconscious – yet male and female differences must be integrated to form the central child, which is unity. The whole scene is presided over by the winged solar disc of the law of the cosmos.
Divination Meanings
Success despite difficulties which force an about turn. The decision to complete an action leads to the termination of current partnerships. Accomplishing the work of transformation. Changes of position and beliefs."
