Hon. Barbara Lee / US House of Representatives & Solartopia & Rolling Stone – 2017-01-07 21:26:40
Special to Environmentalists Against War
Statement From Congresswoman Lee
On Voter Disenfranchisement and the Challenge of Electoral Votes
Hon. Barbara Lee / US House of Representatives
WASHINTON, D.C. (January 6, 2017) – Today Congresswoman Barbara Lee joined with Representatives Sheila Jackson-Lee, Maxine Waters, Raúl Grijalva, Jim McGovern, Pramila Jayapal and Jamie Raskin in formally challenging the certification of the electoral votes of several states and released the following statement:
“During this presidential election cycle, hundreds of thousands of minority voters were disenfranchised before and on Election Day. It’s unconscionable that more than 50 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, people of color are still denied their constitutional right to cast a ballot.
“The use of malfunctioning voting machines, the restriction of provisional ballots, the improper purging of voter rolls, and the widely reported incidents of intimidation and misinformation at the polls amount to widespread efforts to disenfranchise and suppress voters across the country.
“Additionally, I am gravely concerned by the overwhelming evidence showing Russia interfered with our election. History has shown us that democracy is fragile. It is our duty as members of Congress to protect the integrity of our electoral process. This starts with expanding access to the ballot box and defending our elections from enemies both domestic and foreign.
“The people of the 13th Congressional district elected me to speak for them in Congress. In the face of widespread disenfranchisement and reports of Russian interference with our election, I formally challenged electoral vote certifications during today’s Joint Session of Congress.”
Congresswoman Lee is a member of the Appropriations Committee, Vice Chair of the Steering & Policy Committee, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus and a Senior Democratic Whip. She serves as chair of the Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty, Income Inequality and Opportunity.
Trump’s Stolen Election: Disenfranchisement and Computer Maniplutation
Solartopia
Activist/Historian Harvey Wasserman has called for California to set itself apart from Donald Trump’s America by installing a totally transparent electoral system and converting 100% to renewable energy.
Speaking in Santa Monica, Wasserman says the recent national election in which Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 2.8 million ballots but still won in the Electoral College was a travesty, which California must and can overcome.
He says that problems inherent in the Electoral College, and electronic voting machines in key states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida, were used to help flip the election.
Informed by the key findings of investigative reporter Greg Palast, of the Guardian and Rolling Stone Magazine, Wasserman adds that the selection of Trump was perpetrated with the mass disenfranchisement of more than a million of Black, Hispanic, Asian-American and Muslim voters. As reported by Palast, a computer program called “Cross Check” was used by some 30 Republican Secretaries of State to strip more than a million voters from the 2016 voter rolls. “This kind of corrupt election theft must be eliminated from California, which, as 10% of the national population, can establish a model democracy that can make a difference,” Wasserman says.
All of these problems, plus the recent alleged election hacking by Russia, makes hand counting ballots more clearly necessary than ever. Neither California nor the US would be alone in returning to hand-counted ballots. According to Election Justice USA 59 countries, including advanced industrialized nations such as Germany, Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and Spain, now have returned to purely hand-counted, paper ballot voting systems.
Wasserman says California should now set itself apart by installing a system of universal automatic voter registration, transparent voter rolls maintained on the internet, a four-day holiday for voting, and universal hand-counted paper ballots.
Solar Power: Another Way for California to Lead the Country
Wasserman add that California can lead the nation by becoming totally energy independent using 100% renewable sources. Some 75,000 Californians now work in the solar industry, plus thousands more in wind and geothermal, as opposed to roughly 1,000 at the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor, which must be shut immediately to avoid a major catastrophe caused by a probable earthquake along the San Andreas, San Gregorio, Hosgri, San Simeon and/or numerous other earthquake fault lines. Diablo is surrounded by about a dozen of them. As at Fukushima, Diablo is dangerously vulnerable to meltdowns and explosions which would spew untold quantities of deadly radiation into the bio-sphere.
“The health, safety, ecological and economic future of California depend on shutting the Diablo reactors before a seismic shock turns them to radioactive rubble and sends an apocalyptic radioactive cloud down the coast and into Los Angeles, threatening millions,” says Wasserman.
“A current agreement to close the plant allows it to operate nine more years, which is an insane gamble with the health and safety of countless living beings, for whose destroyed lives Diablo’s owners are not legally liable.”
Wasserman says California, the world’s sixth largest economy, should follow the lead of Germany, with the world’s fourth largest economy, in converting to 100% renewable energy and a “Solartopian” future.
“Diablo Canyon is a failed money-losing gun pointed at the heart of California’s future. It makes global warming worse, threatens our population, harms the environment and could quickly destroy California’s economy.
“The employment, ecological and economic well-being of California rely on going 100% solar, and we need to do it as quickly as possible,” says Wasserman. Wasserman’s remarks come in anticipation of a January 7th meeting in Santa Monica, where he will speak in conjunction with Rolling Stone investigative reporter Greg Palast, election rights activist Judy Alter, and more.
Harvey Wasserman is author or co-author of some 20 books and is a co-founder of America’s grassroots election protection and No Nukes movements.
Rolling Stone Expose:
The GOP’s secret scheme begins purge
of a million minority voters from voter rolls
Greg Palast / Rolling Stone
SAN FRANCISCO (August 24, 2016) — Donald Trump is right — the election IS rigged. And it’s his buddies who are rigging it. Rolling Stone has unearthed a confidential list of MILLIONS of voters who are marked to be purged, up to a million at risk by November. Who? Mostly, voters of color, i.e. Democrats.
On Friday, Rolling Stone will release on newsstands, “The GOP’s Secret War on Voters,” a year’s-long investigation by Greg Palast and a team of experts exposing a scheme by 29 Republican state voting officials to remove voters, a program directed by ultra-right Trump operative Kris Kobach, Secretary of State of Kansas.
Taking off from Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that “people are voting many, many times,” GOP officials are targeting voters who are allegedly voting or registered in two states and can therefore vote a second time in November. While voting twice is a felony crime, and less than 6 voters have been convicted of this crime, the GOP purge operation is removing tens of thousands of innocent voters as you read this.
Palast obtained the lists — kept “confidential” by states on grounds these millions are criminal suspects. According to database experts who have statistically analyzed the lists, the program is “dangerous” and “seriously biased against minorities.” Already, the swings states with tight Senate races, Ohio, North Carolina and Arizona are quietly removing voters through this racially poisonous purge operation.
Note: Palast filmed his investigation in real time — and both video and still images are available.
Palast is famed for exposing on BBC TV, in The Guardian and in Rolling Stone how Katherine Harris removed thousands of Black men from the voter rolls of Florida in 2000, falsely tagging them “felons.”
His investigations for Rolling Stone and the British news outlets have been turned into a feature-length documentary, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: a Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits.
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