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With the mind fogging meme of “Russian Influence,” we are avoiding a fact-based analysis of the 2016 election at our own peril.

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
Sir John Harington 1561-1612  -  (Also credited with being the inventor of the flush toilet.)

Tragedy, Comedy and Farce All Rolled Into One

The official mythic revisionism of the recent US electoral debacle now seems to be settling firmly into place: Putin did it – the outcome was a result of ‘Russian influence.’

One can see how the Russian Influence Mind Fogging Meme might be mutually convenient for the elites of both parties to unite behind. 

For the Dems it deflects attention away from their terminal corruption and incompetence.

For the GOP it deflects attention away from their gargantuan election theft apparatus, patiently assembled by the ruthless radical right-wing billionaires over the past decades . 

Washington, DC – Three activists with Democracy Spring disrupted Congress today, issuing a citizens’ objection to the Electoral Vote count. They were detained and arrested by Capitol Police after standing up in the House chamber protesting massive voter suppression and Russian interference in the election. The interruption of the joint session took place after members of the House objected to nine different state vote counts.

“I will do what I must to defend our democracy.” said Tania Maduro, an organizer with Democracy Spring who took part in the protest. “I object to this Electoral Vote. Hundreds of thousands of American votes, especially those cast by people of color, were suppressed. We need a One person, One vote democracy.”

The Russian election hack may be a “red herring” so to speak. Visions of a new Cold War and appeals to Mother Russia aside (see this issue’s cover), the real problem is private, partisan, for-profit vendors secretly programming the computer hardware and software used in our elections.

Why is this so difficult to see? In Ohio, the Right-to-Life movement has long been active in voter registration databases, ePolling books, central tabulator and computer voting machine maintenance through companies like Triad and GovTech.

When dozens of computer security experts like Alex Halderman, professor at the University of Michigan, tell us that our elections are easily hackable, why don’t we believe them?

So Russians aside, let’s look at the history of computer voting in the U.S.

To understand the history of voting machines, we need to go back to the beginning of the Cold War. In 1950, the Bureau of Social Science Research (BSSR) appeared at American University. In 1953, it became a non-profit entity heavily involved with the CIA.

I recently stopped by a smoke shop on North High Street to visit a friend. From floor to ceiling, colorful glass pipes – small and large – graced expansive shelves. Several cost more than $1,000. Accessories aimed at every taste aligned well-lit display cases. It was a smorgasbord of everything weed, except for, well, the cannabis. I felt as though I had time traveled and arrived in the future. It wasn’t that long ago (2003) that Tommy Chong spent nine months in prison for selling this kind of glassware. My, how things have changed.

From this perspective, I look back on 2016: how far things have come. Will this contentious year mark the plant’s coming of age or when pendulum of progress swung back the other way?

Jill Stein’s multi-state presidential recount was unprecedented. The idea originated from a group of computer scientists represented by attorney John Bonifaz, who after analyzing the U.S. computerized voting system found it to be vulnerable to hacking and manipulation. Social scientists and statisticians deemed some of the 2016 election results to be improbable. Election integrity volunteers and attorneys stepped up to help sort it out.

Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, agreed to ask for recounts in three states: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The donation page went online the afternoon before Thanksgiving. The recount was quickly financed in a few weeks by 150,000 small donors at the grassroots level across the political spectrum.

But if you were watching Fox News or reading Facebook during the recount you would think Stein, with a suspicious and nefarious agenda, was at best working undercover for the Clinton campaign or at worst, involved in a political payola campaign scam to enrich herself. 

Indeed, it is the new legislative dark age in Ohio as Donald Trump awaits his coronation. The barbarian hordes that are sacking our state were unleashed by other forces prior to the new emperor. It was Obama’s feds that decided to pull the deepest, darkest oil and gas from underneath our state and allow the motherfrackers to vandalize the Wayne National Forest, Ohio’s only national forest.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opened its online auction on December 13 to lease the first 1600 acres of the pristine forest. The toxic plundering and pillaging begins with a minimum bid of $2 per acre. If it goes poorly and we get the minimum, at least we’ll be up a whopping $3200 for drinking radioactive sludge. Setting the lowest possible bar for government policy, BLM District Manager Dean Gettinger said “The project does not violate any federal, state, local or tribal law or requirement imposed for the protection of the environment.” So, bring your more than 900 toxic and secretive chemical compounds and suck radioactive wastewater from the bowels of the earth.

At the final stage before beginning what would have been a lengthy and costly jury trial, a plea deal was reached yesterday when Franklin County prosecutors dropped two of the three charges against Tynan Krakoff, a lead organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ). Krakoff pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a 4th degree misdemeanor. He was sentenced to forty hours of community service and a $250 fine plus court fees.

Prosecutors dropped the other two misdemeanor charges: failure to obey a police officer and pedestrian in the roadway. Before taking the plea deal, Krakoff was facing a maximum penalty of one year in county jail or $2,000 in fines.

Krakoff was arrested on July 21 near the Division of Police building in downtown Columbus. That protest was organized by SURJ in collaboration with People’s Justice Project. Over 150 marched in the street without a permit, demanding justice for the police killing of Henry Green. Krakoff was the only protester arrested.

The American people deserve to know that the outcome of this election is actually valid

I am tired of hearing the pundits say that the election is over and there is nothing we can do when there are significant questions raised by the recounts that have been going on in Michigan Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well issues raised in a recent suit seeking a recount in Florida.

Hillary Clinton has garnered almost 3 million more popular votes than Donald Trump. The polls and exit polls in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania showed Clinton was the winner. The   recount efforts by the Stein campaign have exposed that many votes remained uncounted at the time these States were called for Trump and raised many concerns about the validity of the outcome before the CIA reported the intent of the Russians to influence the results of the election.  Under these circumstances it is absolutely imperative that before the electors are certified and the votes of the Electoral College counted there be a full recount and investigation into potential hacking in these States.

The article is contained in the attached PDF document.