On today’s BradCast, we cover an enormous amount of news, breaking and otherwise, on both the Presidential “recount” story in three different states, as well as the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. And we speak to Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s campaign manager, David Cobb, about the ongoing and “escalating” legal battles and fights for citizen oversight of election results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. [Audio link to show posted at bottom of article.]
First today, the latest on the breaking news over the weekend in the story of the denial of a permit for the controversial pipeline in ND, where thousands of native Americans have been protesting for months against its construction near tribal lands. On Sunday, in a huge victory, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement to Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners that would have allowed them to complete the pipeline by building on disputed land near and beneath Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux’s source of drinking water. The victory, while monumental — even as the protests and violent attempts by law enforcement to stop them have been almost entirely ignored by mainstream corporate media — may be short-lived, depending on legal actions and decisions made by the next President. Desi Doyen joins us for the latest.
At the same time, over the weekend, the corporate media was busy misreporting and misleading the legal maneuvers of Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein, who has dropped just one of the statewide voter-initiated suits demanding a PA “recount”, in favor of a federal filing [PDF] today, on Constitutional grounds, seeking federal intervention for a statewide count and forensic analysis of 100% unverifiable voting systems used there. Stein and her attorneys held a press conference and rally today outside of Trump Tower in Manhattan, to explain the efforts.
Also, a federal judge this morning ordered [PDF] the state of Michigan to being counting ballots today, after successful maneuvers by Team Trump delayed the start of that effort late last week and had hoped to further delay or deny citizen oversight of results entirely. MI’s Attorney General (a Trump supporter) falsely argued in his filing and during an unusual emergency hearing in federal court on Sunday, that the count might endanger the state’s Electoral College votes. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith ordered the counting to begin at noon today, however, finding that any further delay “would likely violate [plaintiffs’] right to vote under the First and Fourteenth Amendments” and that “there is a credible threat to the voters’ right to have a determination made that Michigan’s vote for president was properly tabulated.” The MI GOP has vowed to appeal both the federal and state cases against counting ballots.
My guest today, Stein’s campaign manager David Cobb, the Party’s 2004 Presidential nominee — who, himself, called for the partial statewide count that happened after that year’s Presidential contest in Ohio — joins us to discuss the latest developments in the ongoing counts and court cases in all three states, and to explain why Stein and the Green Party “are demanding integrity in the election system.”
In PA, he explains (as we long have as well), that “there is no way to properly verify the DRE — direct recording electronic — equipment, otherwise correctly known as ‘black box voting’. It’s terrible to begin with and they should never be used. … The real gain here is forensic experts getting an opportunity to get their hands on these machines — and that is exactly what we are seeking in all three states — but, in Pennsylvania, in federal court specifically, because of the completely outrageous system of recount provisions in the state.” (To get an idea how horrific they are, check out my interview with VotePA’s Marybeth Kuznik from last week, or read today’s filing [PDF] in federal court.)
“I really want to underscore,” he tells me, “we are escalating the fight into federal court in Pennsylvania precisely because the Pennsylvania laws are so horrible.”
“These black box voting machines are hackable,” he continues. “If any nefarious individual can get their hands on them, there are ways to manipulate them. That’s the reason it’s so important to have these forensic studies done. So that we can literally verify the vote. What is Donald Trump afraid of?”
We also discuss the efforts of the Green Party going back to Cobb’s own attempted “recount” in Ohio, when two top election officials in the state’s largest county, Cuyahoga (Cleveland), were found guilty and sentenced to the maximum sentence in prison for having rigged the 2004 Presidential “recount”.
“We are demanding that every vote counts, so count every vote! It’s just that simple. At the end of the day, if we do not have confidence in the election system, we cannot have confidence in our government itself,” he argues.
Finally, speaking of counting votes (or not), North Carolina’s abhorrent Republican Gov. Pat McCory has announced he is giving up his own battle for a statewide recount (which we supported) and has conceded the race to the state’s Democratic candidate Attorney General Roy Cooper, becoming the first Governor to lose a re-election bid in state history…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_DavidCobbRecount2016_DAPLBlocked_120516.mp3]
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From The Guardian: MI vote tallies do not match… but so many MI machines were broken and so many ballot containers have been found compromised that a recount may not be possible.
From the Palmer Report: Some PA officials — in the best tradition of “Working Towards the Trumpster” — are each doing whatever they can to stop precinct recounts by any
means necessary… this includes flatly refusing to accept valid recount affidavits.
Also from Palmer Report: What would a botched election be without some of Wisconsin’s Waukesha county election officials pulling out all the stops to make damn sure there’s no public oversight of any “recount.”
I had to publish PBS’s astonishingly weak coverage of Jill Stein’s event today on YouTube.
I called it “Jill Stein’s 14 seconds of fame on PBS“.
Hope America didn’t have to hit the bathroom during that.
My YouTube commentary:
It’s December 5th 2016, and a judge has ruled in favor of Jill Stein’s effort to have an actual hand count of the votes cast in Michigan, after the attorney general there, (who is a Trump supporter and a former chairman of the Jeb Bush campaign for president), filed to stop a recount there.
A huge victory for voters!
70% percent more under-votes were counted by the corporate voting machines in Detroit there, then have ever been counted before, which would I believe would indicate that the voting machines thought people stood in line in Detroit, most likely for hours, and decided not to vote for either presidential candidate. We just can’t know that until we count the votes by hand, and besides, voting machines can’t think.
This corporate machine voting nonsense is just crazy to me, and I think the rest of the world too.
PBS’s “News Hour” didn’t even mention the recount in the lead stories segment of the program. It was tucked in between the usual world tragedies, and Trump’s “democratic” and peaceful transition into the presidency, while appointing people to many important government positions which they have no business being in. That’s just my opinion, but I’m right. 🙂
Here’s the entire PBS “news” hour from tonight.
Overheard family listening to local news
(Fox 59 in Indiana) as they covered the
first of the post-election mini-Nuremberg
rallies in Ohio.
They showed Trump talking of pulling together
and unifying the country for a minute.
But Fox 59 omitted any mention of the standard Trump 60 Minute Hate that followed his very short speech on unity. You know the drill…. “LOCK HER UP!” etc etc etc etc etc.
They then showed the protesters against Trump at the rally… obviously intending for the audience
to believe that the evil protesters were objecting to Trump’s attempts at peacemaking.
This wasn’t bad reporting… this was a lie.
A lie presented as news.
That doesn’t sound credible zapkitty.
Why do I believe it? 🙁
Why don’t I believe the electors are going to save us?
I have a little tiny YouTube channel with 22 posts.
The one I put up two weeks ago is nearing 8,000 views. I have no idea how that happened, but I like Stephen Colbert too, and I guess people like to be frightened.
Colbert Puts Himself On The New Enemies List
The ads aren’t mine. When you put up copyrighted content on YouTube, ads, magically, show up.
I hope CBS is making enough money off me to not care. I, sure as shit, didn’t make a dime, but that’s OK because I would feel dirty making money off somebody else’s effort, and I’m a huge fan of Colbert.
This is in the federal complaint: “For a sophisticated party, hacking these voting machines is child’s play” (paragraph 18).
I’m glad they didn’t put up Pac-Man when I voted. I’m better at Space Invaders.
The “BradCast” is one of my primary news sources. Here, at about 34:30 into the podcast, Brad Friedman conducts an interview with Jill Stein Campaign Manager David Cobb.
The concerns that people have about maintaining the independence of the Green Party, and about the “top down†way in which Jill Stein made her decision to pursue the recount, are absolutely legitimate. On the other hand, the idea that Jill Stein, and David Cobb, are either willing, or unwitting, sheepdogs for the Democratic Party is absurd.
If you want to, truly, understand what Jill Stein is trying to accomplish with these recounts, listen to Cobb’s explanations – It is all about election integrity and voting justice: “Either we count all the votes, or our democracy is a sham.” It is that simple.
Steve
Stephen A. Justino
General Counsel, Jill Stein 2012
Chair, Colorado Move to Amend
Zapkitty:
“… the first of the post-election mini-Nuremberg rallies in Ohio. ”
An excellent description. The updated version of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL cannot be far behind.
I was impressed by the following from U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith’s order granting plaintiffs’ motion for temporary restraining order in the Michigan case. (Emphasis added):
Bradblog has been good about remaining non-partisan, as it should.
But just as the standard GOP policies of voter suppression needed to be acknowledged and countered in the battle for election integrity, so does the severe amplification of those policies by the movement that’s eaten the GOP… whatever it winds up being called this time around.
I heard they are trying to do a recount in FL due to the optical scanners which I believe read the votes…I think it was filed yesterday for whatever good it will do…