They seem to do that all the time.

Dear God, we are so screwn.

Democratic politicians are just as ambitious as Republican politicians, it's because the historical Democratic positions on labor, higher minimum wage... are counter to the desires of their big donors. That is why so many label them spineless Democrats, they are expected to give in by their donors to get and stay in office. We need Publicly Funded Elections, and ending campaign contributions, Super PACs, and the revolving door.

(checks morning headlines)

Oh. Never mind.

Do we now have the Demopublican (or Republocratic if you prefer) party, paid for by the wealthy? The powers that be playing each side (D&R) off one another every four years to give us the illusion of choice. All the while the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer.

All the while, wealth inequality increases, underemployment/unemployment increases. We are scammed by our health system, and forced to support an unsustainable military industrial complex and on it goes, on it goes. Greed and the desire for power fueling the machine.

Historically, such systems have eventually collapsed of their own weight and lead to either decay or revolution.

Have you seen how militarized the police have become? A revolution won't stand a chance unless it is massive & I just don't see that many people caring yet.

We can't afford what we are spending and the plans are to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid rather than reign in the Military budget or do something simple like actually negotiating drug prices with big pharma. Even the plans on rebuilding infrastructure depend on giving corporations a tax holiday and then a permanent lowering of taxes rather than forcing closure of tax loopholes and building infrastructure on the up and up.

And on it goes until putrification sets in.

We always have the option to go in a different direction, but that path is never taken. Privatize profits and public losses.

Why there are people who don't bother to vote.

Taking it back from Wall Street, for instance.

What did you expect?

Trump spent millions of his own money running for President. He wasn't going to just lie down and let Jill Stein, of all people, take it away from him.

Anyhow, it's a moot point. Thanks to last night's 3-2 Michigan Supreme Court decision, the recount that never was never will be.

I keep wondering how long we allow these bullies
to operate?

It's just part of the political landscape now. Just something more for the Dems to roll over for.

Never my president

The only way people will believe stuff this (if even) is if they have hard video proof.

for the past eight years.

"Attorney General" Bill Schuette has been NOTHING but the General Counsel of the Republican party for his entire term of office--- so they ought to fucking pay for it.

His lawsuit against the recount was only the latest ideological skullduggery emerging from that office. Every decision he makes regarding ANY and ALL matters of "law", are based upon right-wing ideology.

This is massive!

I lived in the metro Detroit area for much of my life. This recount has been covered extensively in our local press all week, so the following is my understanding of what happened.

First off, for those not familiar, elections are run and managed by local election boards run by elected officials. In my adult lifetime, every elected office in Detroit has been held by Democrats; generally there are no Republicans even running in the primaries. While blaming Snyder and Schuette may be popular, that is not who caused this to happen.

While mistakes due to human error can and did happen in isolated areas across the state, it was discerning to note that 60% of the Detroit precincts were disqualified from the recount due to election day irregularities. There is a somewhat archaic Michigan law from 1954 that disqualifies a ballot box from being recounted if the totals of recorded votes doesn't match the poll book. Apparently there were a couple of close elections in the early 50's and this law was intended to avoid the potential for ballot box stuffing by corrupt election workers. Unfortunately, that means that simple human error could also disqualify a precinct from being recounted as well. NOTE: this doesn't mean the votes were not counted, it just means that the totals from election night were used in those instances

Why were there specifically so many in a couple areas like Detroit and Flint? While I don't have inside knowledge, from what I have read in the local press, this situation clearly was the result of poorly trained and supervised local election workers.


If the election workers uncover these type of issues, they can be corrected at the end of the night before the boxes are sealed and the numbers reported. In multiple instances, if a machine appears to not accept a ballot, it is re fed into the optical scanning machine. When that happens, the election workers are required to reset the counter, so a vote isn't recorded more than once. In Detroit, that apparently wasn't done, so it appears that some votes were entered multiple times. At the end of the night, these types of issues were known by the election staff, but apparently they either didn't know what to do or just decided it was a long night and they were going home anyway. (If explanations are made at the time, the votes would have been eligible for recount, but none were made and noted) The county Board of Canvassers still certified those same results also knowing that there were these discrepancies before reporting the totals to the state. With Hillary having a lead in pre election polling, and Detroit voting 90% for Democrats, it may have been that a few votes off didn't really matter and it was "close enough" No one anticipated that there would be a recount initiated by Stein. (If anything, Hillary may have received extra votes in the process)

(I worked as a bank teller for a few years. When the numbers didn't balance at the end of the day, no one went home until it was reconciled)

This falls entirely on the backs of the local elected officials in those cities/counties that recruited and trained the election staff in their areas. While most voters pay attention to the candidates running for president, senators & governors, it is all the other down ticket local offices that often get ignored as people often vote of things like name recognition, yard sign proliferation etc. Hopefully this created enough local embarrassment, that the people in charge in Detroit and Flint will address and correct these problems.

Detroit voters in particular have been very poorly served by corrupt/incompetent local politicians. Most recently, former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (in prison for bribery and corruption), former City Council president Monica Conyers ( just released from prison for bribery) , City council president Charles Pugh ( just convicted of pedophilia) and several others have been forced to resign from office. Not to mention around a dozen school principals all very recently convicted of bribery. Even to go as far as school board member David Murray legally changing his first name to "Reverend" (he is not one) so he would be listed that way on the ballot, which he just won.

(This is not meant to cast any corruption accusations at the people that were in charge for these elections, just pointing out recent history)

And yet:

"I was only aware of a single Green Party attorney plus one law student in my (large) room"