Friday, January 25, 2013

RNC Chair Priebus backs 'Grand Theft Election" Changes to Electoral College

How do Republicans Plan to commit "Grand Theft Election?"

How the Republican election-rigging plan works 
This Republican Plan would reallocate electoral votes so that a maximum of two electoral votes would go to the overall winner of several key blue states. The lion’s share of the state’s electors would then be allocated one by one to the presidential candidate who won each individual congressional district. (see Figure 1) Thus, in a blue state such as Michigan—which President Obama won by nearly 10 points in 2012—Gov. Romney would have received 9 of the state’s 16 electoral votes because he received more votes than the president did in nine of the state’s congressional districts. In other words, the Republican candidate would receive more than half of the state’s electoral votes despite being overwhelmingly defeated in the state as a whole 
Cashing in on gerrymandering 
The Republican Plan does not just apply one set of rules in red states and another set of rules in blue states—it also takes advantage of profoundly gerrymandered congressional maps in order to stack the deck even more for Republican presidential candidates. In 2012 Democratic House candidates received nearly 1.4 million more votes than their Republican counterparts. Yet Republican candidates currently hold a 33-seat majority in the House, due in large part to the fact that Republican state legislatures controlled the redistricting process in several key states. Indeed, Republicans were so successful in their efforts to lock in their control of the House of Representatives through gerrymandering that Democratic House candidates would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to receive the barest majority in the House. Republicans aren’t particularly shy about touting the success of their gerrymanders either: The Republican State Leadership Committee released an extensive memo boasting about how they used gerrymanders to lock down GOP majorities in the House.
Not only has the RNC but would bet Karl Rove and Koch Brothers come up with a plan to put a Republican in the White House in 2016.  They to win by changing the rules of the game based on their extreme gerrymandering in states the GOP won in 2010.  By all accounts, there is no way they should have won control of the Governor's office and State Legislatures in places like MI and PA.  How much voter fraud was involved?

For years I have been buying into the Democrat voter fraud koolaid but lo and behold, it is mostly in the Republican Party as I have learned over the past year.  It took a combination of a horrible candidate with Romney, Rove way over stepping, and the Koch Brothers Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity to wake me up what was happening with the GOP going way hard right, cheating, and lying.  The lies coming out against President Obama by the conservative media made me join Republicans for Obama.  Most had no basis in fact as I learned the more I researched.

Now Republicans want to steal the Presidential election in blue states with allocating electoral votes to their gerrymandered Congressional districts while keeping red states the same -- no change.  Words despicable, underhanded, cheating, unethical, and jerks come to mind.  In order to make it work, the Koch Brothers RNC Chair Priebus had to have all battleground states on board but his grandiose plan to steal 2016 has suffered two setbacks in Battleground states -- one in Virginia and now in Florida.

Looks like the RNC Chair Priebus plan to steal the Presidential election in Virginia at least is now failing as Republican Senators and now Governor McDonnell is saying no.  Yet this Koch Brothers bought and paid for Chair was reelected to head the RNC.
Virginia state Sen. Ralph Smith (R) said today that a Republican plan to rig the next presidential election by changing the way electoral votes are counted is a “bad idea” and that he would oppose it. Smith joins state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (R-VA), who told ThinkProgress earlier this week that “I am generally not in favor right now of the bill and it’s very unlikely that I will vote for it in full committee or the Senate floor.” As the Virginia Senate is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Smith and Vogel’s opposition is likely sufficient to kill this election-rigging scheme in this state.

Update
Now that it’s clear the bill is dead in Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has announced he opposes the move.
Another Battleground State, Florida, has weighed in with its Republican Speaker of the House Weatherford opposing the idea:
Florida, the largest swing state, won’t go along with changing the Electoral College if Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford has any say (and he has a major say).
“To me, that’s like saying in a football game, ‘We should have only three quarters, because we were winning after three quarters and the beat us in the fourth,” Weatherford, a Republican, told the Herald/Times. “I don’t think we need to change the rules of the game, I think we need to get better.”
Fellow Republican leader, Senate President Don Gaetz, wasn’t favorable to the plan either. He said he would prefer a more progressive proposal: abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with a national popular vote. Said Gaetz, “The farmer standing in his field in North Dakota should be just as important as the factory worker in Ohio.” 
Will PA, OH, MI, and WI go ahead with their plans or has the outcry by not only Democrats but a lot of Republicans making them stop and think?  Know that this will be the last straw for many Republicans if this is adopted including this one.  Will not stay in a Party that cheats right before our eyes and that is exactly what we are seeing.  They don't even try to hide it anymore but come right out and say it.

As for the Democrats fighting this action, they need to make sure that Majority Leader Harry Reid is no where near their plans to stop this Grand Theft Election after he caved to Minority Leader McConnell on the filibuster.  You want to know how dumb Reid looks, McConnell's campaign sent out a fundraising email:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) campaign is touting what it characterizes as the senator's work to stop filibuster reform in a new fundraising pitch that proclaims, "We beat the liberals. 
"A group of the Senate's most liberal senators, fueled by left-wing groups like MoveOn, have been pushing a dangerous scheme to change the rules of the United States Senate and fundamentally alter the checks and balances of our system," the email, written by campaign manager Jesse Benton, reads. 
He goes on to declare that McConnell "stopped that scheme dead in its tracks."
Benton adds that McConnell "is willing to work with his colleagues across the aisle when it is in the best interest of Kentucky and our country," but warns that doing away with the filibuster would allow what he characterizes as the worst excesses of liberalism to flourish.

"Can you imagine what the left might cook up with that kind of unchecked power? We’d be sure to see a litany of new anti-coal regulations, tax hikes, anti-Second Amendment bills, forced unionization bills and crazy new deficit spending. And that would just be the tip of the iceberg," he writes. 
He goes on to make a plea to "help me give him a little pat on the back right now" by way of a small donation.
Have said for a long time that I thought Harry Reid was bought and paid for by not only the Mormon Church, but NRA and oil and gas.  Looks like the NRA might have pulled some strings to get Reid to back off having a talking filibuster which was fine during the Reagan years but now Senators don't have to talk just put a hold on something.  Harry Reid sold out and now looks like a fool.

We need new leadership in Congress from both parties as the group we have in charge today are not working for the American people but to line their campaign coffers and pockets the way it looks.  They are so afraid of being primaried or removed from leadership they will do anything to keep their job tossing the American people under the bus.

In 2014 think long and hard before voting for anyone even near the Tea Party or someone who has been in office for years.  We need new, honest people to run for seats in Congress who are not bought and paid for before they get to DC and will not be influenced by lobbyists if there are such candidates out there with the nastiness of today's elections.  We can make it happen if we work together to support better candidates and make sure they have all the on the ground support they need.  We can defeat the bought and paid for candidates with honest men and women.  Now is the time to start finding their candidates and offering your support.

It is time for real change and it starts with 2014!

1 comment:

  1. With Mittens announcing that he's going to be around for awhile, one can only begin to suspect this is the beginning of yet ANOTHER failed Romney attempt to make Mrs. America the First Lady. I figure the only way he could even get anywhere near a few electoral college votes is by cheating. Oh wait, he did that last time, didn't he?

    Please start stocking up on wooden stakes, garlic wreaths, crosses, holy water and blessed salt. Be afraid, be very afraid.

    SJR
    The Pink Flamingo

    ReplyDelete