November 4, 2016
News and Views
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/posts/1296306597129058?notif_t=notify_me_page¬if_id=1478191506856791
DumpTrump
Occupy Democrats
November 4, 2016
It's about time they faced justice.
POLITICS Trump and Roger Stone Were Just Ordered To Court For Voter Intimidation Tactics
By Grant Stern
Posted on November 3, 2016
Ohio has become the second state – after Nevada – to order the Trump campaign to appear in court and answer charges of voter intimidation and suppression in urban areas.
A federal judge ordered Republican nominee Donald Trump, his longtime political advisor Roger Stone and the Ohio Republican Party into court this week to face charges of violating the Voting Rights Act and the remaining provisions of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which makes it illegal to conspire to deprive citizens of their civil rights, specifically voting rights. Cleveland.com reports:
The order entered Tuesday by U.S. District Judge James Gwin in Cleveland says the defendants’ response must include any objections to an order “limiting voter intimidation” or “limiting people at polling locations who are not authorized poll watchers or outside the polling stations.”
The speed in which Gwin ordered the response, while not necessarily signaling how he feels about the case, shows that the judge is taking the accusations of voter intimidation seriously before Nov. 8 Election Day.
The candidate may use a wink and a nod, but that doesn’t allow anyone to circumvent the federal laws governing elections. The US Constitution places all federal elections under the realm of congressional control, and the Voting Rights Act makes it illegal to intimidate or pressure anyone seeking to exercise their right to vote.
As the lawsuit indicates, even Ohio Republicans are reporting Trump supporters using illegal intimidation tactics in Cuyahoga County, the home of Cleveland’s large minority population:
According to Pat McDonald, the Republican Director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, Trump supporters have already visited the county elections board identifying themselves as poll observers, even though they did not appear to be credentialed as poll observers as required under Ohio law. Indeed, Trump’s fearmongering has caused Cuyahoga County election officials to express concerns of instability on Election Day and to raise the prospect of deploying law-enforcement officials to the polls if necessary to address polling place issues.
Democrats filed suit late Sunday night to enjoin Republicans from efforts which have included fake poll watcher badges and verbal conduct by the Trump campaign and nominee, plus efforts by Roger Stone’s Super PAC to exit-poll minority polling places, when in fact Stone doesn’t run a polling operation and hasn’t during this year’s campaign:
The lawsuit cites several examples of such comments by Trump made in Ohio, including a statement made at an Aug. 22 rally in Akron. “You’ve got to get everybody to go out and watch, and go out and vote,” Trump said at the rally. “And when I say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right?” It also references an unnamed senior Trump campaign official who told Bloomberg News that “we have three major voter suppression operations under way.”
It also takes aim at Stone and a group he controls, Stop the Steal Inc., and seeks to stop them from conducting “exit polling” in nine cities that historically vote Democrat. These include Cleveland, Philadelphia and Las Vegas. Stone said in an emailed statement that the polls his organizations will conduct will be scientific. “We seek only to determine if the election is honestly and fairly conducted and to provide an evidentiary basis for a challenge to the election if that is not the case,” he said in the statement. “I assume the purpose of this bogus lawsuit is to distract from the voter-fraud the Democrats have traditionally engaged in.”
Stone did not provide any evidence to back up his fraud claim.
Ohio isn’t the only battleground state in the fight against Republican dirty tricks at the polls. Lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona are also being fought over the same issues, but with each local problem, such as the 94 vigilante poll watchers Roger Stone has signed up in Arizona for his Super PAC.
The Democratic National Committee is also suing its national counterpart, and just received extensive information about the RNC’s poll watching plans and geographic targeting which is still being held under seal by the federal court. A federal judge is hearing that case in Newark, N.J. tomorrow at 10am and a decision is expected sometime later in the day.
Ironically, the multi-state litigation is happening because the national Republican Party successfully separated state level parties from the 1982 court monitoring agreement, so now the Democratic Party must file new lawsuits in multiple states in addition to the national case. However, two state party chairmen that are also RNC members have become embroiled in the national case, as well as some of the Ohio issues have been cited in the national case against the RNC.
The Ohio federal court has greatly expedited this case, so expect more news before election day about rulings meant to protect the general public from vigilante “ballot security” operations.
Ohio Democrats Lawsuit by Grant Stern on Scribd – SEE WEBSITE. Do read this suit for details of the allegations against them.
I’m so glad that “the feds” are coming down on Trump et al for doing things that have already been ruled illegal, I thought. It’s forward one step and back two, these days.
CONTINUING YESTERDAY’S STORY --
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/coroner-body-found-on-south-carolina-property-where-woman-found-alive-chained-like-a-dog/
Coroner: Body found on S.C. property where woman found alive, "chained like a dog"
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS/AP
November 4, 2016, 2:07 PM
WOODRUFF, S.C. -- A South Carolina coroner says a body has been found on the property where a missing woman was found chained inside a large storage container.
Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger confirmed in an email to CBS News’ Crimesider that investigators are in the “beginning stages of the discovery of one body” on the Woodruff, South Carolina property where deputies responded Thursday after a tip from police investigating the disappearance of an Anderson couple.
toddk3.jpg
Todd Christopher Kohlhepp WSPA
Clevenger said he didn’t immediately have more information.
Sheriff Chuck Wright said the rescued woman told investigators there could be as many as four bodies on the property, but police are still investigating. Wright said it’s possible the case is connected to other missing persons in the area and that authorities may be dealing with a “serial killer.”
Authorities were scouring the nearly 100-acre plot of land and by air, reportedly using a helicopter, an excavator and cadaver dogs. CBS affiliate WSPA reported the dogs “alerted” authorities to several areas on the lot.
Forty-five-year-old Todd Christopher Kohlhepp reportedly owns the property where the woman and the body were discovered and has been charged with kidnapping. He was arrested at his home in Moore after the woman was found. He has a bond hearing scheduled at 2 p.m. Friday.
Wright said the woman, who vanished with her boyfriend more than two months ago, was found alive Thursday morning inside a padlocked 30’ by 15’ metal container on the rural property, chained around her neck “like a dog,” the sheriff said.
The woman told investigators she had been held there against her will for two months. Investigators serving a search warrant there heard her banging from inside the container, Wright said. Her cell phone had at one point pinged on the property before going dead, reported WSPA.
“It was pretty emotional, to say the least,” Wright told reporters. “When she was found, she was chained like a dog – she had a chain around her neck.”
The woman’s boyfriend, 32-year-old Charles Carver, remains missing. The missing case gained national attention after suspicious posts appeared on Carver’s Facebook page that his family suspected were posted by someone else. The page was later taken down.
carver.jpg
Charlie Carver WSPA
Wright wouldn’t discuss whether the woman told them any details about Carver’s whereabouts. Carver’s car was found on the nearly 100-acre plot Thursday, CBS News’ Errol Barnett reported.
Wright said the woman knew Kohlhepp, but couldn’t detail the relationship. He said he didn’t believe the crime was random. Barnett reported the woman cleaned houses for Kohlhepp, who had worked as as a real estate agent and had a pilot’s license in South Carolina.
Kohlhepp was convicted of a 1986 kidnapping in Arizona that landed him on the sex offender registry.
South Carolina’s sex offender registry lists the Arizona offense as the reason Kohlhepp is in the database of sex offenders. It indicates he was a juvenile offender, convicted in 1987 when he was a teenager.
Matching online prison records from Arizona show that Kohlhepp served about 14 years for the felony and was released in 2001.
The Arizona records show the kidnapping happened in November 1986 in the Phoenix area. The records don’t elaborate on the crime, but do list some violations while in prison. The records say he destroyed property and fought on a number of occasions while incarcerated in 1991 and 1988.
There is a great deal of repetition here, as with all continued stories like this, but it is such a spellbinding narrative that I read it all with interest. The car of her boyfriend was found on Kohlhepp’s property, but not his body. Someone’s body was unearthed today, however, and four other sites where the cadaver dogs “alerted” their handlers. The conclusion is that this is very likely a serial killer’s work. Kohlhepp has been in custody in one way or another since his teen years, was released in 2001, and is again in the crosshairs of the law’s attention. While he was in prison he also was charged with fighting and destroying property. Presumable he killed the other five people since 2001. He has been busy.
WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR AN ODD AND SOMEHOW FUNNY TWIST. BUT THEN MANY THINGS ABOUT TRUMP ARE “ODD.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show?cid=eml_mra_20161103
The Rachel Maddow Show
Weekdays at 9PM
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 11/2/16
Unwitting Trump embraces black supremacist cultist support
Rachel Maddow reports on the history of the Yahweh Ben Yahweh cult and why Donald Trump doesn't want to ask too many questions about the guys behind him at Florida rallies holding the "Blacks for Trump" signs. Duration: 17:03
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/doj-sends-election-monitors-to-north-carolina-800207427566
MSNBC LIVE WITH THOMAS ROBERTS 11/3/16
DOJ sends election monitors to North Carolina
Video -- After the NAACP sued North Carolina over alleged voter discrimination against minorities, the Justice Department will be dispatching election monitors to four North Carolina counties. Executive Director of the North Carolina Republican Party, Dallas Woodhouse, joins MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson to discuss. Duration: 4:32
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2016/11/04/department-justice-send-monitors-four-north-carolina-counties-election-day/
Department of Justice to send monitors to four North Carolina counties on Election Day
By Melissa Boughton
11/4/16
The feds are sending an extra set of eyes to the polls in Cumberland, Forsyth, Robeson and Wake counties next week.
Each Board of Elections director was notified Thursday that the Department of Justice would be sending election monitors to various polling sites on Election Day, according to Pat Gannon, spokesman for the State Board of Elections.
He said it’s not believed the move is anything out of the ordinary for a federal election and directed all other questions to the DOJ. The federal agency has not yet released any information about election monitor locations this year, and a spokesperson Friday would not discuss the decision to have monitors in North Carolina.
There was no reason or specific site provided for the visits, according to Forsyth County Board of Elections Director Tim Tsujii.
“To me, it just seems random,” he said. “The poll monitors will just be kind of behind-the-scenes.”
Tsujii said he was assured that residents’ voting process would not be disturbed and that any interaction with the DOJ’s monitors would be minimal.
“I think if anything, it’s for voters’ protection to offer an extra set of eyes,” he said.
Tsujii has been at the Board of Elections for a year, he said, but in asking around, it’s the first time to anyone’s recollection that the DOJ has visited Forsyth County for election monitoring.
There will be 101 polling sites in Forsyth County on Election Day. Tsujii said he has already informed managers of each location to be prepared for a possible visit.
Kerry McComber, external communications manager for Wake County, said DOJ election monitors were nothing new for the county and that the Board of Elections welcomes their visit.
“We run a great election, and it’s an opportunity to show them that we run a great election,” she said.
She added that early voting in Wake County has been a great success and that they expect high turnout on Election Day. There will be 202 polling sites open Wednesday.
Board of Elections directors in Cumberland and Robeson counties could not be reached Friday for comment. There will be 77 polling sites in Cumberland County and 39 in Robeson County.
North Carolina is expected to be a high-turnout swing state in the election. There has also been much controversy this year involving voter suppression and redistricting, so a visit from the feds may not be a bad thing.
Possibly related posts:
State Board of Elections addresses voting contingencies after Hurricane Matthew
First day of early voting not as strong as 2012 election, but not ‘apples-to-apples’ for comparison
Judge extends voter registration in 36 counties following NC Democratic Party lawsuit
Language barriers at the polls a concern for Asian-American voters
Early voting: a tale of two counties
- See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2016/11/04/department-justice-send-monitors-four-north-carolina-counties-election-day/#sthash.AQHzkpxB.dpuf
In my view, we should always have federal monitors, because when there is corruption it usually comes from the bottom up; it’s usually a simple matter of illegal money changing hands rather than a radical plot against the US government, that is well-developed enough to have a chance of succeeding. However, the Trump rants and “loose talk” has made me, for one, uneasy and others as well. We wouldn’t have had this much attention to the 2016 election if it weren’t for that. We are even frightened in many cases, including myself.
https://www.laprogressive.com/united-domestic-workers/?utm_source=LA+Progressive+Newsletter&utm_campaign=15eddc5f2b-LAP+News+-+11+August+16+PC&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9f184a8aad-15eddc5f2b-286822829
Why Is the Freedom Foundation Ringing Workers’ Doorbells?
BY KELLY CANDAELE
November 2, 2016
Video -- United Domestic Workers from Kelly Candaele Plus Account on Vimeo. 03:15 min.
Toni Monique is an in-home caregiver who talks like a political philosopher. When she is not helping her sister, Tonya Ginn, in Buena Park, she volunteers with the United Domestic Workers union that represents 94,000 California home care workers. When told that the Freedom Foundation, an organization with financial ties to right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch, had recently moved into California to try and undermine her union, she got downright angry.
“They [Freedom Foundation] say they are fighting for freedom,” she said of the foundation. “Well, we should have freedom to put food on the table, food in our stomachs, transportation and a roof over our heads. That’s freedom.” The political philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between “negative freedom” — the ability of people to act “unobstructed by others” – and “positive freedom,” the need to act collectively to avoid being ground down by circumstance or constrained by limited resources. Berlin wrote about political theory. Toni Monique and Tonya Ginn are living it.
After years of separation, Toni found her sister three years ago languishing in a Sacramento nursing facility and brought her to live at her small Orange County home. Ginn, who has suffered from a number of physical and mental disabilities, had lived on the street for years, moving in and out of hospitals and other care facilities. “My sister was being treated like an animal,” Toni said, sitting on the sofa next to her sister on a recent weekday morning. “We now have a good life together,” Ginn added.
Under California law, through in-home support services a relative or other caregiver can assist a disabled or aged person at the home of the client or caregiver. Funded through federal and state monies, and administered by counties, 70 percent of help providers are related to those they care for. Toni, who makes the average wage of $10.20 an hour, takes home less than $20,000 a year.
The United Domestic Workers fights to protect the program as well as boost the wages and benefits of its members. The Freedom Foundation has recently moved to California put a stop to those efforts.
The United Domestic Workers fights to protect the program as well as boost the wages and benefits of its members. The Freedom Foundation has recently moved to California put a stop to those efforts. Brian Minnich, the foundation’s executive vice president, tells Capital & Main it has moved into California to inform government employee union members that “they have a constitutional right to leave the union.” He points to a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled workers who were not fully-fledged public employees did not have to join the union as a condition of employment.
The Freedom Foundation was created in Washington State in 1991 by a former Republican legislator and gubernatorial candidate. The organization (formally known as the Evergreen Freedom Foundation) has long been active in libertarian causes and anti-regulatory crusades.
The group is also a member of the State Policy Network (SPN), a national web of conservative policy and advocacy organizations that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations and radical right-wing billionaires, including the Koch Brothers. Jane Mayer, whose book Dark Money outlines the origins, strategy and funding network of the SPN and similar groups, describes SPNs attempts to provide “cookie-cutterlike policy papers” that push privatization, the weakening of environmental laws, economic deregulation, tax relief for corporations and higher income earners, and anti-union legislation.
Mayer’s description reflects the Freedom Foundation’s activities in Washington State. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, a watchdog group that profiles organizations and individuals who are trying to influence public policy, the foundation has fought to reduce and restrict public employee pensions, advocated for stricter voter ID laws, pushed privatization efforts and run anti-union campaigns.
David Rolf, president of Seattle-based Service Employees International Union, Local 775, which represents home-care and nursing home workers, has engaged in ongoing battles with the Freedom Foundation. Rolf points to a time some years ago when his union would actually partner with the foundation on issues where the two organizations’ interests aligned: closing special interest tax loopholes, opposing government subsidies to private companies, good government reform. But more recently, Rolf says, the Freedom Foundation has “turned into a single-purpose anti-union operation in the guise of a 501(c)(3) charity.”
Through a strategy begun in Washington State that they are now rolling out in California, the Freedom Foundation obtained the names and addresses of some Local 775 members that they used to visit the members’ homes. During these visits, Freedom Foundation activists tried to talk home-care workers into quitting the union. Minnich stated that the organization is running the same sort of campaign in California but with different tactics. They have already produced anti-union TV commercials on cable channels in Orange County.
Minnich would not spell out in an interview why, exactly, his group would spend so much money to simply pass on the word about that Supreme Court ruling to low-wage caregivers. “I will say,” he hinted, “that one of the biggest issues that comes up is how their money is spent politically – they have no choice in how their money is spent.”
A number of people who have watched the aggressive tactics of the Freedom Foundation believe their primary goal may not be to hurt home-care workers (Minnich stated that he believes they are actually underpaid for the “yeoman’s work” they do) but to defund organized labor’s political activity. In addition to going door to door, a secondary strategy is the filing of lawsuits against unions, diverting their time and money.
Collin Jergens, who works for the Seattle-based progressive advocacy organization Fuse Washington, says that the Freedom Foundation’s legal and political strategy is transparent. “Their goal,” he says, “is to force unions to waste money on lawyers so they can’t spend those resources on supporting their membership.”
The Freedom Foundation’s anti-union obsession – their Washington State headquarters has a prerecorded antihome-care workers union message for callers on hold – fits neatly with the ideological thrust and political goals of their funders.
According to recently published IRS Form 990 tax records, which tax-exempt foundations are required to submit every year, the Freedom Foundation has received substantial contributions from DonorsTrust and the Donors Capital Fund, two “dark money” foundations that, in DonorsTrust’s case, Mayer describes as “screen[s] for the right wing, behind which fingerprints disappeared from the cash.” According to research conducted by Mother Jones writer Andy Kroll, DonorsTrust “…has funded the right’s assault on labor unions, climate scientists, public schools, economic regulations and the very premise of activist government.”
The foundations are called “dark money” vessels because current tax law does not require them to provide details about who donated money to them. But the Center for Media and Democracy has published a detailed outline about the linked funding network of corporate and right-wing contributors. Weakening home-care workers making $20,000 a year is not the best PR, even for conservative billionaires. But undercutting labor’s attempts to raise wages, build coalitions to decrease dependence on fossil fuels or to raise taxes on the wealthy – that’s an agenda that the radical right wing will fight for and fund.
Minnich acknowledged to Capital & Main that getting members to quit the union has “downstream effects” that “impact the dollars that the union has,” but that his group’s primary goal is to let union members know they have the right to leave the union
While Minnich is hesitant to elaborate on the political motives of the Freedom Foundation – tax exempt organizations are prohibited from explicitly engaging in politics – Freedom Foundation chief executive officer Tom McCabe ostentatiously plays the role of bad cop. In recent Freedom Foundation fundraising letters he has called union leaders “thugs,” “goons,” and “creeps” and asked potential donors to help stop “big government liberals,” and liberal Democrats” from controlling the Pacific Northwest.
In California, working out of an office in Tustin, the Freedom Foundation has run ads in local papers soliciting home-care workers to appear in anti-union commercials, become plaintiffs in lawsuits and to provide lists of workers the foundation can then contact. Editha Adams, a home-care worker herself and president of the United Domestic Workers, said her members voluntarily belong to the union and pay dues. “Without our union, the IHSS [In-Home Supportive Services] program as we know it would not exist,” she said.
While Minnich claimed that the foundation’s efforts in Washington led to a 60 percent drop in union membership for child-care aides, union leader Rolf said their tactics in Washington fell flat. “They are clever but not very smart,” he pointed out. “The key thing is to have a robust communications program with your members and have an honest talk with them, letting them know they may get a knock on the door.”
Freedom is a cherished concept embedded in our political vocabulary, but it is also a concrete thing, manifesting itself in various ways. Americans tend to see freedom, the historian Eric Foner has written, as “historical rather than theoretical,” a “terrain of conflict” where freedom has been won but also subverted, shaped by the collision of politics, economics and ideology.
Freedom clearly means different things for the Freedom Foundation than it does for Toni Monique and Tonya Ginn. Is it the freedom from the “impositions” of government and the freedom to get wealthy? Or is it the ability to shape their political fate so that they can escape economic and physical hardship, being free to live a productive life?
kelly-candaele“Freedom comes with a price and it should not be at the expense of the weak, disabled and handicapped,” Toni Monique said. Her sister smiled and nodded her agreement. “I’m looking forward to having a good life with my family, and I’m willing to go with my walker and tell the government,” she added.
Toni Monique and Tonya Ginn have no confusion about which side they are on.
Kelly Candaele
Capital & Main
I’m disgusted and angered by the efforts on so many fronts of the Rightist forces in this country to turn the clock back on progress and crush the organization of poor to Middle Class workers so that they can't get better pay and essential progress in life, such as the PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Only the essence of evil would fight to destroy such things. I believe this is what Jesus was talking about when he said, "The love of money is the root of all evil!" We have come to worship money in this country, and the best and gentlest among us do not step forward and say, "Stop this sacrilege!"
AND NOW, FROM THE ELOQUENT, TRULY PATRIOTIC, AND EXCEEDINGLY HUMOROUS MICHAEL MOORE, A ONE MAN SHOW AND A TINY SHORT FILM CALLED MICHAEL MOORE IN TRUMPLAND: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MPYBZTG/?ref=dvm_us_tvod_sl_Q4tst_44_ec_michael%20moore%20in%20trumpland
WATCH THIS EVEN IF YOU THINK HE’S A RADICAL LEFTIST. IF YOU DON’T LAUGH IT’S BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR, SO DON’T BLAME HIM.
Michael Moore
To
Lucy Warner
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Lucy –
"First off, I want to thank you and all Democracy for America members for everything you are doing to make history at the ballot box next Tuesday.
As you know, I've made an "emergency movie" in the past few weeks in order to get out the vote -- and, unexpectedly, it's become an instant hit! Critics have called it "already a historic movie for an historic moment." The New Yorker has said it's "majestic."
And it has been at #1 on iTunes for nearly two weeks!
It's now playing in theaters in 61 cities -- and it doesn't even have a distributor! It's called "Michael Moore in TrumpLand". I made it in just 12 days because I saw the Trump Train coming and I knew we would be in a bitter last minute fight with this man. The race has indeed tightened as I've been predicting it would since the summer. It's now a statistical tie in many states, with Trump actually slightly ahead in some of them.
Yet, the one piece of good news I've received this week is that this movie I've made is significantly turning some heads of Trump-leaning voters. And encouraging my fellow Bernie "I'm-sitting-this-one-out" voters to rethink the folly of that decision. And it's inspiring Hillary voters who are feeling a bit depressed today. All that from one little hour-long movie!
Trump himself, fearing the movie and clearly unwilling to go toe-to-toe with me, a guy from the working class of Michigan who looks and talks like many of the rust belt Americans he so desperately needs to win over, has said he sees the point of what I'm saying!
Ha! Of course you do, Donald -- and as you watch so many thousands (millions by Tuesday!) watch my movie, you know your con game is over. You can only hope I don't get even more millions of eyes on "TrumpLand" over this weekend because this is the October Surprise you didn't count on.
I am the most unlikely messenger -- a white guy from an autoworker family with a high school education who has said he has "never voted for Hillary Clinton" -- and now I've made what many are calling "the most persuasive case to put aside whatever your complaints are about Hillary and make her the 45th President of the United States."
Yes, Donald, I am seeking to turn the rustbelt away from you and toward Hillary -- and "Michael Moore in TrumpLand" is my 73-minute laser beam of a movie that has become the talk of the country. Everyone from Miley Cyrus to Bill Maher to Megyn Kelly have told people to check it out. And they are.
Folks, if you're still on the sidelines when it comes to this election, or if you're feeling conflicted about voting for Hillary, then I strongly encourage you to take an hour and 10 minutes right now and check out my movie. No one else has made the unique and persuasive arguments I'm making in "Michael Moore in TrumpLand" -- and I'm convinced you'll want to hear what I have to say and share it with your friends and family. If you're in need of a "pick-me-up" today, this is the movie for you.
You can get it on iTunes here. Or you can get it at Amazon by clicking here. Both of them, as a favor to me, are letting people buy it and OWN it (not just "rent" it) for under five bucks.
Donald Trump, along with his name, has also put misogyny, racism, sexism and greed on the ballot -- making next Tueday's election a national referendum on all of this madness. Once and for all, we can say "enough!" I think it is absolutely mission critical that we defeat him and everything he stands for -- and not just by a point or two, either. By a LANDSLIDE.
But at this moment in time -- 6 days out from Election Day -- I'm worried that many of my fellow progressives are not up to that challenge, or they are simply lacking the sense of urgency to see what's in front of us. And it scares the crap out of me.
The level of energy behind Donald Trump in this election is a dangerous, dangerous thing -- and it could destroy decades of progressive accomplishments. And it's frustrating, because progressives have already achieved so much in this election cycle. We moved Hillary to the left -- she's adopted over 2/3rds of Bernie's platform! We should be celebrating right now! But more importantly, we need to be organizing, because IF we can bring it home on November 8, we will have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the agenda in Washington.
I mean, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie freakin' Sanders?! Whoa! Where do I sign up?
We can have that world, where Democrats control the Senate and progressives like Bernie control the agenda. But we only get there if we as a movement do everything humanly possible to elect Democrats in 6 days.
So if you're feeling fed up by this election and you need a little inspiration -- and a good laugh! -- take a few minutes to check out "Michael Moore in TrumpLand":
Get it on iTunes right now.
Or on Amazon here.
Thanks for watching -- and when you're done, make sure you hop on DFA Dialer and make some calls for progressive Democrats so we can flip the Senate on Tuesday!
All my best,
Michael Moore
P.S. I was so inspired by the questions many of you had on Tuesday night's DFA Live call that I'll be joining Democracy for America members AGAIN on Facebook Live this Thursday, November 3, at 7pm ET / 4pm PT. If you want to join us to continue talking about what we need to do to stop the Trump Train, go to my Facebook page to join in live at 7pm ET on Thursday night!"
GOOD NIGHT TO ALL!
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