In the 2008 New York primary Obama won only one county out of 64 in Clinton’s “home state”
of New York; this time, Bernie Sanders took 50 counties to Hillary's 12. (See map above.)
We turned to CNN last night just after the polls closed in New York at 9:00 pm and heard the report that exit polls (normally considered reliable) were reporting that Clinton won the race 52% to 48% - a four percent margin. Anything that close would be considered a 'Yuge' loss for Clinton. But then later we learned that Clinton 'won' the primary by a margin of 57.9% for her to 42.1% to Sanders. Indeed what happened to the exit polls?
There were
reports that some New York City precincts opened two hours later than they were supposed to, and would-be voters whose names couldn't be found on registration lists. Meanwhile, the
Wall Street Journal reported that "[a] number of voters said they showed up at their usual polling sites to discover the site had been moved without notice, sending them across the neighborhood searching for their new voting location."
The
New York City Comptroller says that the New York City Board of Elections
"confirms" that "more than 125,000 voters in Brooklyn were removed from
voter rolls." No figure is given for how many were removed in New York's
other massive Boroughs, nor how many voters had their registrations
listed incorrectly. But these are massive numbers, able to swing the election either way.
Now is all this just gross incompetence or are we witnessing a systemic suppression of the voting process across America? For me, having lived in Florida during the infamous 'hanging chad' election in 2000, I am clearly convinced that the corporate oligarchy uses elections to create the illusion of democracy but that they use many different tools to fix (rig) elections to put in place the candidates that they sponsor.
Forget the fact that in New York 30% of eligible voters across the state were not allowed to vote at all because they are 'independent'. Even Bernie Sanders, who has been quiet during recent rigged primary elections in places like Arizona and Nevada, last night said, "I am concerned about the conduct of the voting process in New York." A pretty mild statement for sure but at least he finally said something!
In a
recent interview former Libertarian-Republican Texas congressman Ron Paul says, "I see elections as so much of a charade,” adding that elections are rigged and claiming that “so much deceit goes on. I’ve worked on the assumption … for many, many decades, that whether
there’s a Republican or a Democrat president, the people who want to
keep the status quo seems to have their finger in the pot and can
control things. I don’t think there’s an easy way out for the establishment or the
parties," he noted, explaining that Democrats and Republicans would both
rather risk "further alienation of the people" than allow a candidate
to succeed who could shake up the system.
The corporate masters want Hillary Clinton as president and they know that the vast majority of the public does not like her. So they knew they had to come up with an even more hated Republican candidate who voters would fear so much that they'd hold their noses and pull the lever for Clinton. Thus we see the reason that Donald Trump is in the race and will likely be the Republican nominee that will face Clinton in November's general election.
Unreported in all the election news today is that Green Party candidate Jill Stein's campaign has just qualified for federal matching funds. This is a first for the Green Party in the US and means that Stein's campaign will get up to $230,000 which is alot for a grassroots campaign.
Stein writes: "Qualifying for matching funds will allow us to hire key staff, put major resources into urgent priorities like ballot access and volunteer organizing, and much, much more. It will supercharge our ability to reach the millions of Americans ready for a new kind of politics that puts people, planet and peace over profit."
It will be interesting to see if Bernie Sanders turns around and endorses Clinton after the Democratic 'super delegates'
hand the nomination to her. Millions of people who threw their hearts and souls behind Sanders will have a big decision to make - do they betray the call for 'revolution' by voting for Hillary or do they turn to the Green Party which offers the opportunity to keep the momentum going for building a real and much needed revolution in the US?
