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When Americans Shall Say ‘Peace And Safety’…

earthquake-apocalypse-public-domainMillions of Americans are expecting a new “golden age” for America under Donald Trump, but is that what they are going to get?  There is always optimism when a new president is elected, but I don’t know if I have ever seen anything like the euphoria that many Trump supporters are expressing right now.  Look, I voted for Donald Trump and I want him to be as successful as possible.  But when Donald Trump becomes our next president on January 20th, that does not mean that all of the great problems that our nation is facing will somehow magically disappear.  If you listen to some people, they make it sound like America is going to experience nothing but peace, prosperity and blessing for decades to come.  I would love it if that was indeed going to be the case, but unfortunately that is simply not the truth.

We are currently on a path that leads to national suicide, and unless we change our ways it isn’t going to matter who is in the White House.

I keep hearing about how our new president is going to “unify” the nation, but that is going to be extremely difficult to do considering the fact that we are now more divided than ever.  In fact, a brand new Gallup survey found that an all-time record high 77 percent of all Americans believe that we are “greatly divided when it comes to the most important values”.

I keep hearing about how we are now entering a golden age of peace and prosperity, but how is that supposed to happen while we are still butchering millions of innocent children in our abortion mills?

I keep hearing about how the economy is about to take off like a rocket, but how is that possible when we have already been on the greatest debt binge in world history?  The only way we have been able to maintain our massively inflated debt-fueled standard of living is by piling up debt at a faster pace than any generation in history.  Today we have accumulated 12 trillion dollars in consumer debt, corporate debt has doubled since the last financial crisis, and the national debt is rapidly approaching 20 trillion dollars.  How can Trump possibly pump up our standard of living with debt more than Obama has already done?

I keep hearing about how we are “going to make America great again”, but how can we be great when we are producing more pornography than the rest of the world combined?

I keep hearing about how “law and order is going to restored”, but meanwhile chaos has already been erupting in cities all over the nation and the far left is planning to turn Inauguration Day into a major riot.

I keep hearing about how “things are going to go back to the way they used to be”, but as I discussed in a previous article, “sexually-transmitted diseases are spreading at the fastest pace in decades, the percentage of births out of wedlock is more than 10 times higher than in 1940, and approximately two out of every three Christian men watch pornography on a regular basis.”

I keep hearing about how we are going “to drain the swamp”, and yet there are no plans to even reform the Federal Reserve system which is at the very heart of our financial problems as a nation.

I keep hearing about how good judges are going to be put on the Supreme Court, but how can we trust that when our new president just said that he is “fine with” the Supreme Court decision that forced all 50 states to redefine the institution of marriage?

I keep hearing about how we are going to be “an example” for the rest of the world, but how can we be “an example” when just about every form of evil imaginable is exploding in popularity inside our own country?

I keep hearing about how our government is going to be “blessed”, but how can a government that gives hundreds of millions of dollars a year to Planned Parenthood be “blessed”?  Now that the Republicans have control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, this is their golden opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood.  If it doesn’t happen now, it probably will never happen, and it will show what a complete and utter failure the Republican Party has become.  Remember, Planned Parenthood is an organization that has been caught on camera admitting that they harvest organs from the babies that they kill and that they sell those organs off to the highest bidder.

Some would argue that America is already “great” at a lot of things.  After all, the United States is number one in the world in television watching, legal drug use and illegal drug use.

We lead the world in plastic surgery, eating disorder deaths, teen pregnancy and lawyers per capita.

We have the highest STD infection rate in the industrialized world, the highest divorce rate in the industrialized world, and the largest prison population on the entire planet.

We also have the most complicated tax system in the entire world, the largest trade deficit in the entire world, and the largest national debt in the entire world.

So if we want to make America great again, we sure have a lot of work to do.

The complacency that I am seeing out there right now really alarms me.  So many people seem to think that the battle is won because Donald Trump was victorious on election night.  But that is not even close to reality.

If we do not fundamentally change course as a nation we will not survive.  Tinkering with tax rates, regulations and trade agreements is not going to get the job done.  So many people are acting as if we just have a few cuts and scratches, when the reality is what our country really needs is major heart surgery.

Donald Trump is not some sort of a messiah, and even if he is able to accomplish every single thing that he is promising right now it will not nearly be enough.

But for the moment millions of Americans are proclaiming “peace and safety” now that Donald Trump has won the election, and we shall see how it all turns out…

Why We Are Still In ‘The Danger Zone’ Until January 20th, 2017

danger-button-public-domainDonald Trump is not the president yet, and Barack Obama could still do an extraordinary amount of damage during his last two months in the White House.  Prior to the election, I described the period of time ending on January 20th as “the danger zone”, and my outlook has not changed just because Donald Trump was victorious on election night.  As you will see, the next two months are an absolutely critical time, and if we can get through January 20th without something major happening perhaps we can breathe a little bit easier (at least for a while).  On the other hand, the events of the next two months could easily plunge this country into a period of unprecedented chaos.  A lot of people are feeling really good about things right now because of Trump’s victory, but now is definitely not a time to relax and let down our guard.

And the truth is that Donald Trump has not even won the presidency yet.  As I detailed shortly before election night, the next president will not be determined until December 19th when the Electoral College meets.

On Monday, December 19th the members of the Electoral College will gather in all 50 state capitals to cast their votes for president.  It is then, and only then, that the next president of the United States will be elected.

Throughout our history, electors have followed the will of the people more than 99 perfect of the time, but there have been “faithless electors” before, and if Democrats can get enough of them to switch sides in December it is still possible (though not probable) that Hillary Clinton could win the election.

One petition that is asking electors to switch their votes has already been signed by more than 4 million people.  The petition claims that Donald Trump is “unfit to serve” as president, and that since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a wide margin she should be elected president instead.  The following comes from a USA Today article entitled “Could the Electoral College elect Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump?“…

A Change.org petition, now signed by more than 4.3 million people, encourages members of the Electoral College to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton when the college meets on Dec. 19. The petition argues that Donald Trump is “unfit to serve” and that “Secretary Clinton WON THE POPULAR VOTE and should be President.”

“If they all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will win,” the petition states. “However, they can vote for Hillary Clinton if they choose. Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted, they would simply pay a small fine – which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay! We are calling on the Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton.”

Personally, I don’t believe that this is going to happen.  They may be able to flip a few electors, but the gap in electoral votes is almost certainly too wide for the Democrats to overcome.

However, that is not the only concern we are facing.  Ever since his victory on November 8th, there have been a multitude of violent threats against Donald Trump and his family.  And without a doubt, there are a lot of very powerful people that would be very interested in finding a way to keep Donald Trump from getting to Inauguration Day.  So let us pray for his safety and for the safety of his family.

If Donald Trump were to be incapacitated after he wins the Electoral College vote on December 19th, Mike Pence would take his place.

But if something were to happen to him before December 19th, his electors would be free to vote for another candidate – including Hillary Clinton.

If everything goes smoothly and Donald Trump successfully makes it to Inauguration Day, he could be facing one of the biggest political protests in United States history.

In an article for The Most Important News, I showed that the far left is calling for thousands upon thousands of protesters to descend upon Washington D.C. on January 20th in order to disrupt the Inauguration festivities as much as possible.

This giant protest is being organized by the usual suspects, and they have already put up Facebook pages, websites, and the hashtag “#DisruptJ20” is being widely used all over social media.

Traditionally Inauguration Day is a day of joy and celebration, but the far left seems intent on transforming it into a massive riot.

Let us hope that they are not successful.

Another reason why we will be in “the danger zone” over the next two months is because of what Barack Obama may choose to do at the United Nations.

Now that it looks like Donald Trump is going to be our next president, the international pressure on Barack Obama to do something at the United Nations regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before the end of his term has become even more intense.

And this is something that Trump and his advisers are actively concerned about.  In fact, I came across an article earlier today that discussed the fact that the Trump team is warning Obama “against making moves on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his last months in office”…

Saying that pushing agendas “contrary to the president-elect’s position” would not be in the “spirit of the transition”, Trump national security advisor for Donald Trump last week warned the Obama administration against making moves on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his last months in office.

“On big, transformative issues where President Obama and President-elect Trump are not in alignment, I don’t think it’s in keeping with the spirit of the transition…to try to push through agenda items that are contrary to the president-elect’s positions,” the advisor told Politico.

Specifically, the concern is that Obama may decide to support a UN Security Council resolution that would officially recognize a Palestinian state, set the parameters for a “two state solution”, and establish East Jerusalem as the capital for the new Palestinian state.

Just a few weeks ago, an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Obama’s Israel Surprise?” reported that this is one of the options that the Obama administration is strongly considering right now.  A UN Security Council resolution would be legally binding on both Israel and the Palestinians, and it would be something that President Trump would not be able to undo.

The rest of the UN Security Council is eager to support such a resolution, and so the decision about whether this resolution is going to happen or not sits in the hands of Barack Obama, and at this moment we do not know what he is going to do.  The following comes from an article by Leo Hohmann…

The Wall Street Journal reported one week before Tuesday’s election that Obama had requested his aides provide him with a list of options to deal with the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli diplomats, according to the WSJ story, are preparing for the possibility that a lame-duck President Obama “may try to force a diplomatic resolution for Israel and the Palestinians at the United Nations.”

The president is presumably now reviewing those options, which number about half a dozen.

He may be preparing to recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. before he leaves office, WSJ reported.

If Barack Obama decides to divide the land of Israel at the United Nations, it will be the worst decision of his entire presidency.  I have warned repeatedly that all hell will break loose in America if it happens, and it will also mean that many of the events that I warn about in my latest book are much closer than many had been anticipating.

But if we can get to January 20th and the land of Israel has not been divided yet, we may be able to rest easy for at least a little while, because Trump has already said that he would not support a UN Security Council resolution that forces a solution on the Israelis and Palestinians.

When politicians are going to do something that they know people won’t like, they tend to try to sneak it through around the holidays when a lot of people aren’t paying attention.  For example, yesterday I discussed how the legislation that created the Federal Reserve was rushed through Congress right before Christmas in 1913.

So keep an eye on the period around Thanksgiving and the period around Christmas.  If Barack Obama is going to stab Israel in the back, it may happen during one of those times.

My hope is that we can get through January 20th without anything going seriously wrong.  If that happens, I know that I will be very thankful.

And as I detailed in a previous article, Donald Trump will be 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old on his first full day in office on January 21st, and that will happen in year 5777 on the Hebrew calendar.

Could that be a sign of better things ahead as many believe?

Or will the next two months set off a chain of events that will be absolutely disastrous for this nation?

I believe that this is an absolutely critical moment in our history, and let us hope that our leaders make the right decisions.

Democrats Are Now Calling For A ‘Revolution In The Streets’, And I Believe That They Are Quite Serious

anti-trump-protest-photo-by-fibonacci-blueThe surprise victory by Donald Trump on November 8th has spawned a series of violent protests and riots all over the nation as stunned leftists continue to throw the largest post-election temper tantrum in U.S. history.  Protesters in large cities all across America have been disrupting public transportation, looting stores, hurling objects at the police and burning Trump in effigy.  There have even been shootings at anti-Trump rallies in Seattle and in Portland.  Hundreds of protesters have been arrested so far, and organizers are promising that this is only just the beginning.  Meanwhile, large numbers of enraged leftists are physically threatening Trump on Twitter, and some are even calling for a violent revolution.  Sadly, I believe that they are quite serious about this.

Even some big celebrity names are starting to use the word “revolution” in messages to their followers.  On Twitter, Katy Perry has ominously warned that “the revolution is coming“, and comedian Sarah Silverman has boldly declared that “Trump gets a chance to hear us (or else we R them) If he fails REVOLUTION IN THE STREETS“.

Of course other leftists are seeking less violent ways to oppose Trump.  There is a major push to use the electoral college to block a Trump presidency, if that fails there are many hoping to immediately impeach Trump once he takes office, and other activists such as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich are calling for a new third party if their planned post-election takeover of the Democratic Party is not successful.

But for many on the radical left the time for patience is over.  The “Not My President” movement is taking off like a rocket, and one survey found that only 58 percent of all Clinton supporters consider Trump’s victory to be legitimate.  A protest near Trump Tower in New York City on Saturday drew approximately 25,000 people, and USA Today reported that the anti-Trump protest in Portland, Oregon on Saturday night rapidly “devolved into a riot“.

It is becoming clear that these protests are not going away any time soon, and some are even beginning to refer to this movement as “the Purple Revolution”…

No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities to disrupt Trump during Obama’s lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and the other, ten years later, in 2014.

As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org and Black Lives Matter, broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States. 

So could we actually see a violent revolution on the streets of America?

Is the radical left really so horrified by the prospect of a Trump presidency that they would actually be willing to engage in a prolonged campaign of chaos, violence and physical intimidation?

Well, the Oath Keepers are so concerned about what this movement could become that they have initiated an intelligence gathering operation that they are calling “Operation HYPO”…

Clearly as Oath Keepers, we cannot simply sit around and watch while the enemies of liberty work to use violence to initiate a communist revolution in our country.  As a result of the intelligence being provided by our Operation Sabot operatives, we have initiated Operation HYPO. We have allowed our personnel to burrow deep inside these protest organizations to collect information regarding tactics, motivations, schedules and logistics.

We had operatives at the planning meetings for the protests that occurred last evening in Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA. Our operatives have also penetrated numerous other planning organizations in cities across the country.  For OPSEC reasons, the precise list of cities we are operating in will not be publicly disclosed.

And one thing that we already know is that the radical left is hoping to organize the largest political protest in United States history in Washington D.C. on Inauguration Day.  I will be writing about this later today on The Most Important News.

The election of Donald Trump has been the single most galvanizing event for the radical left that we have seen in decades.  One of the early leaders of the “Not My President” movement is filmmaker Michael Moore, and the following are three of his key action points which he feels must be implemented immediately…

1. Must quickly and decisively form an opposition movement, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1960s. I will do my part to help lead this as I’m sure many others (Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, MoveOn, the hip-hop community, DFA, etc.) will, too. The core of this opposition force will be fueled by young people who, as with Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, don’t tolerate b.s. and are relentless in their resistance to authority. They have no interest in compromising with racists and misogynists.
2. Prepare to impeach Trump. Just as the Republicans were already planning to do with President Hillary from Day One, we must organize the apparatus that will bring charges against him when he violates his oath and breaks the law — and then we must remove him from office.
3. Must commit right now to a vigorous fight (including civil disobedience, if necessary)which will block any and all Donald Trump Supreme Court nominees who do not meet our approval. We demand the Democrats in the Senate aggressively filibuster any nominees who support Citizens United or who oppose the rights of women, immigrants and the poor. This is non-negotiable.

But of course other liberals are still in the “shock and disbelief” stage.  As I have stated before, Americans were more emotionally invested in this election than they had been in any election in decades, and the aftermath has not been pretty.

This has been particularly true on college campuses all over the nation.  According to the New York Post, college administrators have been going to extraordinary lengths to soothe the deep emotional pain that many of their students are experiencing…

  •  The University of Michigan offered its traumatized students coloring books and Play-Doh to calm them. (Are its students in college or kindergarten?)
  •  The University of Kansas reminded its stressed-out kids that therapy dogs, a regular campus feature, were available.
  •  Cornell University, an Ivy League school, held a campus-wide “cry-in,” with officials handing out tissues and hot chocolate.
  •  Tufts University offered its devastated students arts and crafts sessions. (OK, not kindergarten — more like summer camp.)
  •  At campuses from elite Yale to Connecticut to Iowa and beyond, professors canceled classes and/or exams — either because students asked or because instructors were too distraught to teach.

And it is also being reported that suicide hotlines are ringing off the hook all over the nation.

We have never seen anything like this ever before, and I have a feeling that this “Not My President” movement is going to absolutely dwarf the “Occupy Wall Street” and “Black Lives Matter” movements.  And considering the very high levels of anger, frustration and pain that these radical leftists are feeling, it is easy to see how this movement could become very violent.

Many patriots, conservatives and Christians were hoping that Donald Trump could bring America together and lead us into a new era of peace and prosperity, but the radical left already hates Trump more than any president that has ever come before him.

It isn’t going to take much to push the radical left over the edge, and if that happens we could see endless chaos, violence and civil unrest for the next four years.

Do You Believe In Miracles?

president-trump-public-domainWe have never seen anything like this in the history of American politics.  Donald Trump’s shocking victory on election night is nothing short of a modern day miracle.  Several weeks ago I told my readers that it would take the biggest political miracle ever in order for Trump to win, and I had been strongly urging them to vote, but even early on election night I was skeptical that Trump could actually pull it off.  Initially the results coming out of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio looked rather ominous, and a lot of Trump supporters were freaking out.  But those initial numbers strongly reflected early voting results, and those results typically favor Democrats.  Once the Election Day numbers started rolling in, it was clear that there was a massive unanticipated wave of momentum for Trump.

Once I saw that Virginia was going to be much more tightly contested than anticipated and that Trump had jumped out to a lead in Michigan, I realized that Trump had a really good shot at winning the whole thing.  Over Skype I told a stunned audience that the numbers were looking really good for Trump, but it was still so early in the evening that I don’t know if a lot of people believed me.  And I certainly didn’t blame them, because I could hardly believe it myself.

Once Trump took the lead for good in Pennsylvania, I knew that it was all over.  My wife and I looked at each other in disbelief, and we are still trying to come to grips with a future that we didn’t think was possible.

Watching Donald Trump speak to the American people after he had been declared the winner was a surreal experience.  At this moment, it still doesn’t seem real to me that he could become the next president of the United States a little more than two months from now.  But at this point it looks like that is precisely what is going to happen.

After it was all over, I kind of stumbled around my home lost in my thoughts.  I was happy, confused, hopeful, stunned and pensive all at the same time.  Like so many others, what I thought I knew about politics turned out to be wrong.  But in other ways, the election of Donald Trump has confirmed so much of what I know to be right about America.

Ultimately, it was the American people that decided this election, because the elite were doing their best to absolutely bury him.

Never before has the mainstream media been so openly biased against a major party presidential candidate.  For months on end they dumped sewage on Trump, but it didn’t work.

Never before has a major party presidential candidate faced a civil war in his own party on the eve of the election.  A whole host of big names in the Republican Party publicly announced that they would not vote for Trump, but it didn’t work.

Never before have we seen a bigger October surprise than the lewd tape from 11 year ago that came out and shocked the world.  That would have instantly killed the campaign of any normal politician, but it didn’t kill Trump’s campaign.

From the very beginning it seemed like Trump was at war with almost everyone, and somehow he came out on top in the end.

He beat the Bushes and the Clintons.

He beat the Republicans and the Democrats.

He beat Hollywood and the mainstream media.

He beat the pollsters and the pundits.

He beat the never-Trumpers and the billionaire donors.

He beat Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Jay Z, Beyonce, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Lebron James.

He beat the forces of globalism, elitism and political correctness.

He beat CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Barack Obama.

He beat them all.

Of course Donald Trump is not perfect and he is not going to be a perfect president.

But this is about as perfect a moment as you are going to get in American politics.

Donald Trump took on the entire American political universe and he won.

We have never seen anything like it before, and I doubt we will ever see anything like it again.

And I want to apologize for being so skeptical to those that kept trying to tell me that Trump was going to win.  As a former attorney, I was trained to be skeptical and to look at the cold, hard numbers.  And the cold, hard numbers kept telling me that a Trump victory was nearly impossible.

I kept strongly urging people to vote, particularly because the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency was absolutely horrifying for me personally, but I was not optimistic.

In hindsight, perhaps we all should have recognized that the signs were there.  For example, it seems a very strange “coincidence” that Donald Trump will be 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old on his first full day as president of the United States.  This is a man that appears to have had a date with destiny, and we shall see what happens in the months to come.

Yes, there will be great challenges ahead, but those discussions are for another day.

Today I am just happy.

I am happy that the American people have elected a man that I will be proud to call president.

And I am happy that we are not going to have to endure four years under the most wicked, vile and corrupt politician that the United States has ever seen.

Against all odds, Donald Trump won.

At this point I am not exactly sure what comes next for America, but things are definitely looking a lot brighter today than they did yesterday.

No Matter What Happens, We Won’t Know Who The Next President Will Be Until December 19th

what-public-domainMost Americans assume that their votes decide who the next president will be, but that is actually not the case.  It is the Electoral College that will elect the next president, and they don’t meet until December 19th.  And the truth is that all of the members of the Electoral College never meet in one place.  Rather, electors gather together in all 50 state capitals on the second Wednesday in December, and it is at that time that the next president and vice president are officially elected.  Of course members of the Electoral College have voted according to the will of the people about 99 percent of the time throughout our history, but with how crazy this election has turned out to be you never know what might happen.  For example, later on in this article you will see that one elector in Washington state has already publicly stated that he will not cast his vote for Hillary Clinton.  If other “faithless electors” emerge, that could potentially change the entire outcome of the election.

If you are not familiar with the basics of how the Electoral College works, here is a pretty good summary from Wikipedia…

Even though the aggregate national popular vote is calculated by state officials, media organizations, and the Federal Election Commission, the people only indirectly elect the president, as the national popular vote is not the basis for electing the president or vice president. The President and Vice President of the United States are elected by the Electoral College, which consists of 538 presidential electors from the fifty states and Washington, D.C.. Presidential electors are selected on a state-by-state basis, as determined by the laws of each state. Since the election of 1824,[35] most states have appointed their electors on a winner-take-all basis, based on the statewide popular vote on Election Day. Maine and Nebraska are the only two current exceptions, as both states use the congressional district method. Although ballots list the names of the presidential and vice presidential candidates (who run on a ticket), voters actually choose electors when they vote for president and vice president. These presidential electors in turn cast electoral votes for those two offices. Electors usually pledge to vote for their party’s nominee, but some “faithless electors” have voted for other candidates.

A candidate must receive an absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) to win the presidency or the vice presidency. If no candidate receives a majority in the election for president or vice president, that election is determined via a contingency procedure established by the Twelfth Amendment. In such a situation, the House chooses one of the top three presidential electoral vote-winners as the president, while the Senate chooses one of the top two vice presidential electoral vote-winners as vice president.

In an attempt to make sure that their electors vote according to the will of the people, 29 states have passed laws that impose penalties on “faithless electors”.  In many cases the punishment consists of a fine, but that may not be enough to keep some electors in line this time around.  According to ABC News, one elector that was supposed to be committed to Hillary Clinton has already announced that he is refusing to vote for her despite the fact that he will get hit by a $1,000 fine…

One elector has already said he won’t vote for Clinton, despite a fine. Robert Satiacum, a member of Washington’s Puyallup Tribe, says he believes Clinton is a “criminal” who doesn’t care enough about American Indians and “she’s done nothing but flip back and forth.”

Satiacum faces a $1,000 fine in Washington if he doesn’t vote for Clinton, but he said he doesn’t care.

“She will not get my vote, period,” he told The Associated Press.

And there are 21 states that do not impose penalties on “faithless electors” at all.

So while it is true that over 99 percent of all Electors throughout our history have voted the way that they were supposed to, that may not happen in 2016.

There is also the possibility that the winning candidate could die or become incapacitated between Election Day and December 19th.  If that happens, the electors that are supposed to be committed to the winning candidate would be free to vote for someone else.  The following comes from archives.gov…

If a candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the general election and the meeting of electors, under federal law, the electors pledged to the deceased candidate may vote for the candidate of their choice at the meeting of electors. Individual states may pass laws on the subject, but no federal law proscribes how electors must vote when a candidate dies or becomes incapacitated. In 1872, when Horace Greeley passed away between election day and the meeting of electors, the electors who were slated to vote for Greeley voted for various candidates, including Greeley. The votes cast for Greeley were not counted due to a House resolution passed regarding the matter. See the full Electoral College vote counts for President and Vice President in the 1872 election.

As to a candidate who dies or becomes incapacitated between the meeting of electors and the counting of electoral votes in Congress, the Constitution is silent on whether this candidate meets the definition of “President elect” or “Vice President elect.” If the candidate with a majority of the electoral votes is considered “President elect,” even before the counting of electoral votes in Congress, Section 3 of the 20th Amendment applies. Section 3 of the 20th Amendment states that the Vice President elect will become President if the President elect dies or becomes incapacitated.

If a winning Presidential candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the counting of electoral votes in Congress and the inauguration, the Vice President elect will become President, according to Section 3 of the 20th Amendment.

Our Constitution really should be amended to deal with a situation where a winning candidate dies between Election Day and the Electoral College vote, but up until now that has not happened.

So the cold, hard reality of the matter is that we will enter a period of great uncertainty between November 8th and December 19th.  Even though the American people will have spoken, we will not have a “President-elect” yet, and if something happens to the winning candidate that could throw us into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

And of course if the election results are very tight and a few “faithless electors” throw the election in the opposite direction on December 19th, that could create an enormous constitutional crisis as well.

Following the vote of the Electoral College on December 19th, a joint session of Congress takes place on January 6th of the following year to formally declare the winner…

The Twelfth Amendment mandates that the Congress assemble in joint session to count the electoral votes and declare the winners of the election.[53] The session is ordinarily required to take place on January 6 in the calendar year immediately following the meetings of the presidential electors.[54] Since the Twentieth Amendment, the newly elected House declares the winner of the election; all elections before 1936 were determined by the outgoing House.

Two weeks later, the winning candidate will be inaugurated on January 20th, and at that point the next president will begin to serve.

It would be a whole lot simpler and more rational to just allow the American people to directly elect the president, and it would probably take a major crisis in order to get the kind of constitutional amendment that is needed to do that.

But for now the system is what it is, and that means that the election is not over until it is over.

So November 8th is definitely not the end of the story, and the craziest chapters of this election season may still be yet to come.

Early Voting Results In Key Battleground States Appear To Favor Donald Trump

vote-button-public-domainIf you want Donald Trump to win the election, then you have got to be encouraged by what you are seeing so far.  Early voting has already been going on in a number of the most important battleground states, and up to this point the numbers seem to support the theory that Donald Trump is doing significantly better in key swing states than Mitt Romney did in 2012.  As you will see below, the latest numbers released by Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Arizona all have good news for the Trump campaign.  Without a doubt, I still have an ominous feeling about what is going to happen tomorrow night, but so far at least there are some encouraging signs.

Florida

Early voting has become extremely popular in Florida, and at this point close to half of all voters in the state have already cast their ballots.

Donald Trump cannot win the election without Florida’s 29 electoral votes, and so to say that this is a “must win” for the Trump campaign would be a massive understatement.

Fortunately, the Trump campaign appears to be doing much better in Florida than the Romney campaign did in 2012.  The following comes from Politico…

Florida Democrats increased their lead over Republicans in casting pre-Election Day ballots to nearly 33,000 as of Sunday morning, but the sheer number of new voters and independents makes it tougher than ever for experts to say whether Hillary Clinton has a clear advantage over Donald Trump in the nation’s biggest battleground state.

Of the record 6.1 million in-person early votes and absentee ballots cast, Democrats have an advantage over Republicans of only 0.5 percentage points, with each party casting roughly 39 percent of the ballots. Though it’s a lead for Democrats, they’re not going to match their 3.7-percentage-point lead in early votes by Election Day they enjoyed in 2012. And Republicans tend to outvote Democrats on Election Day in Florida.

On Monday, updated numbers for Florida were released, and we found out that the Democrats had increased their lead to about 87,000 votes.  But Trump is still doing much better than Romney was at this stage.

And the Trump campaign also has to be happy about the fact that first-time voters account for 25 percent of all the votes cast so far.  Throughout this election cycle Trump has shown that he can bring out people that have never voted before, and so officials in the Trump campaign have to be smiling about this.

However, one sign of trouble for the Trump campaign is the fact that there has been a 100 percent increase in early voting by Hispanics in Florida compared to 2012, and this appears to be fueled by dislike for Trump.  The following comes from the Miami Herald…

Through Saturday, 565,000 Hispanics had completed early in-person voting in Florida, a 100 percent increase over 2012, according to an analysis by Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who tracks voting data.

Including absentee ballots, 911,000 Hispanics have voted — more than a third of whom did not vote in 2012. “We’re witnessing explosive early voting turnout of Hispanics — both those newly registered to vote as well as those who sat on the sidelines in 2012,” Smith said.

As discussed above, Republicans tend to outvote Democrats on Election Day in Florida, so the key for the Trump campaign will be to have the same kind of Election Day turnout that the Romney campaign had in 2012.

If Trump wins Florida, he will have a legitimate shot at winning the election, but if he loses the state it will be virtually impossible for him to make up those 29 electoral votes elsewhere on the map.

North Carolina

Another state that the Trump campaign desperately needs is North Carolina.  Mitt Romney won this state back in 2012, and according to the Drudge Report the Trump campaign is doing even better than the Romney campaign did during early voting…

Another dramatic turn of events is being reported out of North Carolina this afternoon: Donald Trump has jumped past all expectations in early voting!

In 2012, Romney hit Election Day down 447,000 votes, based on early ballots. He went on to win the state by 97,000 votes.

Now, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal, Trump opens Election Day down 305,000!

North Carolina is another of the key battleground states that is going to help decide the election.  While not as important as Florida, the truth is that Donald Trump pretty much has to have it to have a legitimate shot.

Colorado

All along, most of the pundits have pretty much assumed that Hillary Clinton was going to win Colorado.

Unfortunately for her, the Denver Post is reporting that the number of Republicans that have voted so far exceeds the number of Democrats that have voted…

Republicans took the lead in early voting in Colorado at the end of the day Friday and held the advantage through the weekend despite robust Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.

The latest early voting numbers released Monday morning show registered Republicans cast 652,380 ballots compared to 645,020 registered Democrats — a 7,360 vote GOP advantage. The breakdown looks like this: 35.2 percent Republican, 34.8 percent Democrat and 28.5 percent unaffiliated.

If Donald Trump could find a way to actually win Colorado, that would definitely lessen the pressure of having to win Nevada where he is not doing nearly as well so far.

Arizona

The state of Arizona used to be considered “deep red” territory, but during this election cycle it has been considered a battleground state.

Fortunately for Trump the poll numbers in Arizona have shifted in his direction in recent days, and the early numbers coming out of the state look very good for him…

The Republican lead in absentee ballots returned is 95,000. Bill Dunn, the party’s director of early and absentee voting, said Republicans lead with 36.5 percent of absentee ballots requested but have an even greater advantage in absentee ballots returned, at 40 percent of the total.

In the waning days of the campaign Donald Trump has been criss-crossing the country, and he continues to draw absolutely enormous crowds.  Conservative voters are far more enthusiastic about Trump than they were about Romney, but will it be enough?

Some Republican strategists are convinced that it will not be enough.  In fact, one of them told CNN that he believes that Hillary Clinton is going to win by “an electoral landslide”…

Hillary Clinton will win in an electoral landslide on Tuesday, but the political baggage she has accumulated over the past year-and-a-half will dissuade congressional Republicans from working with her administration, says longtime Republican political strategist John Weaver.

“I believe she’s going to win in an electoral landslide and be the most unpopular president in electoral history, which is quite the paradox,” Weaver told David Axelrod on “The Axe Files” podcast, produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.

And ultimately it could be the establishment Republicans and the “never-Trumpers” that make the difference and deliver the election to Hillary Clinton.  If you can believe it, some establishment Republicans are actually publicly announcing that they have voted for Hillary Clinton and are encouraging others to do the same.

If they can get just five percent of Republicans to follow them, they could completely alter the outcome of the election.  So let us hope that does not happen.

On a positive note, on Monday we learned that Hillary Clinton has canceled her celebratory fireworks for Tuesday night.  No reason was given for why the fireworks were canceled, but many are taking this as a sign that the Clinton campaign may not be as optimistic as they were previously.

In any event, we don’t have long to wait now until we find out who wins and who loses.

If you want Donald Trump to win, please go vote, because America may never be faced with this kind of a choice again.

I am absolutely convinced that this is a pivotal moment in American history, and on Tuesday night we find out what happens.

May God have mercy on the late, great United States of America.

If Donald Trump Wins, He Will Be 70 Years, 7 Months And 7 Days Old On His First Full Day In Office

donald-trump-accepts-the-nomination-public-domainA couple of weeks ago, it looked like Hillary Clinton was all set to cruise to victory, but now the FBI has delivered an election miracle in the nick of time.  A few of my readers had criticized me for suggesting that Trump might lose, but I don’t know who is going to win the election, and so all I had to go on was the cold, hard numbers.  And a couple of weeks ago the cold, hard numbers were telling me that Hillary Clinton was going to win.  Of course it is entirely possible that the national polls might have been seriously wrong, but even the state polls in the most important battleground states consistently had bad news for Trump.  So things didn’t look good for Trump at the time, but now that the FBI has renewed their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails the poll numbers have shifted dramatically in Trump’s favor.

As I write this article, the national polls have really tightened up.  In fact, the latest ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll puts Trump 1 point ahead of Clinton.  Trump has all of the momentum at the moment, but that does not mean that he is going to win.  As we have seen already in this race, one day can literally change everything.

And as I noted yesterday, more than 23 million Americans have already voted, and most of that voting was done during a period of time when Hillary Clinton was doing very well in the polls.

So we shall see what happens.  But if Trump does win on November 8th, there is a fact about his birthday which will start to get a lot of attention.

Donald Trump was born on June 14th, 1946.  If you move ahead 70 years from that date, that brings you to June 14th, 2016.  Moving forward another 7 months brings you to January 14th, 2017, and moving forward another 7 days brings you to January 21st, 2017.

And if Donald Trump wins the election, January 21st will be his first full day in office.

Of course Trump would be inaugurated on January 20th, but he would only be president for part of that day.

So that means that Donald Trump would be 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old on his first full day as president of the United States.

And this would happen during year 5777 on the Hebrew calendar.

These amazing “coincidences” were first pointed out on Facebook by a user named Alyson Kelly.  Some may take these numbers as a sign that Donald Trump is supposed to become the next president, but I want to make it exceedingly clear that I do not know what is going to happen, nor am I making any sort of prediction about what is going to happen.

I just thought that this information was “interesting” and so I thought that I would share it.

Someone that does believe that Trump is going to win is Glenn Beck.  He was been virulently anti-Trump throughout this campaign, but now he is convinced that Clinton will be unable to overcome this new email scandal, and he is calling this renewed investigation by the FBI “the greatest gift given to any candidate of all time in the history of America.”

Beck also says that if Clinton wins now it will be evidence that “magic exists”, and he is currently projecting that Trump should win the national vote by 5 points…

“Let’s just say he was 8 points, that was fair to say, 8 points behind last week,” Beck said, according to a transcript posted on his website. “He should win by 5 points.”

Beck later added: “How can the next president face a possible collapsing economy, possible war with Russia, and a current war with ISIS? Oh, and also, be under FBI investigation and indictment? Can’t. Can’t.”

The conservative personality called the latest FBI revelation “the greatest gift given to any candidate of all time in the history of America” and added that if Clinton still managed to win, it would be akin to proof “magic exists.”

Hopefully Glenn Beck is right, because none of us should want to see Hillary Clinton in the White House.

She is the most evil, corrupt and scandal-ridden politician of this generation, and I can’t understand how any American in their right mind could possibly vote for her.

And the hits just keep on coming.  Wikileaks has just released an email in which John Podesta told Clinton “fixer” Cheryl Mills that they were “going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later”…

wikileaks-podesta-wikileaks

It was not entirely clear what Podesta meant by that phrase, but it could potentially be smoking gun evidence of obstruction of justice.

Back in 2008, Barack Obama was new, intriguing and mysterious.  We didn’t know a lot about him, and so one can almost understand how the American people could have been fooled by him.

But in 2016, Americans know more about Hillary Clinton than they have ever known about any candidate in modern American history.

The Clintons have a history of crimes and scandals that goes all the way back to the 1980s, but about half the country is choosing to ignore all of that history and vote for her anyway.

I believe that this election is America’s final exam.  Originally there were 17 Republicans and 5 Democrats running for the presidency.  When you throw in the major third party candidates, that brings us to a total of approximately 25 people that the American public could have chosen from.

If the American people willingly choose the most wicked candidate out of all of them after everything that has been revealed, I don’t think that anyone will be able to say that we don’t deserve the bitter consequences that follow that decision.

The time for talking is almost over, and shortly we shall find out which path the American people have chosen.

If that choice turns out to be Hillary Clinton after everything that we have seen during this election cycle, I truly believe that we will have reached the point of no return as a nation.

Thank You FBI: The Clinton Email Investigation Has Shifted The Poll Numbers Significantly In Trump’s Favor

donald-trump-rally-photo-by-michael-candeloriDonald Trump has all the momentum now.  Will it be enough to propel him to victory on election day?  Trump’s poll numbers were improving even before we learned that the FBI had renewed its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, and the new survey results that came out over the weekend and on Monday make it clear that Clinton’s “certain victory” is not so certain after all.  Unless something changes, Americans are going to go to the polls on November 8th with an FBI criminal investigation hanging over the Clinton campaign like an ominous cloud, and that is very good news for Trump.

The Clinton campaign was hoping that this renewed investigation would not “move the needle”, but unfortunately for them that appears not to be the case.  Hillary’s unfavorable rating just hit an all-time high, a whopping 45 percent of all Americans believe that this scandal is “worse than Watergate”, and a Rasmussen survey has found that 40 percent of all undecided voters that are leaning toward voting for Hillary Clinton are still open to changing their minds before election day.

And even before this story broke on Friday, Clinton was having a difficult time getting her voters to the polls.  According to the New York Times, early voting among young adults and African-American voters is significantly down compared to 2012, and those are demographic groups that Clinton desperately needs to turn out in large numbers.

But of course the key to winning the election is getting to 270 electoral votes, and poll numbers appear to be shifting in the key swing states that Trump and Clinton both desperately need.  For a moment, I would like to examine what the numbers currently look like in some of the most important states…

Florida

Without Florida, Donald Trump has absolutely no chance of winning.  This is something that even the Trump campaign has admitted.  That is why it was so alarming that most of the polls in October had Hillary Clinton leading in the state.

Fortunately for Trump, a new survey that was conducted on Sunday shows him leading in Florida by four points.

Georgia

Georgia wasn’t supposed to be a problem.  Georgia has traditionally been a deep red state, but polling throughout this election season had shown a very tight race.  This had Republicans deeply concerned and the Clinton camp very happy.

But now the momentum has seemingly shifted and the latest poll has Trump up by seven points.

North Carolina

Mitt Romney won North Carolina in 2012, and Donald Trump very much needs to win it if he hopes to be triumphant on November 8th.  Hillary Clinton was shown to be leading in the eight most recent polls before the email story broke, but in the first major survey conducted afterwards she is now down by two points.

Ohio

No Republican has ever won the presidency without Ohio, and Trump knows how important it is to his chances.  The three most recent polls conducted before the FBI renewed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails all showed a tie, but now the very first survey conducted afterwards shows Trump up by five points.

Colorado

Hillary Clinton has consistently been in the lead in Colorado throughout this campaign, and most experts didn’t give Trump much of a chance in the state, but the latest survey shows that Clinton’s lead has been whittled down to just one point.

Arizona

A survey that was conducted in mid-October showed Clinton having a five point lead in John McCain’s home state, but now the latest major poll has Trump up by two points.

Nevada

One of the most important swing states out west is Nevada, and most surveys showed Hillary Clinton with a strong lead throughout the month of October.  Unfortunately for her, a poll that was conducted on Sunday shows Donald Trump with a four point lead.

Clearly Trump has the momentum at this point, and it will be very interesting to see how the numbers change over the next few days.

And as we learn more about what is in these newly discovered emails, will her fellow Democrats stick with her?  Already, some are publicly wavering.  The following example comes from WND…

Longtime Clinton confidante and former Democratic pollster Doug Schoen told Fox News the newly renewed FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server is forcing him to “reassess” his support for the Democratic nominee for president.

Schoen, a Fox News contributor, made the comments to host Harris Faulkner during a live television appearance Sunday night on “Fox Report Weekend.”

Public opinion is shifting quickly, but the bad news for Trump is that more than 23 million Americans have already voted.  So millions upon millions of Americans cast their votes before they even learned of this new FBI investigation.  If the race is very close, that could end up making the difference.

And of course the race could dramatically change once again if the FBI comes to some sort of resolution about these new emails prior to November 8th.  On Monday, CNN reported that a resolution before election day did not appear to be likely…

FBI officials are unlikely to finish their review of new emails potentially related to its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server before the November 8 election.

The initial work of cataloging top Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s emails found on her estranged husband Anthony Weiner’s laptop could be done in the next few days, US law enforcement officials told CNN.

But the investigators are expected to spend more time doing other work, including likely working with other federal agencies to determine what — if any — classified materials are in the emails. This makes it unlikely there will be a resolution prior to the election.

However, late on Monday evening the Drudge Report reported that the L.A. Times has learned that investigators may have a “preliminary assessment” completed “in coming days”…

LA TIMES TUESDAY: FBI Investigators had planned to conduct new email review over several weeks. It now hopes to complete ‘preliminary assessment’ in coming days, but agency officials have not decided how, or whether, they will disclose results publicly… Developing…

Whether good or bad, I do believe that the American people deserve to hear something conclusive about these emails before November 8th.

If nothing is found to implicate Clinton, the American people should be told that.

And if evidence of very serious crimes is discovered, there is no way in the world that should be held back until after the election.

Even if it throws the election into complete and utter chaos, the American people deserve to know the truth.

But will we get it?

Stay tuned, because I think that this is going to be a crazy week.

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