Green Party candidate requests official recounts in three states in an effort to raise questions about the legitimacy of the 2016 Presidential Election.

Just when you thought that the burdensome, depressing 2016 Presidential Election was finally over, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has reminded us just how much the Liberal political establishment disrespects our electoral process.  Stein raised and spent millions of dollars on a campaign which was destined to never reach the five percent mark.  I can only assume that the money Ms. Stein spent on her exercise in vanity would have provided tens of thousands of poor Americans with food and clothing as winter approaches, but even Stein has her priorities, I suppose.  Stein has decided to pursue recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, states won by Donald Trump by very thin margins. According to Hillary for America attorney Mark Elias, "we believe we have an obligation to the more than sixty-four million Americans who cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings so that an accurate vote count will be reported."  Why is Mr. Elias commenting on Green Party nominee Jill Stein's request for recounts?  Because, not surprisingly, the Hillary campaign has jumped on the recount band wagon as well.  But lets be honest, the Clinton campaign has been in cahoots with Jill Stein since the idea of a recount was broached.  The idea was to encourage Stein and the looney Green Party to request the recounts, so that if the results remain the same (which they should, notwithstanding Democratic shenanigans), then Hillary wouldn't appear to be a sore loser.  This entire development is full of bits of comedy.  The Democrats have so much confidence in our electoral system and the honesty of the American voter, that they fight tooth and nail against any voting identification requirements.  So if the Democrats have so much confidence in the system, then why do we need a recount in three states?  Can the system that is so foolproof that voter fraud is impossible, screw up in all three states that basically decided the election?

The insincerity of the recount circus is truly disturbing.  The Democrats will have us believe that they are attempting to ensure that every vote is counted, especially in the states which were decided by small margins.  Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were decided by small percentages, but in the end, they voted for Donald Trump.  What about New Hampshire and Minnesota?  Clinton won New Hampshire by less than four thousand votes (forty-seven point six to forty-seven point two), and Minnesota by less than forty-three thousand votes (forty-six percent to forty-five percent).  Colorado, Maine, and Nevada were also within a few percentage points.  But these states were won by Hillary Clinton, so the concern for the sanctity of the individual vote goes right out the window when a Democrat has been declared the winner.

When the leaders of this effort discuss the process and their motivation, they always mention the "popular vote".  They assume that the average American is so easily distracted, that they can create a national wave of anger around the idea that Hillary Clinton was the "legitimate" winner in the 2016 Presidential Election.  We went through this once before, in 2000, and many people were reminded regarding how our electoral system functions.  We have an electoral system to prevent large urban agglomerations from single-handedly picking our president every four years.  Enough people live in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, to arguably decide each and every national election.  Many years ago, persons much wiser than myself decided that each state should have an impact on national elections, and candidates should not focus their entire campaigns on just three or four urban areas.  I like the electoral system, but I can understand why someone wouldn't; fortunately, because we live in the United States of America, you can change the process through legislative action.  If you believe that the popular vote should decide the winner of our presidential elections, then get involved, build a movement, seek out like-minded persons and politicians, and draft an amendment to the Constitution.

As for persons who continue to disseminate the idea that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, therefore she should be president, I can only suggest a simple review of recent history.  Both Clinton and Trump earned their nominations after successful but contentious primary campaigns.  After earning their respective nominations, both candidates huddled with advisors and created plans to accrue the two-hundred seventy electoral votes necessary to be declared the winner.  Neither candidate discussed what steps would be needed in order to win the popular vote.  During the campaign season, the talking heads on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and everywhere else, continually analyzed the map of electoral votes, not of population.  If the popular vote were the deciding factor in the presidential election, Donald Trump would have made more than one trip to Texas.  In fact, he would have made quite a few trips to California, New York, and Illinois.  Trump did not need to make repeated trips to Texas, because Texas is a solidly red state.  But if he had campaigned heavily in Texas, I am convinced he would have added another one million votes to his total.  Trump did not campaign in California or Chicago, but regular visits could very well have added an additional million votes to his popular total.  But Trump didn't need to visit Bakersfield, or Cicero, or Syracuse, New York.  His team realized beforehand that he needed electoral votes, not the popular vote, so a plan was crafted by which Trump would sweep the bell-weather states of Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and either Michigan or Pennsylvania.  Trump campaigned hard in those states, and for that reason, he is the President-Elect.

ISIS and its Global Strategy

Since The start of the new year, the world seems to be paying less attention to ISIS.  So many of us were sitting on pins and needles during the various New Year's celebrations in New York, Paris, London, and other great cities around the globe, hoping not to hear any breaking news stories about terrorist attacks.  We made it through the new year basically unscathed, and I think that with a huge sigh of relief, many of us went back to "business as usual" before the October 2015 Paris attacks and the December 2015 shootings in San Bernardino.  The fact that the mainstream press in the United States seems intent on pushing the narrative that ISIS is being beaten on the battlefield, so its OK to do non-stop new stories about Donald Trump and the circus that has become the Republican nomination process (the Republicans are the circus, even though the Democrats are going to nominate a potential felon in Hillary Clinton or an outright lunatic in Bernie Sanders).  Why is the press so intent on downplaying the threat by ISIS?  Because Barack Obama told us that the threat was being exaggerated.  The press always responds in a defensive posture to everything Barack Obama does.  No doubt if he farted at a State Funeral, the press would blame the White House Chef.  So Obama says that we aren't headed to World War III, and that ISIS is not a threat to the United States.  I assume that the family members of U.S. citizens killed in San Bernardino, California, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, by persons claiming allegiance to ISIS would disagree; I know I do.  ISIS has a series of strategies, each one going into effect after the previous has been accomplished (or altered by events).  ISIS has reviewed the current state of the battlefield, which has it in possession of one-third of Iraq and one-half of Syria, and decided that the time is ripe to exploit its surprisingly successful international outreach efforts.  The monsters making the decisions at the top of this organization are no dummies, nor will they put their equities at risk for ideology's sake (are you listening, President Obama?)  We are entering a new phase in the battle with ISIS, and it includes the introduction of a new strategy.

ISIS believes that the key to successfully expand its brand of worldwide-revolution is to dedicate resources to its budding operations in nations with strong Islamic traditions.  This includes all the nations of North Africa, and it includes Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia.  Most of these nations are in no military position to fight off a serious ISIS invasion, at least not without assistance in the form of "troops on the ground".  ISIS rakes in an incredible amount of money on a daily basis.  Why the Obama Administration has not been able to dent this flow of financial assistance is a mystery to me, because so many pundits in the media seem to know the various sources of this support.  Regardless, ISIS is intent on spreading the conflict outside of the borders of Syria and Iraq.  It has been testing its ability to project itself with operations in Libya, West Africa, and Indonesia, and results have been encouraging.  ISIS knows that any attention drawn to Southeast Asia or North Africa, will draw the enemy away from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria.  So by increasing recruitment and eventually, attacks in Tunisia, Libya, and Pakistan, ISIS will be not only spreading the Caliphate revolution, but also forcing the United States and its lock-step European partners to devote resources and attention to other allies and battlefields.  I'm still not sure where Russia fits into the picture; with all the hubbub and hardware that Putin brought to his Syria adventure, I expected much more in the way of battlefield victories by now.  Assad's internal opposition will eventually disappear completely under the weight of daily Russian attacks, and Putin will be obliged to either leave Syria or attack ISIS.

Obama must be aware that ISIS is expanding all over the globe, and yet he still makes public claims diminishing the threat that ISIS actually poses.  If they are so "insignificant", Mr. President, then why haven't we been able to defeat them?  True, we haven't really tried.  What a joke this Administration's entire Syria policy has been.  We still don't know what became of the millions of taxpayer dollars and the "Free Syrian Army" we were training in Jordan to take the place of U.S. infantry.  Obama still has one more year in office; no doubt it will be dedicated to domestic politics.  We all know that an Executive Order of some sort will be in place before the November election.  The uproar this will cause will certainly distract us all from the activities of ISIS in North Africa and Southeast Asia, but what a mess it will leave for his predecessor.