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National News

National // Jill Stein Files For Election Recount

Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party’s failed bid for the White House, has filed for a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. According to the Associated Press (AP), Stein raised $7 million toward the effort, twice what she garnered for her campaign.

The AP reported that Stein alleged possible tampering with electronic voting machines in the three states. This claim which was backed by J Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, according to BBC.

The White House refuted any possibility of tampering with the election results. A senior official in the Obama administration stated to Politico, We stand behind our election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people.” The Clinton campaign also acknowledged a lack of evidence to support Stein’s allegations. Marc Elias, general counsel of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, said he found no  “actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology,” Politico reported. Nonetheless, observers from the Clinton campaign will be present at recounts in Michigan, according to BBC.

President-elect Donald Trump  countered the recount filings with allegations of his own via Twitter. “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions who voted illegally,” he tweeted on Monday. Also on Monday, Trump clarified in another tweet that he was referring to “serious voter fraud” in Virginia, California, and New Hampshire. NBC News reported that no evidence has been found to support Trump’s claim.

California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, responded with a tweet of his own, saying, “It appears that Mr. Trump is troubled by the fact that a growing majority of Americans did not vote for him. His unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in California and elsewhere are absurd. His reckless tweets are inappropriate and unbecoming of a President-elect,” NBC News reported. Clinton won the popular vote by about 2 million votes, according to NBC News.

Also on Monday, Stein filed a suit against the Wisconsin Elections Committee. The Committee refused to require each county to conduct a recount; if Stein’s loses her suit, she will have to petition each of Wisconsin’s 80+ counties to recount votes.

A Pennsylvania recount will require Stein to provide evidence of probable vote manipulation, which the Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes says there is “absolutely no evidence” of, according to the Philadelphia Media Network.

The AP reported that while it is highly unlikely a recount will change the election outcome, the drive for funds will continue to push Stein onto the national stage. After the recount matter is settled, any leftover funds will be funneled into the Green Party for “election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform,” Stein said. Stein also wrote on her website, “These recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the US election system is.”

Trump denounced the recount efforts as a “scam,” and accused the Green Party of attempting to “fill up their coffers,” according to BBC. BBC also reported that Trump accused Clinton of reneging on her concession to Trump late on November 8.

Categories
National News

National // Donald Trump Wins Presidency

In spite of poll predictions, Donald J. Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States, a shock most jarringly felt by the Hillary Clinton campaign, who at times led by double digit polls during the campaign season, according to CNN.

wikipedia.org
wikipedia.org

States like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina, states that had been expected to fall decisively blue, fell in Trump’s favor, carrying him fairly easily to the necessary 270 votes in the Electoral College, the New York Times reported. Protesters gathered in response to Trump’s election, with crowds in Los Angeles stretching for several miles according to CNN. Sanders backed the protests in an interview with USA Today, and stated, “We have a First Amendment. People are angry. People are upset. And they want to express their point of view that they are very frightened, in very, very strong disagreement with Mr. Trump, who has made bigotry the cornerstone of his campaign.”

Trump managed to tap into the heart of the white, working class,  a demographic that proved substantial enough to secure him the presidency. Hillary Clinton, however, struggled to recapture levels of voter turnout that President Obama relied so heavily upon in the two previous elections, according to NPR.  Perhaps most surprising of all, was the amount of minority support the Republican candidate was able to secure. PBS reported that after weighted consideration of building “The Wall,” after the soundbites denouncing illegal immigrants as “criminals and rapists,” Trump still managed to secure 29% of the Hispanic Vote. In 2012, Mitt Romney mustered 27%, by comparison, according to PBS.

The results of this election could be a definitive end to the influence of the Clintons in left-wing politics according to the Wall Street Journal, with the general public deciding twice that they do not want Hillary Clinton as Commander-in-Chief, having also lost the democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008. Her struggles to build trust with Americans, dismayed by her use of a private email server during her tenure as the Secretary of State and acceptance of six and seven figure paychecks for corporate speaking engagements failed to galvanize independent voters to her cause, the Wall Street Journal stated.

An America that just eight years ago had pioneered the arrival of its first African-American President fell just short of rallying to elect its first female to the office, instead electing a man whose derogatory remarks toward women have been widely recorded and scrutinized. Many felt that such talk would disqualify a presidential candidate from taking office.

Healthcare, immigration, abortion, the economy, ISIS, relations with America’s allies and economic partners were only some of the most pressing matters for voters, according to Politico. Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump said he was reconsidering his stance on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act after his meeting with President Obama. Trump’s stance on immigration has continued to develop as well. He told CBS on “60 Minutes” he plans to deport or incarcerate up to 3 million undocumented immigrants. He also said his promised wall may include “some fencing.” “For certain areas I would [build fencing], but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate,” he said. “I’m very good at this, it’s called construction.”

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Opinions

Election 2016: A Babylonian Furnace

Flannery O’Connor (1925-1962) was a preeminent writer in the American South. O’Connor drew her stories from her rural Georgian experiences and her Roman Catholic faith.  She wrote about morality and ethics in the post antebellum South.  O’Connor’s Southern Gothic writing style involves deeply flawed characters engaged in sinister plots. In O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find comprised of a collection of short stories, she writes an interesting short story titled A Circle In The Fire. The story parallels the Book of Daniel and interestingly parallels the 2016 Presidential Election.

Photo by: Anthony Burdo
Photo by: Anthony Burdo

By replacing the characters in A Circle In the Fire with the cast of the 2016 election candidates and pundits, we find O’Connor’s short story traces this election’s story.  Focusing on the protagonist Mrs. Cope (played by Mrs. Clinton) and her plantation (the Democrat Blue Wall),  O’Connor paints Mrs. Cope as a paranoid and secretive woman scared of losing control of her farm (her power) and is obsessed in guarding her privacy (her home email server).  She believes she has complete control of her plantation and the people working on it.  Like the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, Mrs. Cope demands her subordinates to idolize and worship her. Her friend and assistant, Mrs. Pinchard (played by Huma Abedin) does her best to make Mrs. Cope comfortable and shield her from the real world. While working with Mrs. Cope each day on the farm, Mrs. Pinchard shares tragic stories (of regular Americans). Mrs. Cope is interested in these misfortunes because they have not befallen her or her farm. She has servants (played by Bernie Sanders and a few Millennials) that are picked on by Mrs. Cope for doing their work wrong because they are lazy and stupid.   

joegquoteOne day, three teenage boys show up on the farm and trespass onto the plantation. The boys names are Garfield Smith (played by Newt Gingrich), W.T. Harper (played by Rudy Guiliani), and their leader Powel Boyd (played by Donald Trump). Powel is wild and an unpredictable outsider who uses foul language, smokes cigarettes, and has little respect for the elite plantation structure. Powel is on the farm to rekindle something lost from his idyllic childhood (Making America Great Again). Mrs. Cope doesn’t want this basket full of deplorables on her farm, but she allows them to stay even when they prove too much for her to control. She offers them sandwiches and drinks, but similar to the Book of  Daniel 1:11-13, the boys refuse it because Mrs. Cope wants them to submit to her orders. Instead, the boys walk outside to the barn and steal milk. Mrs. Cope is concerned their cigarette smoking will start a fire since the farm has suffered a summer long drought. Night falls and the boys want to go to sleep in the barn, but Mrs. Cope insists they sleep in the field due to her fear that they will burn down the barn. The following day, the boys wake up and defy Mrs. Cope by riding her horses and letting the bull loose. Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Cope sees the boys throwing rocks at her mailbox and tells them she is going to call the police. The boys disappear, but as night falls Mrs. Cope smells smoke and sees the forest on her property is on fire. As she gets her servants, she approaches the fire and hears the boys laughter dancing in the fiery furnace of her forest. As fire engulfs the property, Mrs. Cope’s  biggest fears have been realized. Her fortress was more fragile than she thought and her control is gone.

For Mrs. Clinton, the main stream media, Wall Street, the Washington DC elites, Hollywood, academia, Democrats, and the GOP establishment; the future will no longer be the same. Many will be fired and replaced. This election, the outsider broke through the farm gates and burned the establishment down. However, there is a technique in forest management called a controlled burn which is used when a forest is lit on fire in order to save it.  Moving forward, Donald Trump has the match in his hands and has the opportunity to control burn the Washington establishment to try to save it. It should be all our hope that President Trump can manage and steward the forest we call America.   

Joseph is a senior majoring in accounting and business administration with a minor in economics.

Categories
Opinions

Rob Bell, My Neighbor, and a Wall

Last month, I had the privilege of attending a one-day workshop event with former megachurch pastor, Rob Bell. He is known for his fresh take on ancient ideas, and brings clarity to opaque concepts within the Judeo-Christian tradition. “Scholar,” “mystic,” and “spiritual communicator,” are apt descriptions of the man who saw his church grow to over 10,000 members by teaching through the book of Leviticus in a year. All that being said, I was very happy to get an invitation to spend a day interacting with him in person. But this piece is less about Rob Bell, and more about something specific he said, something I think everyone in our community would benefit from reading; albeit second-hand, and with an element of my own experience thrown in.

Photo by: Nate Moore
Photo by: Nate Moore

“You know how we can often develop a preconceived notion of people, especially the negative kinds of ideas?” he said. Everyone in the audience nodded. “You know, we hear about those people, who come from that place, and they have that color of skin, and dress that way. And we are told that they are dangerous, scary, and don’t have anything in common with us. You all know what I’m talking about, right?” Again, head-nods of recognition and agreement from the crowd. “But then, one of those people actually moves in next door. And guess what? They turn out to be the best neighbor you have ever had! They turn out to be the exact opposite of what we have been told to expect.” For a third time, we all nodded and smiled in agreement. Rob’s face changed from a glowing, wide smile, to a somber and painful grimace. “Aaaaaand now, there is this thing that wants to build a wall.” An audible groan could be heard from the crowd. We too stopped smiling as the weight of one of our Presidential nominee’s aspirations hit us, Donald Trump wants to put up a wall, a wall that would keep out people like the neighbors we have come to love.

As I processed Rob’s words, I thought of my neighbor in Houghton. Pan is an Indian-Canadian citizen, and is the proud, hard-working owner of the Hanson Farms in Fillmore. His customer-service is exceptional, but more than that, he really cares about the people that come into his store, including me. Over the year I’ve known him, he has taken time to inquire about my work and school schedule and made sure to send his visiting sons to play with mine. On more than one occasion he has offered to let me borrow his minivan. Pan is a brown-skinned immigrant, and he is a great neighbor. I’m so glad that he is a small part of my life.

mattquoteI tell you about Pan because he can be seen as a stand-in for millions of other neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances. He is here, sharing our little community, because he wants to build the best life he can for his family. And while he is doing that, he makes our lives better too. But that thing Rob mentioned, that fascist running to be the leader of our country, wants to put up a wall to keep people like Pan out of our communities. He is hell-bent on dividing our world into “us” vs “them,” where “us” always means anyone just like me, and “them” refers to anyone I perceive to be different. And “we” are supposed to keep “them” as far away as possible.

To hell with that! Not only do I like my neighbor, but I recognize that “our” wholeness is dependent on building a shared community with whoever “they” are. And if you claim to follow in the path of a rabbi from Nazareth, even if you haven’t had the positive experience I’ve had with the “other,” I hope you will at least remember a story he told one time, a story about how one of “them” helped out an injured Jew. One can only wonder, what did the injured Jew think of Samaritans after he woke up in the inn, only to find that his rescue had come from the person he had been told to fear and hate his entire life. Do you think the Jew from that parable would support building a wall?       

Matt is a junior philosophy major.