Two members of the US Electoral College are openly campaigning against President-elect Donald Trump, trying to persuade other presidential electors to keep him from entering the White House, according to a new report.  State electors Bret Chiafolo of Washington and Michael Baca of Colorado have launched what they call “Moral Electors” movement, a last-ditch effort against the New York billionaire, Politico reported on Monday.

The pair were seeking to persuade at least 37 Republican presidential voters to join them, just enough to block Trump’s election and allow the US House of Representative to elect the country’s 45th president. “This is a longshot. It’s a Hail Mary,” Chiafolo told Politico. “However, I do see situations where — when we’ve already had two or three [Republican] electors state publicly they didn’t want to vote for Trump. How many of them have real issues with Donald Trump in private?”

Interestingly, both Chiafolo, a Microsoft employee, and Baca, a Marine Corps veteran, said they were not looking to elect Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for the top job. They both have planned to vote against the former secretary of state when the Electoral College convenes to elect the next president in mid-December. The joint effort has been supported by Robert Satiacum Jr., another Washington state elector, who has openly expressed his opposition to Trump and Clinton before.

Although the electors have admitted that their attempt is not likely to succeed, the fact that members of the Electoral College were openly plotting against the president-elect raises questions about the controversial process of electing a new president in America.

On November 8, most American voters partaking in the election voted for Clinton but Trump came put victorious by winning key states and banking their electoral votes. As of Tuesday, Trump had won 290 of the total 538 electoral votes, compared to Clinton’s 228. He was also likely to win all of Michigan’s 16 electoral votes.

The report came shortly after prominent Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders said America needed to “rethink” the Electoral College after electing “a man for president who didn’t get the most votes.” Meanwhile, thousands of Clinton’s supporters have signed an online petition, calling on electoral voters to vote for Clinton instead of Trump.

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Americans across the country continue street protests for the fourth straight day against the election of Donald Trump as president in an unprecedented show of opposition to a president-elect amid chants of “Not my president!”

The protest rallies throughout the country on Saturday took place a day after one protester was shot and wounded in city of Portland in the Western state of Oregon following a confrontation after nightfall on Friday, when instances of vandalism and assault were also reported.

In Trump’s home city of New York, where mostly peaceful protest rallies along downtown streets have continued since Wednesday – the day after he surprisingly defeated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by electoral votes and despite losing the popular vote count – more than 10,000 people indicated on Facebook that they would take part in a noon march from Union Square to Trump Tower, the site of the president-elect’s residence and corporate headquarters.

The demonstrators marched up the prestigious Fifth Avenue under heavy police presence while chanting “Not my president!” as well as “Whose streets? ‎Our streets!”

Despite severe security measures around Trump Tower, the building’s lobby and restaurants, which have become a temporary home for journalists looking for information and sightings of members of Trump’s transition team, remained open to the public.

Protesters also waged rallies across the Western state of California, including in the major city of Los Angeles, where more than 200 were detained by police a night before.

Meanwhile, activists across the country expressed firm plans to build momentum ahead of the president-elect’s inauguration ceremonies in Washington on January 20.

Moreover, a “million-women-march” is also being planned on the nation’s capital for the inauguration day, specifically in response to Trump’s widely-reported instances of mistreating women, according to local press reports.

Additionally, online efforts are also in the works by left-wing groups to plan for protest marches during the inauguration events, which attract dignitaries of all sorts from across the US and the world.

This is while co-founder of Black Lives Matter Patrisse Cullors declared that the movement was “grieving and mourning,” vowing to build “something bigger and stronger than the hate Trump and his team have exhibited towards marginalized communities,” the UK-based Guardianreported.

Anti-Trump rallies also spread to Germany with protesters gathering Saturday outside the US embassy in Berlin to censure the stated policies of the newly elected American chief executive. The German protesters further slammed what they referred to as xenophobia and racism. Civil rights organizations such as Black Lives Matter also took part in the Berlin rally.

The developments came as Trump blamed the persisting protest rallies against his victory on “professional protesters, incited by the media” in a tweet on Thursday, expressing concern that such efforts were tarnishing his electoral success, describing them as “very unfair.”

Following strong criticism of his online post, he stated in a second post that he appreciated the “passion for our great country” shown by protesters.

This is while Clinton and her campaign’s head of opinion research were reported to have blamed her defeat on two letters to Congress from FBI director James Comey, regarding the Democratic presidential nominee’s use of a private email server while serving as the Obama administration’s first secretary of state.

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Hillary Clinton’s top advisers blame FBI Director James Comey for the Democrat’s bruising loss to President-elect Donald Trump. Navin Nayak, the head of the Clinton campaign’s opinion research division, sent an email to senior staffers Thursday, outlining “early signals” as to why the candidate lost the November 8 presidential election, POLITICO reported on Friday.

“We believe that we lost this election in the last week,” said Nayak’s email, which was published by POLITICO. “Comey’s letter in the last 11 days of the election both helped depress our turnout and also drove away some of our critical support among college-educated white voters — particularly in the suburbs.”

“We also think Comey’s 2nd letter, which was intended to absolve Sec. Clinton, actually helped to bolster Trump’s turnout,” he continued. The letter also highlighted several other challenges the Clinton team faced throughout the campaign, including a desire for change after two terms by a Democratic president and the reluctance of some Americans to vote for a female candidate.

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Over two million people in the United States have signed a petition, calling on the members of the Electoral College to vote for US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton when they meet in December.  The petition was published on Thursday and its signatories demanded that the Electoral College grant the US presidency to Clinton, who leads President-elect Donald Trump in popular votes by about 300,000 votes.

“We are calling on the Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton,” the petition read. “Mr. Trump is unfit to serve. His scapegoating of so many Americans, and his impulsivity, bullying, lying, admitted history of sexual assault and utter lack of experience make him a danger to the Republic,” it noted.

“Secretary Clinton WON THE POPULAR VOTE and should be President,” the petition noted.

All the 538 electors across the US will meet on December 19 to officially cast their ballots for the presidential election despite a traditional vote they cast on November 8 along the lines of the states they represent. Technically, the so-called faithless electors can buck tradition and support the candidate who lost their state, overturning the “results” of the election.

On Tuesday, Trump stunned the world by defeating heavily favored Clinton in the presidential election, sending the United States on a new, uncertain path. Trump rode a wave of anger toward the elite US establishment to win the White House race against Clinton, a longtime Washington insider. The New York businessman garnered 290 electoral votes in the 2016 US election, while his rival and the former secretary of state received 232 votes despite winning the popular vote.

On Wednesday, thousands of people rallied in cities across the US to protest against Trump’s presidential election victory, condemning his controversial campaign rhetoric against Muslims, immigrants, women and other groups. This is while Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans. “It is time for us to come together as one united people,” he said.

Trump, who at 70 will be the oldest first-term US president, defeated his Democratic rival after a bitter and divisive campaign. During the campaign, Trump was the target of sharp disapproval, not just from Democrats but from many in his own party.

The real estate mogul’s election campaign had been marred by his disparaging remarks against minorities in the US. His comments include a call to ban all Muslims from coming to America as well as stopping Mexican migrants by building a long wall along the US-Mexico border.

He has also sought for a database to track Muslims across the United States and said that the US would have “absolutely no choice” but to close down mosques.

Trump’s proposal was widely condemned by Muslim and human rights groups as well as his Democratic rivals and many of his Republican proponents who describe the proposal as divisive, counterproductive and contrary to American values.

Culled from Presstv

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election in a dramatic shift of events on Tuesday, says the fact that more people have voted for her than her opponent GOP nominee Donald Trump, means that the American people “counted” on her.

Addressing her supporters at New Yorker Hotel on Wednesday, the Democratic flag-bearer said she was not trying to “sugarcoat” her loss, urging Democrats to remain “focused on what each of us in our own ways can do to really keep standing up for those values, and doing all that we can do together to represent them.”

Clinton fell short of 47 electoral votes with 228, compared to Trump who got 279 to become the US president, however, more people narrowly voted for the Democrat to win the popular vote (48 percent to 47 percent). “We won the popular vote. We have a lot of people, who really counted on us and believed in us, and worked so hard for us, because they shared our vision of the kind of America that we wanted not only to be part of but to help, create nurture and send into the future,” she told the tearful supporters. “I’m not going to sugar-coat it, it’s really hard.”

Earlier, the former first lady and New York congresswoman took the stage in the hotel for her concession speech. Apart from congratulating to the New York billionaire, Clinton spoke of the division in the United States and apologized to the nearly 60 million voters who backed her.

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US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump used the final Saturday before Election Day to wrap up their pitches for the White House in a last-ditch attempt to sway undecided voters in battleground states and stem any eleventh-hour defections.

Clinton, the Democratic nominee, held rallies and events in Florida and Pennsylvania, appealing to women, minorities and millennials. She also added a planned stop in Michigan for Monday, the day before the November 8 election.

More than 33 Americans had already cast their ballots by Friday and there are signs from early returns that Clinton’s presidential hopes have been lifted by a high turnout among Hispanic voters in key states.

Campaigning in Pines, Florida, in the afternoon, Clinton tried to encourage the region’s diverse demographic mix of Hispanic, black, Caribbean and Jewish voters to cast early ballots.

“Here’s what I want you to remember,” she told the crowd. “I want to be the president for everybody: everybody who agrees with me, people who don’t agree with me, people who will vote for me, people who don’t vote for me.”

Republicans have long been concerned that Trump’s hard line on immigration would alienate Hispanic voters, and early indications suggest their fears are warranted.

Nearly 6 million people had already voted in Florida by Saturday morning, and returns from mail-in balloting put Democrats in a small lead of about 7,000 votes, down from their lead of more than 100,000 votes at the same point four years ago.

Pennsylvania does not have early voting, so Clinton is expected to invest more time and energy in that battleground state in the closing days of the campaign.

The former secretary of state will make a stop – her second in recent days — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday, a sign that the race is tightening in unexpected places. The latest poll from the state puts her in the lead by just 4 percentage points, down 3 points from a late October survey.

Trump dashed to four states across three times zones, beginning the day in Tampa, Florida, as part of an intense campaign blitz that also took him to North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado.

His campaign event in Reno, Nevada, briefly erupted in commotion when he was rushed from the stage by Secret Service agents. The candidate had stopped speaking after seeing something suspicious in the audience but appeared back on the stage minutes later.

The Republican presidential candidate has an uphill battle in the state following a boom of early voting by Democrats. Local reports suggest that Trump is currently leading his Democratic rival by two points in Nevada.

The New York businessman has said he would include Democratic strongholds among his final campaign stops in the last two days before the election. He plans to visit Pennsylvania, Michigan and also Minnesota, which has voted Democratic since 1972. Polls show him trailing Clinton by about five points in that state.

Trump’s tight Sunday schedule also includes stops in Iowa and Virginia. Trump’s communications director, Jason Miller, said Saturday that internal polls show many states, including Michigan, Minnesota and New Mexico, are closer than public polls suggest, indicating that a renewed FBI probe of Clinton’s emails is taking its toll on her campaign.

As polls have tightened, Trump has been trying to minimize the risk of any last-minute mistakes by sticking to scripted speeches and his favorite lines of attack against Clinton. “If she ever got into the Oval Office, Hillary and her special interests would rob this country blind,” the real estate tycoon said in North Carolina.

Meanwhile, national polls show a near-even race between the two candidates in the final weekend before Election Day. A McClatchy-Marist poll released on Saturday puts Clinton in the lead with 44 percent support among likely voters while Trump trails closely behind at 43 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error.

Culled from Presstv

Melania Trump, the wife of US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, was paid for modeling jobs in the US before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to documents. She was paid for 10 modeling jobs in 1996 worth $20,056, which was seven weeks before obtaining the necessary documents to legally work in the country, The Associated Press reported Friday, citing accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents.

The details of Melania Trump’s early paid modeling work in the US emerged in the final days of a bitter presidential campaign in which her husband has taken a tough stance on immigration laws and those who violate them. The wife of the Republican presidential nominee, who became a US citizen in 2006, has claimed she arrived in the country legally and never violated the terms of her immigration status. During the presidential campaign, she has cited her story to defend her husband’s hard line on immigration.

Melania Trump has said through an attorney that she first came to the US from Slovenia on August 27, 1996 on a visitor visa and then obtained a work visa on October 18, 1996. Foreigners are not allowed to use a visitor visa to do paid work in the US for American companies. “The documents examined by the AP indicate that the modeling assignments would have been outside the bounds of her visa,” AP reports.

Trump has repeatedly made disparaging remarks about immigrants throughout his campaign, particularly immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East. The race between Trump and Clinton represents a battle between two of the least liked major party candidates in history. Recent surveys have found Clinton and Trump as the most unpopular presidential candidates in decades.

An overwhelming majority of American voters are disgusted by the state of US politics and doubt that either of the two main presidential nominees can unite the country after a historically bitter presidential campaign, according to the final pre-election New York Times/CBS News Poll.

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Republican and Democratic Parties have made such a mockery of US democracy and electoral process that a majority of Americans want neither candidate to win the November 8 election, asks Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist.

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity among American voters has reached a new high, according to recent polls, putting her on par with her Republican rival Donald Trump. According to the final pre-election New York Times/CBS News Poll released on Thursday, an overwhelming majority of American voters are disgusted by the state of US politics, and most view Trump and Clinton as dishonest.

More than 80 percent of voters say the presidential campaign has left them repulsed rather than excited, the poll found. “Having the two most hated politicians running for president of the US representing the two largest political parties has made a mockery of our democracy and electoral process,” Hoenig told Press TV on Friday. “Hillary Clinton lied and stole her way to the nomination for the Democrats and Trump bullied his way by insulting every interest group in America, including his fellow Republican opponents,” he added.

“For the third parties we have Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, who has been made a laughing stock for his ignorance of foreign policy. His poll numbers are dropping. The other 3rd party candidate is Jill Stein of the Green Party who is seeing an actual rise in her numbers in spite of lies and smears coming from mostly the Democrats, with assistance from the main stream media,” he said.  “That the race is tightening is no surprise. It often happens at this time but the reasons now are not because people are becoming more assured of who they want but more and more disgusted in the choices they have,” he stated.

“Regardless of who wins, and it’s most probable that it’ll be either Clinton or Trump, this country’s nightmare will only begin on Jan 21st, the day after the inauguration. If it’s Clinton one wouldn’t be surprised if the ink on the articles of impeachment isn’t already dried. By then, it’s possible that criminal charges will have been presented to her or that she had received by then a presidential pardon from the outgoing President Obama,” the analyst noted.

“President Ford once said, when he was a leader in the House of Representatives, that impeachment is for whatever the Congress wants it to be. Simply the whiff of impropriety or criminal behavior would make any partisan congressman see that as reason enough for such an article of impeachment. Compound that with an actual indictment and it’s guaranteed,” he said.

The commentator said, “Trump has a different set of problems if he were to be inaugurated in January. His positions are so outlandish that even his own party, which by and large has rejected him, would pounce on anything he does that would jeopardize their chances as a party and individually in the next off-year elections of 2018.”

“We have to look inward as to what kind of nation we are that we have degenerated to the point where a majority of Americans want neither candidate to win,” he said in his concluding remarks.

Culled from Presstv