4 The Hampton Roads Messenger Editorial Taking control of our vote


Bush was able to take over the office of president. There were only three other times in the history of the US that someone was able to become president without winning the popular vote. The last time it happened was 122 years prior to the year 2000.


With email scandals and sexual misconduct charges looming against the mainstream party candidates, it seems that there is not a good choice. There are other presidential candidates on the ballot


Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian


Party BY ANGELA JONES African Americans have been


told to vote for certain individuals because they are from a certain party for decades. Donald Trump asked African Americans “What do you have to lose?” The truth of the matter is that African Americans have nothing to lose whether they vote for Trump or Clinton because a vote for either is a vote for the status quo. They are both members of an elite group that includes President Obama and just about every president of the US over the past century.


Graduates University, Harvard


of Princeton and


other


blue-blood ladened universities. Who really deserves your vote? Why are American citizens in denial? Why do we refuse to admit that the average citizen is not only barred from running for president, he does not even have a voice in who becomes president?


If there is any doubt that this is true, think back to the 2000 Presidential


Election between Al


Gore and George W. Bush. Did Bush win? He became president but did not win the popular vote. Because of the electoral college system that is currently used in electing presidents in the US and Gore’s lack of interest in pursuing all options available to ensure that the people’s will was done,


Gary


for 2016, including candidate


Johnson. Both of these candidates have impressive resumes. If there is one thing that US elections offer voters, it offers choices. Whether voting in a presidential election or voting for local candidates, American citizens have to not only exercise their right to vote, they also have to take advantage of the choices they have in selecting a candidate.


As a last resort, one can always


start a campaign on social media to have people write their name on


the ballot. Although sound irresponsible, this may it is no more


irresponsible than the options that the republican and democratic parties offer. At least the two main parties will realize that our vote should not be taken for granted and they will offer African Americans something other than empty promises every four years.


Local elections are just as


important as national elections. Voters should study candidates’ platforms, demand


solutions to problems in


their community, never give a vote freely and insist that candidates earn each vote. If they do not keep their promises, citizens should use social media or any other method at their disposal to ensure that elected officials in breech are not re-elected. As always, for the next election, anyone eligible should consider throwing their hat in the ring. Until that time, if we take control of our vote, "What do we have to lose?"


Volume 11 Number 2 'Unusual' Suspects FROM PAGE 1


vetoed more than 700 bills throughout his two terms. In his 2012 book, Seven Principles


of Good Government,


Johnson wrote, “Although I do not believe that government is ill- intentioned,


I strongly believe spending money in


less government. I vetoed 750 bills as governor because I abhor the government


on


programs that show no improvement in our lives and criminalize actions that do not warrant criminalization.”


After a short-lived run for the


Republican nomination for president in 2011, Johnson switched his party affiliation to Libertarian and went on to win the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president in 2012. In a statement describing his decision to leave the Republican Party, he said, “It was difficult because I have a lot of Republican history, and a lot of Republican supporters. But in the final analysis, as many, many commentators have said since watching how I governed


New Mexico, I am a


Libertarian.” In the 2012 general election, Johnson received almost 1 percent of the vote—a total of about 1.2 million votes.


Johnson’s 2016 bid for the presidency has attracted


more


attention than his 2012 run. In the first two weeks of August 2016, he raised more money ($2.9 million) than in the


entirety of his 2012 campaign


($2.3 million). In addition, as the Democratic and Republican nominees have both experienced low


favorability ratings,


historically Johnson


has managed to reach as high as 13 percent in national polls. Much of his campaign has centered on raising that number to 15 percent, which would have allowed him to participate in the general election debates in September and October.


Jill Stein is the 2016 Green


nominee for president of the United States. She declared her candidacy on June 22, 2015, and officially received the nomination of the Green Party on August 6, 2016, at the Green Party National Convention.


For a decade, Stein was a fixture in Massachusetts state politics, running unsuccessful


campaigns for state


representative in 2004, secretary of the commonwealth in 2006, and governor in 2002 and 2010. She previously ran for president in 2012, winning her party's nomination and securing 0.36 percent of the popular vote in the general election.


By trade, Stein is a physician


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who practiced internal medicine for 25 years. Although Stein retired in 2005, she has frequently cited


her


professional background as a driving force for her entering the


arena in her 50s. She explained in one interview, "Now, I say I'm practicing political medicine instead of clinical medicine because it's the mother of all illnesses and we've got to fix this political disease so we can get down to fixing the things that threaten life, limb and even survival. That includes war, poverty and climate change, as well as our physical health."


She supports progressive policy


positions that would move "from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism


to a economy that puts people, planet and human-centered political


November 2016


peace over profit," according to her campaign website. At the center of Stein's platform is the adoption of a "Green New Deal," which would seek to create millions of new jobs and improve


infrastructure, August 1, agriculture,


and conservation in the United States. On


2016, Stein


announced that she had selected human rights advocate Ajamu Baraka to be her running mate. She described him as an "activist, writer, intellectual and organizer with a powerful voice, vision, and lifelong commitment to building true political revolution."


Stein has typically received


between 1 percent and 5 percent support in national polls in 2016. Under rules promulgated by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), to qualify to participate in a presidential debate, a candidate must reach 15 percent support in an average of five selected national polls. Stein has said the CPD "is a thinly disguised scheme to protect the two establishment parties from competition" and called on Hillary Clinton (D) and Donald Trump (R) to demand that she and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson be allowed to join the debates.


Much has been said in the media regarding Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton but there is still a lot of recent developments that voters do not know about the republican and democratic party nominees; Mainly, information surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private server email woes, and accusations of sexual abuse against Donald Trump. Some of the latest developments in the Clinton email saga are outlined in FBI director James Comey’s letter to congress. Comey explains the reason he contacted congress regarding the emails in a letter to FBI employees. The contents of that letter are below:


To all: This morning I sent a letter


to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation. Yesterday,


the respect to


briefed me on their recommendation with


investigative seeking


access


team to


emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case.


Because those


emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.


Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell


Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression.


In trying to strike that


balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.


The RNC responded to Comey’s letter with the following press release:


WASHINGTON – Republican


National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus released the following statement on newly released emails showing Hillary Clinton’s unsecure private server was subject to ten hacking attempts over a two day period in 2010:


“These previously unknown 'UNUSUAL' SUSPECTS PAGE 12


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