Free Parking

Paul Manafort’s guilty plea to conspiracy against the United States laid out his scheme to steal the 2008 Ukrainian election where he installed Putin’s man, Yanukovich. It was simple and effective: Accuse the female politician of crimes she didn’t commit and install a puppet to remove Russian money-laundering/human rights sanctions.

Court documents show that Manafort used media, including Robert Mercer’s Breitbart News, to plant false murder conspiracies against Yulia Tymoshenko, a staunch human rights defender. Manafort’s job was to politically destroy Tymoshenko and make Viktor Yanukovych’s real corruption palatable enough to be overlooked by Europe.

Fast forward to 2016 and Manafort’s same smearing techniques were used by Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton. Putin detested Secretary of State Clinton because of her fierce advocacy for human rights. He didn’t want her as president and spent time, money and immense energy to put his puppet, Trump, into the Oval Office.

We are living under a fake president who is being given all the authority and honor a real one would receive. He has made a mockery of our Constitution and called our White House a dump. He has created division among Americans and sullied our message of inclusivity so completely that we should give the Statue of Liberty back to France.

A recent NBC town hall featured young people representing various segments of society, and many discussed their immense scorn for the election process. Rather than becoming educated about candidates’ policies, they felt a need to be “inspired” to vote. They felt Hillary Clinton, the fully qualified, first woman candidate for president was “uninspiring,” and didn’t vote.

When I heard them say they weren’t inspired, in my mind, I saw men with frozen feet at Valley Forge, and heard their screams of outrage.

I can’t imagine Congressman John Lewis’s thoughts as he remembered life-threatening beatings on Pettis Bridge for the right of blacks to vote.

The window of opportunity to save our precious democracy is fast closing and may truly shut this November 6 if 15 million more Americans aren’t “inspired” enough to do their civic duty and vote. Register. Vote.