Justice Scalia died on 2/13/16. On 3/16/16, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the vacant seat. Garland is the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals, and is highly qualified and respected on all sides. But the Republicans have refused to give Judge Garland a hearing, or a vote. If Republican Senators continue to stonewall, they need to pay for this in the court of public opinion. Americans need to understand why the Democratic caucus is likely to be unreceptive to Trump’s nominees. The balance of the Supreme Court affects us all: the fairness of elections as in money in the Citizens United case, or race in the Voting Rights Act; marriage equality; environmental protections, energy policy, and responses to a warming globe. If you would like to know more, please search for Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley’s interview on the Chris Hayes’ Show on 11/10/16.

I read Mr. Trump's reaction to a NY audience booing Pence and enduring a respectful message from the cast of "Hamilton". This trend in Trump's comment and tweeting is morphing from blatant attacks to a more seemingly polite, "let's be civil and respective" facade. We are in danger of allowing millions of people to misperceive this as a calming, soothing, pseudo-uniting stance from the leader of the country rather than the controlling, suppressing manipulation it is. Expressing dissatisfaction is not harassment. As President Obama said: "Get used to Protests!"

Current Election Results and Mr. Obama leaving office.

Governing is about representing all of the people rather than fear mongering and pitting the people against each other. For his entire political career Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has put forward an agenda that is hateful to people of color, is hateful to LGBTQ people and their friends and families, is hateful to religious people, hateful to women, and hateful to the sick and infirm. He has an absolute blind spot to science except when he can cherry pick so called facts to support his bigoted, misogynist, xenophobic agenda.

I expect, and we have already seen it begin, a steady stream of nominees and proposals for legislation well outside the mainstream from the pending Trump Administration. Many of these must be passed or confirmed in the U.S. Senate. The two-party model does not serve well for handling such controversy. Some senators fear reprisals by small populations of activists in their home state. The center will provide a strong support group for thoughtful reflection and action, and will be able to link with the party that makes the more reasoned case rather than responding to party leader pressure. This is not a normal time. Care and thoughtfulness within the Senate should be encouraged. The Center Caucus, or the Center Party, will have the clout to ensure the middle path is favored.

The Attorney General's Office can not be occupied by a neo-confederate that will not ensure Justice for all Americans.

I am starting this petition because so many of us our sick, tired and scared of a Trump Presidency we need a voice.

According to a recent ABC News poll, some 42% of Democrats feel that the 2016 election results are illegitimate, even while votes are still being counted [1]. A petition has now been started by Verified Voting demanding of U.S. Secretaries of State, voting officials and Governors that there be an immediate audit of the vote [2]. Meanwhile, the Director of the NSA has suggested that Russia has hacked our election, and calls have been made for a Congressional investigation [3]. The extraordinary circumstances of this election have led to a potential constitutional crisis at the close of the Obama Presidency, and we call upon the President to immediately take an active leadership role, using all means at his disposal to protect the integrity of our electoral process and hence our democracy. When elections are extremely close, the popular vote and electoral count can diverge, and statistician Nate Silver projected that this could arise with the current election [4][5], estimating that it had a 10% chance of occurring. Since the birth of the modern two-party system, this has happened twice before (1888, 2000). However, having a discernable popular vote lead and yet still losing the electoral college is rarer still, and has only taken place once, in 1876, an election often described as the most controversial, and most widely disputed, in U.S. history [6]. Still, in that case, the electoral loss was merely by a single elector, leaving the current election unique in United States history – it is the only election in which a Presidential candidate has ever won a discernible victory in the popular vote (>1% already, possibly approaching 2% by the time counting is finished, according to some estimates), all while losing the electoral college by a considerable margin (74 electors). Edison Research exit poll data shows that in precisely the elector-rich swing states that made these highly unusual results possible, Hillary Clinton won, but there was a consistent shift towards Trump, beyond the margin of error, in the tabulated results [7]. Whether the product of happenstance or not, such anomalous results will unquestionably create a vast reservoir of distrust, and in this way tear at the fabric of this nation like no other event in recent history. Linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky called November 8th 2016 “a date that might turn out to be one of the most important in human history, depending on how we react.” [8] It is to that question of how to react that we are now petitioning President Obama. President Obama is the leader of this country but for two more months, and clearly aware of the high stakes of this election and its importance to his own legacy. It might in issues of direct succession seem most appropriate for a sitting President to avoid any appearance of impropriety and stay aloof, but we are living in extraordinary times, and the need for the Executive Branch to exercise all means at its disposal to ensure the integrity of the United States electoral process could not possibly be more urgent than it is right now. It should be clear that, to a considerable faction of Americans, the United States might never have been in a greater state of emergency than it is right now. Thus, we call upon President Obama, in these final days of his presidency, to utilize all the powers of the presidency to ensure a thorough investigation of this election, including methods of examining source codes for possible electronic tampering, as well as investigating more conventional irregularities, suppression and fraud, such that there can be far greater clarity and understanding about the extremely unusual results of the current election. This absolutely must be completed before electors cast their votes. The future of the United States depends upon it. [1] http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/13/42-percent-of-democrats-feel-the-election-was-rigged/ [2] https://www.change.org/p/demand-an-audit-of-the-2016-presidential-election [3] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/will-congress-investigate-russian-interference-2016-campaign [4] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-trump-could-win-the-white-house-while-losing-the-popular-vote/ [5] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-odds-of-an-electoral-college-popular-vote-split-are-increasing/ [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1876 [7] http://markcrispinmiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016PresidentialExitPoll-VoteCountComparativeSimple.pdf [8] http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38360-trump-in-the-white-house-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky

I fear for our country and its democratic institutions if a known criminal who has committed fraud is permitted to assume the highest office in our government without in any substantial way being held accountable.

We should be very concerned about the fact that Russia hacked our 2016 Presidential election. This would make the results invalid and therefore Mr. Trump should not be President!!

I'm Benard Simelton, the Alabama State Conference president of the NAACP. Earlier this week, I was arrested while performing civil disobedience for sitting in Senator Jeff Sessions' state office in Alabama in opposition to his nomination for attorney general. He is wholly unqualified to be the nation's top law enforcement official, as demonstrated by his long and troubling record in opposition to civil and human rights. As the highest law enforcement official, the attorney general has the responsibility to protect the civil and human rights of all races, colors and genders. Senator Sessions is not that person and presents an extreme danger to the equality, diversity and inclusiveness that the U.S. has achieved over the last decade. There are just days left to urge your members of Congress to block the appointment of Sessions. Click here to sign the petition. There are many reasons for Congress to block the appointment of Jeff Sessions: * He has a long history of opposing civil rights enforcement and making racist statements. * He has championed voter suppression. * He opposes hate crime legislation. * He has opposed multiple efforts to address pay equity for women. * He is a staunch opponent of legal immigration. ...And so much more. In the words of U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez, "If you have nostalgia for the days when blacks kept quiet, gays were in the closet, immigrants were invisible and women stayed in the kitchen, Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is your man." Diversity, equality and compassion make America stronger. We must stand together and resist any effort to divide us up and strip away the progress that we've made.

Low voter turnout helped Donald J. Trump win the election. It hurt Democrats up and down the ballot. A big part of the problem: We make it way too hard to vote. Voter suppression laws are part of it. Long lines, too. Confusion about polling places and buggy voting machines don’t help. Or the fact that Election Day is a work day. Illness, travel, transit troubles, and child care conundrums can all conspire to keep people from the polls. And sometimes, voter intimidation. The solution: Vote by mail for all – just like we’ve had in Oregon for nearly two decades. Sign the Petition: Let’s make Vote By Mail available to all American voters! For many years, Oregon has consistently had much stronger voter turnout than the rest of America -- and this year, more Oregonians voted than in any previous election. Why? In part, we make it easy to vote. Oregonians are now automatically registered when we visit the DMV, and it’s easy to register or update your information online. We get our ballots delivered three weeks before Election Day. We have plenty of time to study the issues and candidates and make informed decisions, on our own time, in our own home, with our ballot in hand. Nobody can intimidate you, threaten your eligibility, or tell you you’re at the wrong polling place. Nothing gets in the way of you exercising your right to vote. And that’s how it should be for every voter in America. My proposal in the U.S. Senate will make vote by mail a reality for all. Add your name right now and let’s make this the last election where Americans are kept from exercising their right to vote! -- Senator Ron Wyden