Trumpers: Below are just a few articles if you haven't figured it out.
It's doubtful Trumpers will read it rather than FOX NEWS = FAKE NEWS or the Fairy Tales of Breitbart and Infowars....but the few who sample might want to SHARE.
Not every Trumper is fully BRAINWASHED.
7 Signs of Tyranny
22 February 17
Robert Reich. (photo: Getty)
s tyrants take control of democracies, they typically do 7 things:
1. They exaggerate their mandate to govern – claiming, for example, that they won an election by a “landslide” even after losing the popular vote. They criticize any finding that they or co-conspirators stole the election. And they repeatedly claim “massive voter fraud” in the absence of any evidence, in order to have an excuse to restrict voting by opponents in subsequent elections.
2. They turn the public against journalists or media outlets that criticize them, calling them “deceitful” and “scum,” and telling the public that the press is a “public enemy.” They hold few, if any, press conferences, and prefer to communicate with the public directly through mass rallies and unfiltered statements (or what we might now call “tweets”).
3. They repeatedly lie to the public, even when confronted with the facts. Repeated enough, these lies cause some of the public to doubt the truth, and to believe fictions that support the tyrants’ goals.
4. They blame economic stresses on immigrants or racial or religious minorities, and foment public bias or even violence against them. They threaten mass deportations, “registries” of religious minorities, and the banning of refugees.
5. They attack the motives of anyone who opposes them, including judges. They attribute acts of domestic violence to “enemies within,” and use such events as excuses to beef up internal security and limit civil liberties.
6. They appoint family members to high positions of authority. They ppoint their own personal security force rather than a security detail accountable to the public. And they put generals into top civilian posts.
7.They keep their personal finances secret, and draw no distinction between personal property and public property – profiteering from their public office.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/42116-7-signs-of-tyrannyPOLITICS ‘Dictator’ Trump Slams “really-bad” U.S. Constitution, Hints He Might Try to Dismantle Key Parts
The REPUBLICAN COVER-UP:
Intel community chatter: Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell caught red handed in Trump-Russia scandal
09 May 2017
 FOCUS: Firing Comey Won't Save Trump From the Flames of the Russia ScandalFOCUS: The Comey Firing May Be The Beginning Of The End Of The Trump Administration
Thursday, 11 May 2017
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Aaron Blake, The Washington Post
Blake writes: "There are now multiple reports that President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey in part because Comey didn't provide him assurances of loyalty."
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Russ Feingold | Donald Trump Acts Like an Illegitimate President for a Reason
Russ Feingold, Guardian UK
Feingold writes: "The American people did not really choose Donald Trump. His presidency exists without the support of the majority of voters and, in turn, without a true mandate from the American people."
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Juan Cole | The Sadism of Creeping Dictatorship
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "One of the classic techniques of dictatorship is humiliation, a manifestation of the sadism of the regime. Most people want to avoid being made the butt of ridicule, and authoritarian personalities calculate that they will even surrender some rights and liberties to avoid it."
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Sure, I'll make a donation!
Trump Admits He Considered Russia Investigation in Comey's Firing
Devlin Barrett and Philip Rucker, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "President Trump on Thursday said he was thinking of 'this Russia thing with Trump' when he decided to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, who had been leading the counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election."
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Devlin Barrett and Philip Rucker, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "President Trump on Thursday said he was thinking of 'this Russia thing with Trump' when he decided to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, who had been leading the counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election."
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Comey Was 'Inching Closer to Trump'
Michael Daly, The Daily Beast
Daly writes: "Everybody had been asking why Trump waited 18 days to fire National Security Advisor Michael Flynn after learning he had been compromised by the Russians. That was eclipsed by the sudden firing of Comey, whose investigation into Russian meddling could lead to other questions about other Trump associates."
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Michael Daly, The Daily Beast
Daly writes: "Everybody had been asking why Trump waited 18 days to fire National Security Advisor Michael Flynn after learning he had been compromised by the Russians. That was eclipsed by the sudden firing of Comey, whose investigation into Russian meddling could lead to other questions about other Trump associates."
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Trump Threatens Comey Over Leaking to the Press
Eugene Scott, CNN
Scott writes: "President Donald Trump issued a thinly veiled threat Friday to fired FBI Director James Comey."
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Eugene Scott, CNN
Scott writes: "President Donald Trump issued a thinly veiled threat Friday to fired FBI Director James Comey."
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Amanda Marcotte | The Census Director's Sudden Resignation May Create Serious Long-Term Problems
Amanda Marcotte, Salon
Marcotte writes: "Why are Republicans attacking the Census Bureau? Because they don't want an accurate count of Americans."
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Amanda Marcotte, Salon
Marcotte writes: "Why are Republicans attacking the Census Bureau? Because they don't want an accurate count of Americans."
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John H. Thompson had served at the Census Bureau since 1975. (photo: Mike McCleary/The Bismarck
Why are Republicans attacking the Census Bureau? Because they don't want an accurate count of Americans
he news that President Donald Trump, in a fit of childish petulance, fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday is understandably dominating the news cycle. But on the same day, the director of another major federal agency, John Thompson of the Census Bureau, also left his job in a move that came as a surprise to those who follow the agency’s goings-on. In many ways, this sudden resignation of a major agency director is just as troubling as Comey’s outright firing.
The Trump administration is trying to spin Thompson’s departure as a simple decision to retire, which is a narrative that’s impossible to swallow, considering the abrupt nature of his exit. The reality is that Thompson was at the center of an ugly debate over funding, with Republicans trying to slash the bureau’s budget well below what he felt he needed in order to conduct an accurate nationwide census. It’s widely believed Thompson left rather than deal with an untenable situation of trying to do a good job without adequate resources.
Republicans love cutting government budgets in order to fund tax cuts for rich people, of course, but the choice to target the Census Bureau is alarming because it has clear political ramifications. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is reason to worry that Republicans may not want the bureau to do too good a job collecting the 2020 data on Americans. Having a full and accurate picture of the American population cuts against many conservative goals, so it’s no surprise that the party of “alternative facts” is not particularly interested in letting the Census Bureau do its job.
The most obvious concern is that census data is used to determine political representation, which is critical to a functioning democracy.
“Any turnover, any lack of funding, puts at risk a full and accurate count of every person in the country, and that has huge implications for fair representation,” explained Dan Vicuña, the national redistricting manager for Common Cause.
“There’s already a problem, even under the best of circumstances, with certain communities, especially communities of color, being counted fully and thus getting full representation in Congress, state legislatures and city councils,” continued Vicuña, whose nonpartisan group fights for fair representation and against corruption in government. “Compounding that problem by underfunding the count is a legitimate threat to democracy.”
In our phone conversation, Vicuña argued that underfunding the Census Bureau could lead to a situation where “political power will be distributed disproportionately to white voters, to people who are wealthier.”
Of course, none of that sounds bad to Republicans, who have already spent years trying to undermine the political power and representation of people of color through voting-rights restrictions and racialized gerrymandering strategies. Under the circumstances, underfunding the Census Bureau so it simply can’t provide a full and accurate count of how many people are living in racially diverse — and Democratic-leaning — communities has many benefits for Republicans.
But the voting rights issue isn’t the only concern raised by the budget fight that led to Thompson’s sudden departure. Allegra Chapman, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, worries that undermining the Census Bureau constitutes an attack on the administrative duties of the federal government generally.
“The work that this bureau does is really important to the efficiency of government in general and making sure that Americans are getting everyday service to which they’re entitled,” Chapman explained over the phone. “Using that survey, we know more about people’s day to day lives: their jobs, how much education they have, whether they’re a veteran, whether they rent.”
That data is critical to determining everything from housing policy to educational allotments and even managing the 911 emergency call system. If the data isn’t accurate, a lot of Americans could be left out of receiving services.
“Trump has talked from the get-go about the need for infrastructure,” Chapman pointed out. “I don’t know how he’s going to do anything about infrastructure if he doesn’t have information about what’s happening in the country at large. You don’t start building bridges in places unless you have this accurate snapshot.”
It hardly requires mentioning that any promise made by Trump to help Americans can immediately be viewed as something between a gross misstatement and an outright lie. This is the same man who promised that he would make sure all Americans had health insurance but then got to work immediately with congressional Republicans to make sure that 24 million Americans who would otherwise have coverage will likely go without it.
As Chapman pointed out, this attack on Census funding is consistent with another stated goal of some members of the Trump administration — to undermine the operations of government.
Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon has vowed publicly to fight daily for the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” by which he means the system of federal regulations and agencies, administered by the executive branch, that helps run the country and the economy in particular. Bannon sees the various agencies as roadblocks to economic growth; the unwillingness of the Trump administration to fill hundreds of vacancies at various federal agencies is taken by many as an extension of this desire to see the federal government’s administrative arm fall apart from mismanagement.
Bannon didn’t pull this idea out of his ass. The influential conservative policy analyst Grover Norquist quipped in 2001 that he wanted to reduce the federal government to the size “where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” This demonizing “administrative state” language can be traced to think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, which advocate for a serious reduction or end to federal agencies that interfere with a libertarian utopia where the rich gobble up all the money and the rest of us are left with few resources and no real political power.
The Census Bureau is central, as Chapman said, to running the federal government. Undermining the ability of that agency to do its job will have ramifications for all other agencies in the government — which is most of them — that rely on Census data in order to make decisions and do their jobs.
Perhaps that’s why Republicans have long tried to stoke antagonism toward the Census Bureau among their base. The Republican National Committee has repeatedly denounced the agency’s efforts to collect thorough demographic data on the U.S. population, and conservative media outlets periodically gin up hatred against the bureau. Census data captures our nation’s growing racial diversity, as well as trends like the growth in the number of unmarried adults — all facts that some people on the right simply don’t want the public to know about. The more we know about how Americans really live today, the harder it is for Republicans to enact a backward-looking conservative agenda. No wonder they are trying to kneecap the Census Bureau’s ability to do its job.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/43523-the-census-directors-sudden-resignation-may-create-serious-long-term-problemsGOP VOTER SUPPRESSION & GOP RIGGED ELECTIONS is a major segment of their successful plan.
Below are just a sampling of articles.
The Scandal Of Voter Supression
By William John Cox
http://www.countercurrents.org/cox290216.htm
The scandal of voter suppression corrupts the core of representative democracy, and the quality and effectiveness of political representation is directly related to the percentage of voter participation. Unless representatives are selected by the greatest number and broadest range of voters possible, the processes of government will not reflect the true will of the People. Indeed, if the current trend continues, the United States government will become an irrevocable plutocracy instead of a democracy; government of, by, and for the People will cease to exist; and the flame of freedom—no longer fueled by effective voting—will be extinguished
Ostensibly, universal voting is the ideal of a free and democratic republic; however, barriers have been placed between many citizens and the ballot box ever since the creation of the United States. Many of these obstacles, such as property ownership and the racially-biased poll tax, have been removed. They are, however, being replaced by voter identification (ID) laws and other voter suppression schemes designed to discourage and prevent many, otherwise eligible voters from participating in elections. Voter suppression takes many forms and—in its aggregate—could allow the election of a president in the November 2016 election who is not the choice of the American People.
Voter Suppression. Approximately one quarter of all qualified voters are not registered, and many state laws and administrative practices are aimed at blocking—rather than encouraging—their enrollment. These include the imposition of arbitrarily short deadlines for the submission of voter registration forms; imposing harsh penalties for administrative errors; and even requiring the forms to be printed on very specific weights of paper. On the other hand, some states such as California, automatically register all eligible voters when they apply for driver's licenses, and a number of states now allow online registration.
Other devices to suppress voting involve the unnecessary purging of registration rolls to remove qualified people; the deliberate misallocation of election resources resulting in long lines in low-income and college precincts; misleading voters regarding procedures and locations for voting; and "caging," which involves sending certified letters to voters and striking registrations for those whose letters are returned as undeliverable. Scandalous as these plots may be, they verge on criminal conspiracies when they are directed by politically partisan secretaries of state and other officials who have the responsibility to ensure elections are fair and unbiased.
Although some suppression dirty tricks are bipartisan—four Kerry supporters were convicted of vandalism for slashing the tires of vans intended to transport Republican voters to the polls in 2004—it is primarily Republicans and other conservatives who engage in voter suppression. Many of these individuals and groups consider voting to be a privilege, instead of a right, and they are untroubled by efforts to reduce the voting participation by certain groups, such as racial minorities, students, and the poor, who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.
The most successful electoral subversion results from voter ID laws passed in many states in the past 15 years. These laws have been enacted—purportedly— to prevent voter fraud, in which an ineligible voter impersonates an eligible voter.
Typically, these laws require the presentation of photographic identification, such as a driver's license or passport in order to vote. In truth, these laws are a blatant stratagem to prevent the political opposition from voting.
As the less popular party, many Republicans unabashedly admit the purpose and consequence of these laws. One Republican legislator in Michigan warned, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election;" Another legislator believed the Pennsylvania voter ID law would "allow Governor Romney to win the state," while another bragged that the Pennsylvania laws "cut Obama by five percent" and that "voter ID helped a bit in that." The former head of the Florida Republican Party acknowledged that "We've got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us." Presidential candidate Governor John Kasich agreed: "I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine." Prior to dropping out of the presidential race, Governor Chris Christie said that Republicans need to win gubernatorial races so they can control the "voting mechanism" in the presidential election.
There are millions of otherwise eligible voters in the United States (as many as ten percent) who do not possess acceptable photographic identification. If the reason is a lack of money to pay the licensing fee, voter ID laws have the same effect as the Jim Crow poll tax did in the South. The laws disproportionately affect the young, disabled, seniors, minorities, and the poor and disadvantaged of every race. One rigorous academic study conducted at UC San Diego concluded, "We find that strict voter identification laws do, in fact, substantially alter the makeup of who votes and ultimately do skew democracy in favor of whites and those on the political right."
The reality is that voter fraud is very rare, and when it does occur, it would not be prevented by voter ID laws. An in-depth study by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University involved travel to 40 cities, 21 states, interviews of more than 1,000 people, and reviews of nearly 5,000 public documents. The effort identified only 10 cases of voter impersonation in more than a decade. There were more cases of absentee ballot fraud and registration fraud, which would not have been prevented by the voter ID laws.
The conservative political bias of suppression laws is indicated by the fact that more than half of all state photo ID legislation resulted from the efforts of the conservative, corporate-sponsored, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Sixty-two bills based on the model ALEC Voter ID Act have been introduced in state legislatures. Of the 22 states in which new voting restrictions have been passed, 18 have Republican-controlled legislatures.
The underlying racial basis of these laws was revealed by the Brennan Center for Justice which determined that of the 11 states with the highest numbers of African American voters in 2008, seven have since passed voter suppression laws. Of the 12 states with rapidly growing Hispanic populations, nine have enacted new restrictions. Finally, nine of the states formerly supervised by the Voting Rights Acts because of past racial discrimination have passed new voter suppression laws.
With Congress and the state legislatures and judiciaries increasingly controlled by corporations and the financial elite, there is little hope for legislative action or judicial relief to reduce the scandal of voter suppression. In 2008, a conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court approved an Indiana voter ID law—even though it had a partisan basis—because it was not "excessively burdensome" to most voters. The decision followed an earlier one in 2000 in which the Court affirmed that the Constitution "does not protect the right of all citizens to vote, but rather the right of all qualified citizens to vote." Amazingly, the Court shortly thereafter admitted in Bush v. Gore that "the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote."
A Voters' Bill of Rights. The only way to assure the voting power of the American People and to ensure the United States continues as a representative democracy is to amend the constitution to include a Voters' Bill of Rights. The United States Voters' Rights Amendment (USVRA) not only specifically guarantees a right to cast effective votes in all elections, but it also includes specific provisions regarding voter participation and suppression.
Any lingering doubt about the necessity of a constitutional amendment was quashed by another opinion of the Supreme Court rendered immediately prior to the 2014 midterm elections. The decision reversed a Federal District Court in Texas, which had ruled that the state's voter ID law unconstitutionally prevented more than 600,000 registered Texans from voting. The lower court had found the law was adopted "with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose" and that it placed "an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote." The conservative majority of the Supreme Court disagreed—directly cutting off the access of more than a half million Texans to the polls and challenging the votes of millions of other Americans subject to similar laws in other states.
Previously, the Texas voter ID law had been blocked by the Voting Rights Act, which required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to obtain permission before changing voting procedures. That provision of the Act was earlier struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, and Texas officials announced they would begin enforcing the state's new voter ID law.
In her dissent to the 2014 decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "A sharply disproportionate percentage of those voters are African American or Hispanic." She added that "racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact."
Whether affected by strict photo ID rules or other forms of voter suppression, the turnout for the 2014 midterm elections was the lowest since 1942. The effect was shown by the difference between Texas—with the most restrictive rules and a 33.6 percent turnout—and Colorado, Washington and Oregon, which permit everyone to vote by mail, and their participation rates of 53, 54, and 69 percent, respectively.
The United States Voters' Rights Amendment is a broad-spectrum treatment regimen specifically formulated to cure a variety of illnesses currently infecting representative democracy in America. Voter encouragement and suppression is covered by Section Three:
The States shall ensure that all citizens who are eligible to vote are registered to vote.In balancing the public benefit of maximum voter participation with the prevention of voting fraud, Congress and the States shall not impose any unjustifiable restriction on registration or voting by citizens.The intentional suppression of voting is hereby prohibited and, in addition to any other penalty imposed by law, any person convicted of the intentional suppression of voting shall be ineligible for any public office for a period of five years following such conviction.
Universal voting is also encouraged by Section Eleven, which requires that "Federal elections conducted every second year shall be held on a national voters' holiday, with full pay for all citizens who cast ballots."
Voting Fuels the Flame of Freedom. The scandal of voter suppression corrupts the core of representative democracy, and the quality and effectiveness of political representation is directly related to the percentage of voter participation.
Unless representatives are selected by the greatest number and broadest range of voters possible, the processes of government will not reflect the true will of the People. Indeed, if the current trend continues, the United States government will become an irrevocable plutocracy instead of a democracy; government of, by, and for the People will cease to exist; and the flame of freedom—no longer fueled by effective voting—will be extinguished.
William John Cox is a retired public interest lawyer. His new book, "Transforming America: A Voters' Bill of Rights" presents the United States Voters' Rights Amendment. He can be reached through his website, http://www.williamjohncox.com
TAMPING DOWN DEMOCRACY
New Trump commission on ‘Election Integrity’ will lead to massive voter suppression. The Nation:“Vice President Mike Pence will be the chair and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will be the vice chair—two men with very long histories of making it harder to vote, especially Kobach. Given the lack of evidence of voter fraud, the commission seems designed for one purpose: to perpetuate the myth of fraud in order to lay the groundwork for enacting policies that suppress the vote.”
Donald Trump Orders "Election Integrity" Commission Headed by Architects of Voter Suppression
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Goodman reports: "Voting rights activists are expressing alarm after President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday creating a 'Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.'"
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This is OHIO GOVERNOR KASICH'S FAILURE...among numerous others:
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Mar 1, 2017 ... But with the coming of John Kasich and a Koch-controlled legislature, all that disappeared. Kasich has since softened his anti-green tone.
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A new study shows voter-ID laws suppressed turnout of African-American and Democratic voters.The Nation: “According to federal court records, 300,000 registered voters, 9 percent of the electorate, lacked strict forms of voter ID in Wisconsin… Wisconsin’s voter-ID law reduced turnout by 200,000 votes, according to the new analysis. Donald Trump won the state by only 22,748 votes.”
It used to be called PROSTITUTION.
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