After the 2016 election, Trump was furious that he didn’t win the popular vote. He claimed that millions of illegal immigrants were allowed to vote, and they voted for Hillary. He set up a commission to investigate voter fraud and placed an ally from Kansas in charge as chairman. Many states refused to submit their records to the commission, claiming that it was politicized. The commission disbanded.
A member of the voter fraud commission spoke out recently, after reviewing the body’s documents, and said it found no evidence of voter fraud.
“Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, one of the 11 members of the commission formed by President Trump to investigate supposed voter fraud, issued a scathing rebuke of the disbanded panel on Friday, accusing Vice Chair Kris Kobach and the White House of making false statements and saying that he had concluded that the panel had been set up to try to validate the president’s baseless claims about fraudulent votes in the 2016 election.
“Dunlap, one of four Democrats on the panel, made the statements in a report he sent to the commission’s two leaders — Vice President Pence and Kobach, who is Kansas’s secretary of state — after reviewing more than 8,000 documents from the group’s work, which he acquired only after a legal fight despite his participation on the panel.
“Before it was disbanded by Trump in January, the panel had never presented any findings or evidence of widespread voter fraud. But the White House claimed at the time that it had shut down the commission despite “substantial evidence of voter fraud” due to the mounting legal challenges it faced from states. Kobach, too, spoke around that time about how “some people on the left were getting uncomfortable about how much we were finding out.”
“Dunlap said that the commission’s documents that were turned over to him underscore the hollowness of those claims: “they do not contain evidence of widespread voter fraud,” he said in his report, adding that some of the documentation seemed to indicate that the commission was predicting it would find evidence of fraud, evincing “a troubling bias.”
“In particular, Dunlap pointed to an outline for a report the commission was working on that circulated in November 2017. The outline included sections for “Improper voter registration practices,” and “Instances of fraudulent or improper voting,” though the sections themselves were blank as they awaited evidence, speaking to what Dunlap said indicated a push for preordained conclusions.
“After reading this,” Dunlap said of the more than 8,000 pages of documents in an interview with The Washington Post, “I see that it wasn’t just a matter of investigating President Trump’s claims that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally, but the goal of the commission seems to have been to validate those claims.”
“After a career of more than 20 years that has included stints as a state representative and the chairmanship of a committee on fisheries and wildlife, Dunlap said that his time on the panel was “the most bizarre thing I’ve ever been a part of.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Show business, fake Commission from the get-go. Goal was to make the Trump’s lies look true, alive is anxiety over a less that greatest-in-the-world inaugural turnout.
The pattern continues in every press conference and Trumpster rally where the press is proclaimed the enemy of the people and Trump smiles and claps at Nazi-style saluters. The press is being blamed for showing up and covering these events and “complaining” about Trumps incompetence and character flaws rather than being cheerleaders for this accomplishments like a new round of tax cuts for the super rich; more pollution of air, water, earth, and food supply; unknown deals with Russia and North Korea, need for a BIG PARADE, and the list gets longer. Catch 22 is the press and many of us.
Trump’s rallies are frauds, too. Just like when he announced his candidacy for president at Trump Tower in 2015 and hired extras to act like his supporters, he advertises on Craigslist, uses crowdshare companies and pays people to show up and rant –including kids now who are not of voting age. See: “Those Trump Rallies? Those Are The REAL Fakes.”
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/08/those-trump-rallies-those-are-real-fakes
Voter fraud? It’s a myth. A lie. The purpose of the lie is to pass legislation that suppresses voting. And voting is at the core of any democratic republic. That’s how much Republicans value democratic governance. They’d prefer to strangle it, which is why they seem to have no problem with the Russian ratf*cking of the 2016 election, and why they’ve taken no steps to hinder any future meddling.
Here’s the crux of the voter fraud hoax:
“eleven per cent of the voting-age population lacks the kind of I.D. cards required by the strictest states. Eighteen per cent of Americans over the age of sixty-five do not have such documentation; among African-Americans the figure is twenty-five per cent….The vast majority of the lawmakers who have pushed for voter I.D.s have been Republicans…In 2005, for example, the federal government charged many more Americans with violating migratory-bird statutes than with perpetrating election fraud, which has long been a felony.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/29/the-voter-fraud-myth
“In 2007, the Justice Department was upended by scandal because it had pursued a partisan agenda on voting, under the guise of rooting out suspected ‘voter fraud’ Its actions during the George W. Bush administration were well outside the bounds of rules and accepted norms of neutral law enforcement. In pursuing this agenda, DOJ political leadership fired seven well-respected U.S. Attorneys, dismissing some top Republican prosecutors because they had refused to prosecute nonexistent voter fraud…The U.S. Attorney firings touched off a wave of investigations that exposed just how partisan the Justice Department had become and how far it had strayed from its mission of neutral law enforcement. The result was the worst scandal to hit the Department since Watergate…”
Click to access Justice_Department_Voter_Fraud_Scandal_Lessons.pdf
“There wasn’t evidence of widespread voter fraud before the election. There isn’t evidence of widespread voter fraud afterward, either. In fact, there’s not evidence of even modest voter fraud…The burden is on those who say rampant fraud is occurring…there are four demonstrated examples of people committing voter fraud during the 2016 general election. That’s 0.000002 percent of the ballots cast in the race for the White House…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-000002-percent-of-all-the-ballots-cast-in-the-2016-election-were-fraudulent/?utm_term=.24a0fac18197
“The trial had a significance that extends far beyond the Jayhawk state. One of the fundamental questions in the debate over alleged voter fraud—whether a substantial number of non-citizens are, in fact, registering to vote…That made the trial a telling opportunity to remove the voter fraud claims from the charged, and largely proof-free, realms of political campaigns and cable news shout-fests and examine them under the exacting strictures of the rules of evidence…That’s precisely what occurred and according to Robinson, an appointee of George W. Bush, the proof that voter fraud is widespread was utterly lacking.”
https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-kansas-crushed-kobach
“Most voter fraud allegations turn out to be something other than fraud…There is a long history in America of elites using voter fraud allegations to restrict and shape the electorate…the use of baseless voter fraud allegations for partisan advantage has become the exclusive domain of Republican party activists.”
Click to access Politics_of_Voter_Fraud_Final.pdf
“the [North Carolina] legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans…the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist…the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent.”
Click to access nc-4th.pdf
“Trump and his staff continue to claim that voter fraud tainted the 2016 election…Trump said that Massachusetts residents were bused into New Hampshire to vote…As with our first analysis of voter fraud in the 2016 election, we find no evidence to support the assertions of large-scale voter fraud that have been coming from the Trump administration.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/28/we-cant-find-any-evidence-of-voting-fraud-in-new-hampshire/?utm_term=.0a72353fa8d8
“In an exhaustive public records search, News21 reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation…Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.”
https://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
“Richard A. Posner, one of the most distinguished judges in the land and a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, [said that voter ID laws are] ‘a type of law now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.’ ”
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/us/politics/judge-in-landmark-case-disavows-support-for-voter-id.html
“I’ve been tracking allegations of fraud for years now, including the fraud ID laws are designed to stop. In 2008, when the Supreme Court weighed in on voter ID, I looked at every single allegation put before the Court. And since then, I’ve been following reports wherever they crop up…So far, I’ve found about 31 different incidents (some of which involve multiple ballots) since 2000, anywhere in the country… the 31 incidents below come in the context of general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014. In general and primary elections alone, more than 1 billion ballots were cast in that period.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/?utm_term=.7f217054199d
“A FRONTLINE analysis of voting laws nationwide found that only six of the 31 states that require ID at the polls apply those standards to absentee voters, who are generally whiter and older than in-person voters…Voter fraud generally rarely happens. When it does, election law experts say it happens more often through mail-in ballots than people impersonating eligible voters at the polls…Absentee voters tend to be older and whiter than in-person voters…Older white Americans generally are more likely to vote Republican.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/why-voter-id-laws-arent-really-about-fraud/
Meanwhile, in Texas:
“two-thirds of Texas high schools are not following a state law that mandates giving all eligible students the opportunity to register to vote, according to a new report. That means hundreds of thousands of potential voters have been left off the rolls.”
“Since the 2016 presidential election, only a third of public high schools with more than 20 seniors requested a single voter registration form from the secretary of state’s office, the report’s authors found. In other words, two-thirds of public high schools in Texas didn’t even take the first step in complying with the law, leaving out at least 183,000 students in the last two years alone.”
https://www.texasobserver.org/in-violation-of-texas-law-most-high-schools-arent-giving-students-the-chance-to-register-to-vote/
But yet we still believe that people voted for Trump because da Russkies put out a few Fakebook ads in broken English….
How about if both sides admit that the election went the way it went because Americans voted for whom they chose to vote for? We don’t need to look at voter fraud or Russian interference. We need to look in a mirror.
I think we are looking in the mirror regarding how this could have ever been close enough to be tipped by Cambridge Analytica, Bannon and the Alt-Right, Russian interference and people vulnerable to conspiracy theories and bad ideas — the fringe.
There was election fraud, though, in that a fraud was elected.
🙂 great wordplay
Dienne, You’re back in delusion-land again.
The Russian ratf*cking was thorough.
As The Post – and other media sources – reported,
“outside experts who have examined the Kremlin campaign — which included stealing and sharing Democratic Party emails, spreading propaganda online and hacking state voter rolls — have concluded that it did affect an extremely close election…Clint Watts, a former FBI agent, writes in his recent book, ‘Messing with the Enemy,’ that ‘Russia absolutely influenced the election,’ especially in Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump’s winning margin was less than 1 percent in each state…Russian propaganda reached 126 million people via Facebook alone. A BuzzFeed analysis found that fake news stories on Facebook generated more engagement in the last three months of the campaign than did legitimate articles…Almost all of this ‘fake news’ was either started or spread by Russian bots.”
“tens of thousands of Russian bots spread pro-Trump messages on Twitter, which has already notified about 1.4 million users that they interacted with Russian accounts. The Russian disinformation, propagating hashtags such as #Hillary4Prison and #MAGA…Russia hacked voting systems in at least 39 states, and may have used the stolen data to target their social media or shared the results with the Trump campaign…Trump said ‘I Love WikiLeaks’ and mentioned its revelations 164 times in the last month of the campaign. ‘This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable,’ Trump said on Oct. 12. Eight days later, he marveled, ‘Boy, that WikiLeaks has done a job on her, hasn’t it?’…by contrast, Trump and his apologists pretend that the Russian intervention — including the WikiLeaks revelations — was no big deal…”
You clearly appear to be one of those “apologists.”
Time to buy yourself a new flag.
da Russkies put out a few Fakebook ads in broken English….
Not even close to characterizing the work of Russian operatives who were not amateurs in using the social media and computer hacking skills to elect Trump.
What you said. Laura
Still defending Trump and ignoring the conclusions of everyone in his own cabinet about Russian interference? You echo Trump.
You do this over and over and over and over and it gets really tiring. Please show me specifically where I defended Trump. Trump is delusional if he thinks the popular vote was somehow illegitimate. Trump lost the popular vote because the majority of the people think he’s something that rhymes with glass bowl. And they are correct.
But by the exact same token, the Democrats are delusional to think that Hillary lost the electoral vote because of da Russkies. Hillary lost the electoral vote because she thought she could talk down to progressives and ignore the suffering in flyover country and people would still vote for her because Trump (whom she helped nominate with her Pied Piper Strategy). It just didn’t work out that way. Odd how people don’t vote for you when you call them “deplorables” and “superpredators”.
Did da Russkies try to influence our election? Of course they did. We’ve been doing it to them for generations. Getting upset about it is like the school bully who finally meets the one kid willing to stand up and hit him back who then complains that hitting other people is wrong and something should be done about it.
The two questions are, 1) how effective was Russkie interference? (Not very, considering that $150,000 in Fakebook ads doesn’t go very far against hundreds of millions spent by the DNC, especially when they didn’t even use proper English.) And 2) Was Trump/his campaign involved in said interference? (No evidence has yet been provided to demonstrate that. I’m all ears if and when it ever is.)
I promised to remain focused on ideas and not emotion. So let me help explain.
The goal of the spy agency of the Soviet Union, the KGB, and now the Russian Federation, the leader of which was a KGB agent stationed in Dresden, Germany when the Berlin Wall fell, has never been to overthrow the United States. It has been to sow dissent to the point that the institutions and public discourse of the U.S. would become paralyzed and incapable of functioning as under constitutional principles.
To claim that Russian interference in our electoral process has not been proven or that the Trump campaign did not collude misses the point, as all the evidence we have seen from the Mueller investigation and from intelligence agencies proves over and over again. The goal was never to get Trump elected, the fact that it happened is, for Russia, as those of us from Louisiana would say, lagniappe—a little something extra. They, like virtually all of us, reckoned with a Clinton victory. The goal of Russian interference was to create so much dissension and obfuscation that a Clinton victory would not be seen as legitimate in the eyes of a substantial number of Americans. That goal included giving members of a Republican-majority Congress room to obstruct a governing agenda by claiming the results of the election were not valid.
When the election went the other way, it was, for the Russians, akin to hitting a trifecta at the horse race track. They had now had achieved victories beyond their wildest dreams. It will be up to the Mueller investigation to prove how deep the connections made with Republican operatives—all the way up to the presidency—were or not. That is why it is so important not to jump to conclusions. But we have a lot of circumstantial evidence that would likely make a civil trial a short one with many guilty verdicts. No need to get into them all, but do a little research on Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort’s influence on creating the Republican Party’s platform, and the connections of other Trump campaign operatives with Russian interests.
And from the time of the election through today, the candidate who became president has been working hard and successfully to convince his most devoted followers to not believe what they can see with their own eyes. In doing so, he has stoked racism, social resentments, and redefined legitimate political activity as being un-American, even treasonous. He has trashed every alliance and coalition that has been responsible for creating western political stability since the end of WWII. Our nation has abandoned and derided every nation that is a part of this tradition while cozying up to autocrats and tyrants in nations that oppose our long-standing relationships. Racial, social, and political tensions have not been this frayed since the Vietnam War. This is a victory for those who would meddle in our social discourse. They have fostered dysfunctional behavior and crippled whatever notions we once may have had of an implicit social contract between the governed and the governing.
So anyone who claims to be against this president* and deny these facts is, by definition, a de facto supporter of the status quo, this administration, and is akin to putting one’s head in the sand to remedy the situation. To constantly fall back on the position that Russian interference is a hoax because there is not a direct, obvious link to the outcome of the 2016 election engages in a selective fantasy. There is no question that disruption of the system and nurturing constant social chaos has been the long term goal of Putin’s regime. When we are off-balance, they can continue their attacks against their own people, regardless of where they might be in the world.
The greatest tragedy, in my view, is that Republicans in positions of leadership are playing a dangerous game of accepting these actions because it still allows them to stay in power. But an even greater tragedy, although it does not reach the level of what Republicans are doing on an hourly basis, is that the natural opposition to these actions is being divided by meaningless, rhetorical debates. The core of that mindset is something like this: “Well, we’re no angels either, so why should be we upset when other engage in the same (alleged) behavior we, as a nation, have done for decades, even generations?”
Putin is a student of history. He sees the example of a fractured left and center in Weimar Germany as a model for what he wants to do in the 21st century. Unfortunately, we have a president* who cannot see beyond his narcissistic self interest. We have a Republican Party at the federal, state and local levels that has largely abandoned adherence to the Constitution in favor of raw political power that does not take into account the views of the political minority. To claim that there is no evidence to lend credence to the manipulation of our social and political discourse is naive and deluded at best. But at it worst, it irreparably frays the social fabric that has held this country together since the Constitutional Convention of 1789. That’s what makes the enemies of this nation and its longstanding alliances so happy and effective.
Amen.
GregB
Going with your analysis. What do the people on the Trump team have
to gain by partaking in this conspiracy? Trump and family do not expect to win. But they are desperate for continued access to Russian money. Money they have been laundering for decades making them ompromised for decades. Perhaps even running for office was the suggestion of others. Who could possibly think a buffoon like Trump could win the Presidency. But he certainly would be capable of ripping the nation apart in the attempt and afterward. All the players around him Flynn, Manafort, Page, Gates…… all have ties to dirty Russian money as well. Winning isn’t a necessity; keeping the pipeline open is. When the unexpected victory happens. It’s time to cash in on all sides. And we have quite a few examples of all involved moving to do so. .Right down to Tillerson being appointed the Secretary of State. Quite a bit of chump change to be tossed around in a 1/2 trillion dollar oil deal.. Lifting sanctions the first order of business. Flynn making 5 calls to do so on Christmass day. Arranging to bag money on inauguration day. Prince taking off to the Seychelles Islands. Back Channels for Jared to arrange loans. Manafort trying to sell access that was already established……
So it would seem we have the quid, the pro and the quo for a criminal conspiracy and bribery case. Trump and company work with and for Putin. They all make out after the election with their Russian handlers win or lose.
I’m not willing to go as far as you do, Joel, with your assertions—yet. They certainly seem logical to me, but I’ll wait for the Mueller investigation to make the case. My point is that the Putin-led operation has already succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. There has been enough press coverage of the fact that the Trump campaign never dreamed they would be elected, even into the early evening hours of election day. They were gearing up for the cash cow of fanning the resentments of their rubes as they opposed an anticipated Clinton administration. And when purported individuals who claim to be left-of-center insist this president*’s election had nothing to do with foreign influences whatsoever, I am sure it generates wide smiles and laughs in Moscow.
GregB
The case that is in plain sight. The case that is admitted to. Don jr may have been a novice Jared as well. Manafort was a pro. Flynn a former director of Military Intelligence setting up back channels prior to taking office. Calling a business associate on inauguration day to tell him sanctions would be dropped. The question is not when or if Mueller gets fired. The question is what do we do when he gets fired.
Two other notes.: You can make any argument you want about problems on the Democratic side. But it is hard to deny that the constant headlines linking Clinton to emails and some mysterious scandal (no one read them) did not move enough voters to sway the election. Taking a flawed candidate and making her worse and not just in those 3 midwestern states.
I am tired as Dean Baker says “having the Press tell us what the President or others think. They are not mind readers ” I don’t want to know what Press says Politicians think. I don’t want to know what Politicians tell me they think. What Trump or any other Politician does is all I am concerned with.
No need to establish the presence of guilty intentions. The actions speak for themselves.
edit / the Press
Why did Dunlap agree to sit on the commission in the first place? Didn’t he know that it was just for show? His review will never get a tenth of the press that the initial commission did.
I guess I can understand getting fooled into sitting on the panel in the hope that you can make it more fair, but all he did was give a patently unethical p.r job some bipartisan gloss.
I hope he has learned not to fall for stunts like this in future.
In Trump’s America, history is repeating itself.
History repeating itself again?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_trial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Court_(Germany)
Cliff Boldt Vancouver Island, Canada
>
There’s a great film on Amazon called The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. It tells all about Kobach and rampant voter suppression. Not to be missed.
That was just another dump rear-end pull … at taxpayer money. Send dump the bill.
But wait, he’s actually living on borrowed money.
No wonder he wanted free food, free rent, free health insurance, free dental care, free medical care, free utilities, free transportation, free everything … while he makes a mess and we pay.
Dump makes me ill.
WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN? And, I want to see his tax returns.
He is still waiting for the IRS to complete the audit. Apparently the suit is not finished on any of his tax returns, for any year ever
“No evidence of fraud”
No evidence of fraud
It’s something to applaud
When Party slants
The primal dance
A candidate to laud
“Party Favors”
They did it to Sanders
And also Lamont
And Jonathan Pelto
“We want you withdrawnt”
And Cynthia Nixon
Is next on their list
They’re currently fixin’
That Cynthia’s dissed
Could this be the only poem in the universe with a line in there about “Cynthia Nixon”? Maybe…maybe not. She is a celebrity after all. Love it -as usual.
Cynthia Nixon is an existential threat to DNC officials, which is why DNC chair Perez endorsed Cuomo before she even got her campaign going.
Perez had just best hope that his efforts to beat Nixon turn out better than his efforts to grow facial hair.
“I will tell you a secret: the [un]Democratic establishment doesn’t like primaries.” — Cynthia Nixon
Cuomo’s incestuous campaign contributions were highlighted in Politico (7/24/2017). One major contributor, Joel and Julia Greenblatt, are major supporters of charter schools. About 10 years ago, Donald Trump gave Cuomo tens of thousands in campaign funds.
(The quip about Perez’ hair-funny)
“The DNC would choose Nixon”
If Richard were the guv
In Democratic race
The Nixon they would love
Would have a jowly face
SomeDAM Poet,
Has Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren endorsed Cynthia Nixon yet? Why is it taking so long for them to point out how corrupt Andrew Cuomo is?
I agree with you that the “establishment” doesn’t like Nixon and supports Cuomo. You are right about that. The question is why Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren haven’t endorsed Nixon the way they endorsed Tom Perriello in Virginia.
Surely Cynthia Nixon is not an existential threat to Bernie Sanders, and yet no endorsement. Can you imagine what a difference it would make?
Taking stock-
Most Americans voted for the GOP- 33 governorships and the U.S. House and Senate. Almost half, voted for Trump. Those voters hearts are consumed with self-love.
Self-love, as framed by the religious right, which gives dominion to ALEC’s theocracy, to Foster Freiss’ patriarchy and, to Franklin Graham’s moral callousness.
Self-love, framed as individual choice, which elevated Bill Gates and hedge funders’ interests, above the common good.
Self-love, framed as freedom, which created the Koch oligarchy.
Self-love, framed as limitless acquisition, which enabled climate decimation.
American goodness, portrayed in the stories of WWII sacrifices, either never existed or Fox’s wedge to divide the nation reflects a change, where self-love vanquished love of our fellow man.
In Nov. midterms, we will learn if voters will choose Putin before they would a Democrat. Then, it will be clear if the good and just are a minority in the U.S.
“Today, when republican/conservative ignorance is met with informed, structural analysis, it is quickly deemed “fake news.” When democrat/liberal ignorance is met with informed, structural analysis, it is immediately met with screams of “Russian trolls.” Despite the cognitive dissonance that is sparked, ignorance usually prevails in both cases.”
Comrade Nader:
“All societies perpetuate lavish myths that enable the few to rule over the many, repress critical thinking and camouflage the grim realities. ”
Comrade Chomsky:
““The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.”
Comrade Samuel Johnson:
“Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels”
“Our everyday ills – poverty, debt, unemployment, underemployment, eroding safety nets, homelessness, inadequate housing, inadequate healthcare, inadequate education, debt-to-live scenarios, war, police brutality, campaign financing, corporate lobbying, corporate subsidies, etc.. – are homegrown.”
Damn Russians…
We are in a state of emergency. The president needs to be impeached, immediately. He just Tweeted this:
“The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!”
Take out “Fake News,” replace “they” with “I” and it becomes a true statement.
And of course Fake News isn’t tabloid ranting or truly fake stories, it is according to him CNN, NBC and whoever reports his idiocy in an unkind but true light.
AND this is all getting quite dangerous, not to mention unconstitutional and utterly outrageous.
I fear we will need some real martyrs to restore some sanity in our society. What a sad and disturbing thought to have.
The wrath of a martyr was brought down on Rep. Scalise.
Scalise’s links to white supremacist individuals/groups normalized their views, which emboldens them.
Recent martyrs of racial equality include Heather Heyer and the South Carolina parishioners murdered, while praying.
Yes, Linda, you are correct. Thanks for the reminders. How many more will it take? Who will have the misfortune of being today’s Chaneys, Goodmans and Schwerners?
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/400465-cnns-brian-stelter-airs-clip-of-c-span-caller-threatening-to-shoot-him-and-don
This may come as a shock but there is a progressive argument for a Federally issued biometric ID for employment and voting. It can not be left to the States. Not because there is voter fraud but because there is voter disenfranchisement. Once issued and it would have to be issued to every American and Immigrant. It would never have to be presented again. Technology has already eliminated the need to present it.
I just proposed the same to my congressman on the issue of undocumented immigration. You could legalize every immigrant give them a path to citizenship and provide a demand-side curb to undocumented immigration. Combine it with a prevailing wage requirement that forces employers to hire an immigrant at the same rate of pay he would have to hire Americans at in the locality and industry. Actually, that is a little-enforced provision of the H1B visa program. And Davis Bacon, prevailing wage laws were a response to an earlier migration of American Citizens. Combine it with strong employer penalties for hiring future undocumented workers or violating wage and benefit provisions and lastly, empower the labor movement again.
Every progressive in the building trades will acknowledge that immigration is slamming them. They would also tell you that they would legalize every immigrant and organize them if they only had the tools to do it.