Republicans Are Expected To Cheat In The 2024 Presidential Election – Why?

08/27/2024 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

Fact Elements:

The Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, is seen as a flawed candidate.
Surprising is that Trump’s chances of winning have not diminished much. Reasons are many:
- - The Contrast Between the Best and Worst of America and Why Does Anyone Support Trump’s GOP?
    
    We begin with the contrast between last week’s Democratic convention in Chicago which showed the best of America and the earlier Republican convention which displayed the worst of America and get an analysis of why anyone would support Trump’s GOP. Joining us is Dr. Allen Frances, a Professor Emeritus and former Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University. He is the author of the award-winning international bestseller Saving Normal and the reference work Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis and his latest book is Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump, now out in an updated paperback version.
  - Propaganda by national news organizations that support Trump may be most significant.
    “A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review found that “stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market”.^[4]^[5] The company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial content.”
  - Reason two, why Trump remains popular, is that he taps into the dark side of our society by using racism, misogyny and anti immigrant rhetoric.
The Republican Party appears to try cheating the national election process for 2024 to overcome having to support such a flawed candidate.
“Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the election results, declining multiple times to do so during a 27 June debate.”
“The former president and convicted felon’s cronies are making moves to undermine and even sabotage November’s election in Republicans’ favor. Several of them are working as election officials in key states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.”

Posted 8-27-2024
Posted by Score Card

Alleged Deficiencies Of The American Political System

08/24/2024 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

“Experts agree that the health of U.S. democracy has declined in recent years—but what does that mean? The United States is experiencing two major forms of democratic erosion in its governing institutions: election manipulation and executive overreach.” (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/understanding-democratic-decline-in-the-united-states/)

Next, we cover election manipulation.

1. The electoral college

“… the president is chosen not by “we the people”, but indirectly by 538 electors apportioned by state”called the Electoral College. STUPID

“…the electoral college today gives Republican presidential candidates a 4% to 5% advantage over their Democratic rivals.” STUPID

Hillary Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump and should have been declared the winner but NO! STUPID

Solutions:

John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA)
Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA)

2. Voter suppression

“We have seen this cycle an effort by the Republican party to make it harder, wherever possible, to vote – especially for black and minority populations,” STUPID

EXAMPLE: “Florida’s Republicans immediately set about undermining the will of the electorate, putting in place a bureaucratic maze that former felons had to negotiate before they could vote. It was so convoluted that almost 900,000 people were still disenfranchised on election day – including about one in every six black Floridians of voting age.”

Solutions:

John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA)
Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA)

3. The Senate

“The structure of the Senate is an outdated, racist, Jim Crow relic meant to enshrine white landowner power in our government, by prioritizing land over people.”

“This distortion favors senators from low-population rural states with largely white electorates, such as Montana and the Dakotas, and helps explain the Republicans’ stranglehold on Congress.” STUPID

Solutions:

John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA)
Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA)

4. Judges

“We’ve had polling place reductions, massive voter purges, a voter-ID law – all attempts by the right wing to consolidate their power and shrink the electorate.”

“We are certainly going to feel it down the line as these rightwing judges, appointed to lifetime positions, obstruct us as we pull out all the stops to provide relief to our folks.” STUPID

Solutions:

John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA)
Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA)

5. Redistricting – Gerrymandering.

“Failure to take control in Texas and elsewhere hands Republicans the gift of controlling the 10-year redistricting process in which electoral boundaries are drawn. As was seen in the last round in 2010, after the Tea Party upheaval swept Republicans to power in several states, they proved themselves to be devastatingly effective at drawing those lines in their own favor – gerrymandering.” STUPID.

Solutions:

John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA)
Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA)

NOTE: MOST OR ALL OF THE ABOVE BULLET POINTS ARE USED BY REPUBLICANS.

SOLUTIONS

(Brennan Center For Justice)

Enact Automatic Voter Registration

“Currently there there are 24 states and the District of Columbia that have adopted voter registration automation.” Note that there are 50 states, thus only half support full democratic voter registration.
“Congress should pass the Automatic Voter Registration Act, and states should continue to adopt automatic voter registration.”

Restore the Voting Rights Act

“Congress should restore the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, and states should supplement those protections. This essential bill would restore the Voting Rights Act to its original strength and add additional protections that are needed today.”

Expand Early Voting

“Congress should set minimum early voting requirements in federal elections, and the states that don’t offer early voting should adopt it.”

Prevent Long Lines at the Polls

“Congress and the states should set and enforce standards to ensure all polling places have sufficient voting machines, poll workers, and other resources to avoid long lines.”

Some sources for this blog:

(https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/voting-reform/strengthening-voting-rights-act)

(https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/voting-reform)
(https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/democracy-election-agenda-candidates-activists-and-legislators)

Posted August 24, 2024. Posted by: Score Card

Press Freedom Ratings For The United States Calculated By Reporters Without Borders

08/23/2024 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

Why the U.S. ranks low #55 in press freedom index despite all its principles?

“The World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) since 2002 based upon the organization’s own assessment of the countries’ press freedom records in the previous year.”

“RSF lobbies governments and international bodies to adopt standards and legislation in support of media freedom and takes legal action in defence of journalists under threat.” (Wikipedia)

Reporters Without Borders ranks all countries in the world and is comprised of these major Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) factors:

Global
Political
Economic
Legislative
Socialcultural
Security

Norway has the best Scores (2024):

Global 1
Political 1
Economic1
Legislative 2
Socialcultural 1
Security 7

USA scores (2024):

Global 55
Political. 29
Economic 33
Legislative 41
Socialcultural 54
Security. 118

USA’s princable RSF score is #55 in the Global category.

Norway has the best score: Top ranking #1 for RSF Global category.

The US “media ownership is highly concentrated, and many of the companies buying American media outlets appear to prioritize profits over public interest journalism.”

The press freedom political indicator evaluates the degree of support and respect for media and can be found here: https://rsf.org/en/index/score-pol?year=2024

RSF world map and country ratings is explained here: https://rsf.org/en/country/united-states

Some Examples:

In September 2022, Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German was stabbed to death by a politician he was investigating.
Dylan Lyons, a reporter for Spectrum News 13 in Orlando, Florida, was himself shot while covering a shooting in February 2023.
When covering demonstrations, journalists are sometimes attacked and physically assaulted by demonstrators.
Several reporters have also been arrested while covering such events.
In 2022, at least 67 journalists and media workers were killed, the highest since 2018
Investigative reporter Don Bolles was injured in a 1976 car bomb attack. He died 11 days after the explosion
On June 28, 2018 5 Capital Gazette staffers died after a gunman entered the building. 6 others inside the newsroom survived by fleeing or hiding from him.

Posted and updated: 8-23-2024. Posted by: Score Card

Venezuela Is Ruled By A Dictator & Held In Power By A Corrupt Legal System And Military.

08/22/2024 Score Card Comments 0 Comment

“Maduro heads an authoritarian government, and has been described as an autocrat and a dictator. Between 2013 and 2023, Venezuela dropped 42 places in the Press Freedom Index. According to estimations by the United Nations (UN) and Human Rights Watch, under Maduro’s administration, more than 20,000 people have been subject to extrajudicial killings and seven million Venezuelans have been forced to flee the country. The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela concluded that the country’s justice system independence has been deeply eroded; the mission also identified frequent due process violations, including political external interference and the admission of evidence through torture. Most Venezuelan television channels are controlled by the state, and information unfavourable to the government is not covered completely. In 2018, a Board of Independent Experts designated by the Organization of American States (OAS) alleged that crimes against humanity have been committed in Venezuela during Maduro’s presidency. In 2021, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced the opening of an investigation regarding the situation in the country.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicol%C3%A1s_Maduro