While Trump was in office, the GOP wanted to end the federal government.

Shown Here:

Introduced in House (01/03/2017)

Tax Code Termination Act (click here)

This bill terminates the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 after December 31, 2021, except for self-employment taxes, Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes, and railroad retirement taxes. A two-thirds majority vote in Congress is required to change such termination date.

The bill declares that any new federal tax system should be a simple and fair system that: (1) applies a low rate to all Americans, (2) provides tax relief for working Americans, (3) protects the rights of taxpayers and reduces tax collection abuses, (4) eliminates the bias against savings and investment, (5) promotes economic growth and job creation, and (6) does not penalize marriage or families.

The new federal tax system must be approved by Congress in its final form by July 4, 2021.

The Republicans are not competent practitioners of democracy. These bills to defund the federal government by eliminating the tax code and replacing with a national sales tax is out of the question. The budget runs on what the federal government requires, not by how much tax was collected.

Introduced in Senate (01/03/2017) (click here) 

Fair Tax Act of 2017

This bill is a tax reform proposal that imposes a national sales tax on the use or consumption in the United States of taxable property or services in lieu of the current income and corporate income tax, employment and self-employment taxes, and estate and gift taxes. The rate of the sales tax will be 23% in 2019, with adjustments to the rate in subsequent years. There are exemptions from the tax for used and intangible property, for property or services purchased for business, export, or investment purposes, and for state government functions.

Under the bill, family members who are lawful U.S. residents receive a monthly sales tax rebate (Family Consumption Allowance) based upon criteria related to family size and poverty guidelines.

The states have the responsibility for administering, collecting, and remitting the sales tax to the Treasury.

Tax revenues are to be allocated among: (1) the general revenue, (2) the old-age and survivors insurance trust fund, (3) the disability insurance trust fund, (4) the hospital insurance trust fund, and (5) the federal supplementary medical insurance trust fund.

No funding is authorized for the operations of the Internal Revenue Service after FY2021.

Finally, the bill terminates the national sales tax if the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (authorizing an income tax) is not repealed within seven years after the enactment of this bill.

This is the insurrection US House Republican members are backing by denying Liz Cheney her status.

The Confederate Flag which is the icon of White Supremacists was everywhere. You can't love your country and hate Rep. Liz Cheney. It is not possible that two truths exist.

 

The Trump Party are anti-constitutionalists.

There is no way a political party can live under the facts of Trump's relationship with Russia during the 2016 elections and afterward and still oust Liz Cheney from leadership. Steve Scalise is a white supremacist. There isn't anything else to say, there is a movement within the Republican Party that wants to destroy the US Constitution.

May 5, 2021
By Chris Cillizza

Two things have become very, very clear over the last 24 hours: (click here)

1. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney is likely to be removed as the third-ranking Republican in House leadership -- as soon as next week when the House reconvenes.

2. New York Rep. Elise Stefanik is the preferred replacement for Cheney in leadership, with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (Louisiana) now publicly supporting the Cheney-for-Stefanik swap.

These two developments are quite clearly related -- and revealing.

Every word she states is based in the facts of the insurrection. Any Republican that sees her as a threat to the party is wrong and the most extremist of the party.

Both cannot be true. The DOJ today plainly stated the relationship with Russia existed clearly with the Trump administration and it's election campaign. That cannot be true and at the same time, Rep. Cheney is wrong about her words. Both cannot exist. The extremist members of the GOP are following the wrong path to protect our democracy. Putin is still having a clear effect on the GOP. 

With Voting Rights under attack, it looks like the Three-Fifths Compromise is at work again.

May 4, 2021
By Rick Rojas

Nashville - The Three-Fifths Compromise, (click here) an agreement reached during the negotiations in 1787 to create the United States Constitution, found that, for the purposes of representation and taxation, only three-fifths of a state’s enslaved people would be counted toward its total population. It is regarded as one of the most racist deals among the states during the country’s founding.

Yet in a speech in the Tennessee General Assembly on Tuesday, one representative defended the compromise, arguing that it was “a bitter, bitter pill” that was necessary to curtail the power of slaveholding states and that helped clear the way to ending slavery — remarks that were rebuked by critics, including Black colleagues, as insulting and demeaning.

“By limiting the number of population in the count,” the state representative, Justin Lafferty, a Republican from Knoxville, said on the House floor, participants in the Constitutional Convention “specifically limited the number of representatives that would be available in the slaveholding states, and they did it for the purpose of ending slavery — well before Abraham Lincoln, well before the Civil War.”...

Justin Lafferty went on to explain away the idea of a Five-Third slave population count in order to secure US Representatives to the US House was a racist act; by stating it lead to the end of slavery. Well, if that were the case, it sure took a long time to make the switch in the USA from slave to citizen. 

The assault on voting rights needs to be seen for what it is, a power grab that ELIMINATES the rights of minorities by OBSTRUCTING voting opportunity.

The Fourteenth Amendment originally passed July 9, 1868. 

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

However, slavery was illegal in the thirteen original colonies in 1776. This is a really good analysis of the Thirteenth Amendment and slavery in general when it came to the rights of citizens.

By Jamal Greene and Jennifer Mason McAward

Slavery is America’s original sin. (click here) Despite the bold commitment to equality in the Declaration of Independence, slavery was legal in all of the thirteen colonies in 1776. By the start of the Civil War, four million people, nearly all of African descent, were held as slaves in 15 southern and border states. Slaves represented one-eighth of the U.S. population in 1860....

The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution reiterates the rights of all citizens.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

These three Amendments to the USA Constitution are the framework to end slavery in the USA. Why is it today, there is so much racism in our society and government?

"... previous condition of servitude" may be grounds to end the obstruction of former prisoners to vote. Being incarcerated and the definition as "servitude" was defined clearly in the 13th Amendment. The words are clearly written to make exceptions to incarceration as "...except as a punishment for crime...." There is a clear understanding that incarceration is defined in the US Constitution as involuntary servitude. Therefore the words in the 15th Amendment are even more clear when realizing the constitutional language of servitude. When prisoners are released from incarceration for any reason they are no longer in involuntary servitude and any previous servitude is not to abridge their right to vote.

There isn't anything difficult about this. The day prisoners walk out of prison or jail a free person, they have the right to vote. PERIOD! 

The words of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment to the USA Constitution is clear. There is nothing to be in the way of voting, except time in incarceration. But, once that incarceration ends there is nothing that should obstruct their return to full citizen rights, including voting. 

Prison is used as a financial tool for the states, including that once a prisoner has served his or her time there are still bills to pay and until those bills are paid, there is no return to full citizen rights. That is unconstitutional. The use of prisons as a means of raising monies to the state's treasury has to end, especially, where it prevents the return of voting rights.

When a judge hands down a sentence, there are fines to be paid. There is no order by any judge to assign the cost of prison to the prisoners and their families. There should never be any such assignment by a judge because it is unconstitutional to assign the cost of incarceration that prevents voting rights.

Congress needs to address the abliity of the DOJ to hide it's proceedings.

Attorney General Garland needs to assist Congress in drafting legislation that will end these secretive practices in the DOJ.

It is all fine and good to have the political discussions this news spawns, but, there needs to be something done about the ability of the DOJ to carry on unlawfully in secret. I know there is a lot to be said about ethics, but, the ability of the DOJ to carry out secret political agendas is out of the question. There needs to be someone, like the Inspector General, that screams bloody murder over law-breaking within the department itself.

This cannot be allowed to exist at all anywhere in the USA government or any state or local government either.

The professions are supposed to police themselves with state organizations that remove licenses and bring about fines for unethical practices, but, there is every indication professional organizations were made mute during the Trump years. Nothing they did or stated mattered.

This news from Judge Jackson is alarming in the worst possible way. The DOJ under the direction of Bill Barr, then Attorney General, conducted itself in a corrupt and illegal way that undermined even the investigation of the relationship Russia had with the Trump campaign. I don't care if the meetings were haphazard, the nexus existed and it has to be put to an end.

What is even more disturbing is the fact the transfer of power to a new president was met with real challenges. The State of Georgia had it not been for the Secretary of State could have been corrupted and lost to the electoral count. Vice President Pence, if it had been someone else, could have effected the actual electoral count. The fact that the insurrection even occurred, let alone resulted in violence at the US Capitol which actually did delay the electoral vote count; are all factors the Congress must address to prevent such problems from manifesting again. 

Perhaps, stenographers need to be assigned to the Attorney General that records every word spoken in meetings and then submitted to the Inspector General and/or an Inspector General assigned to record and evaluate the Attorney General's decisions. 

There must be a way of policing the DOJ that removes the ability to maintain a veil of secrecy to undermine the USA Constitution. The DOJ must be prohibited from acting as an adjunct to the President's political agenda. The DOJ must retain the right to prosecute the Executive Branch for unlawful acts while in office.

May 4, 2021
By William S. Schmidt

...The department (click here) had argued that the memo was exempt from public records laws because it consisted of private advice from lawyers whom Mr. Barr had relied on to make the call on prosecuting Mr. Trump. But Judge Jackson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011, ruled that the memo contained strategic advice, and that Mr. Barr and his aides already understood what his decision would be....