Sweeney camp says African-American legislators guilty of endangering children’s lives

By Rubashov
 
There is an increasing sense of desperation in the attempt by Senate President Steve Sweeney and his camp to pass a series of controversial and unpopular bills that they waited until after the November election to spring on the voters.  That’s right, everyone who is now pushing so loudly for things like this forced  vaccination bill didn’t have the balls to make so much as a squeak before the election, when the voters could do something about it. 
 
Everyone party to this lame duck scam now is being dishonest with the voters – and the voters know it.
 
Sweeney’s latest act of desperation happened late yesterday, when the Democrat Senate President trotted out Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) to suggest that Assemblyman Jamel Holley (D-20) would be culpable in the deaths of children.  Yes, that is how desperate they’ve become.  In an exchange on InsiderNJ, Senator O’Scanlon made this statement about Assemblyman Holley:
 
“Let’s be absolutely clear, the science is overwhelming, vaccines save lives.  Children’s lives.  As our solid, high levels of vaccination rates have fallen the occurrence of outbreaks of preventable, potentially life-altering or even deadly diseases has increased.  If Assemblyman Holley, or any other legislator, is successful in his effort to derail this bill he/they must accept responsibility for the results of their actions.
 
“It is not inconceivable that those results may include needless, preventable deaths of children.  And please don’t try to compare the infinitesimally smaller risk of vaccines to the dramatically greater risk of failure to maintain a high level of vaccination.
 
“Lastly, it isn’t just the optionally non-vaccinated that are at risk.  The elderly, the very young, the immunocomprosmised who can’t be vaccinated, the 1 in 10 children who are vaccinated who don’t develop immunity and wide swaths of the population whose immunity has lessoned over time. It will be these potentially permanently impacted lives that Assemblyman Holley will have to answer for.”
 
The Sweeney camp – with Republican Declan O’Scanlon as its spokesperson – are a group of non-scientists playing with science.  They make the claim that New Jersey’s vaccination rates have fallen and we are now facing a crisis.  Like it wasn’t a crisis before the election, but it is one now.  Now, in lame duck, children are going to die – and it’s going to be Assemblyman Holley’s fault!
 
But this simply isn’t true.  According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), New Jersey’s vaccination rates are higher than the national average.  So why did this crisis suddenly materialize after an election.  Isn’t that what you have an election for – to discuss issues like this, openly and honestly? 
 
Everyone know that the lame duck session is when you sneak through all the legislation average voters don’t want or care about as paybacks for those special interests who supported you during the election.  You know, the election where you didn’t discuss all these controversial issues in an honest and transparent manner.
 
Skepticism towards the pharmaceutical industry is not without reason.  After all, didn’t they tell us that opioids were the bomb, that they were just the thing for all our troubles, and not to worry?  Didn’t a court just rule that a major pharmaceutical company suppressed evidence that their product gave women uterine cancer?  And they suppressed it for three decades! 
 
So why should we listen to Sweeney and O’Scanlon’s assurances that Pharma knows best?  Isn’t that how the opioid crisis came about?
 
This is why you don’t do this kind of legislation after the election.  You do it before the voters have cast their votes, so that they have a say, so democracy can work.  Instead, we have the lame duck scam, and a lot of chest beating about a problem that wasn’t a problem the politicians wanted to talk about just a few months ago. 
 
And the desperation of the Sweeney camp is palpable.  Just look at the madness of the language employed by Sweeney spokesperson O’Scanlon:  “If Assemblyman Holley, or any other legislator, is successful in his effort to derail this bill he/they must accept responsibility for the results of their actions.  It is not inconceivable that those results may include needless, preventable deaths of children.” 
 
O’Scanlon is employing a very weird, highly unethical, form of bullying.  Afterall, given so loose an argument, wouldn’t this make Sweeney and O’Scanlon responsible for all the deaths resulting from their exemption?  If you really, really believed the b.s. you are laying on Holley, why would you exempt ANY child?  Would not their amendment be a kiss of death for those students? 
 
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases reports the risk of death from measles is higher for adults than for children.  So why isn’t the Sweeney camp mandating the vaccination of every public employee, everyone on any form of public assistance, every incarcerated adult and juvenile, and everyone attending a state supported institution of higher learning? 
 
The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases recommends that all adults born in 1957 or later get “at least one dose of the MMR vaccine” and that all college and university students, healthcare personnel, and international travelers “receive two doses of the MMR vaccine.”  Heck, if we are talking science, that’s what the actual scientists are advising.
 
And the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases makes this politically-incorrect observation…
 
FACT: Most cases of measles in the US result from infections acquired in other countries or are linked to imported cases.
 
Holy dog crap!  So how come Sweeney, Murphy, and the Democrats are so committed to porous borders???  Like… if they were really committed to stopping the measles and protecting children…
 
Why is O’Scanlon silent on this point?
 
Have you noticed yet that the Democrat Senate President has successfully co-opted a Republican and got him to do his dirty work?  Sadly, this has happened before, on issues ranging from the imposition of the state income tax to the repeal of the death penalty.
 
Meanwhile, a host of very important issues go entirely unaddressed – beginning with property taxes.  Yeah, that thing that New Jersey leads the world in.  The highest property taxes in America, along with the highest foreclosure rate, along with the worst for business climate and job creation.  Why are none of the issues that average voters actually care about being taken up by the Legislature?
 
Why?  Because average voters don’t pay lobbyists, that's why… 

It’s like the Princeton University study says…
 
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
 
The Democrats know this – just as they know that they will always be able to find a Republican to help them push one of their special interest scams over the line.  Maybe Republicans should just refuse to participate in Sweeney’s scams until he agrees to actually address the important jobs that the average voters want the Legislature to do – like lower property taxes. 

NJ.com strains its sphincter with Independence Day editorial

Someone should tell brother Tom Moran that babies don’t come out that end.

The day before yesterday the editorial board of what used to be the Newark Star Ledger gathered in the staff convenience to have a collective dump.  Yesterday they published their incitement to (riot?/ do someone bodily harm?) and titled it:  “On this Independence Day, striving for a new birth of freedom.” 

No, this isn’t the second coming of Thomas Paine.  What they offered up was a collection of selective complaints, some of which they have loudly supported when applied to those they don’t approve of.  For instance, the editorial board cheers on a global corporation like Facebook when it refuses service to those it disapproves of… but let some small-time baker do it and it becomes something to start a civil war over.  There’s no logic or balance to these guys.

For Tom Moran and his bunch, “freedom” is a subjective construct limited to people who they like.  If they don’t think you are a “good” person, as they define it, then they sincerely believe that you shouldn’t have “freedom”.  Heck, they don’t even believe you should have the right to speak or earn a living to sustain yourself.

They cry about ICE sending parents who break the law to one detention center and juveniles to another but ignore the fact that every jurisdiction in America does the same thing every day.  An ACLU study from 2017 shows that of the 219,000 women incarcerated in the United States – 80 percent are mothers.  And here is something even more shocking:  60 percent of the women behind bars in America have not been convicted of any crime but are simply awaiting trial.

Where is the outcry about separating them from their children?  Where are the rallies? 

The reason for their incarceration is the biggest threat to Freedom in America today:  Money.  Those women don’t have any or enough to count for anything in our judicial process… and so they rot in jail… separated from their children.

The NJ.com editorial board – part of a corporation owned by two of the richest billionaires in the world – conveniently left out how the accumulation of wealth and power serves to undermine and destroy democracy.  Sure, they quoted President Ronald Reagan (who they hated, by the way).  It was Reagan who reminded us that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Well, a recent Princeton University study concluded that America has already passed from being a democracy and is now in the ranks of oligarchy.  What?  You didn’t read about it in the Star-Ledger or any other of the organs owned by the oligarchs who the NJ.com editorial board work for?  There is only one battle worth fighting but Moran and his buddies dare not speak its name...

If you want to resist something… resist this! 

Of course, it has nothing to do with President Trump or any of the issues being pushed on us by NJ.com.  We’ve been on this trajectory for 40 years.  The oligarchs who own NJ.com want us to ignore what they’re up to.  They want to keep us fighting each other.

Their campaign of illusion and distraction – to pit working Americans against each other – is designed to keep their wealth and power secure.  Now they want to abolish ICE!  Isn’t it time we abolish the power they use to shout down democracy?

President Reagan reminded us that we don’t pass freedom down to our children through our bloodstream.  “It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”  The oligarchs who own NJ.com, the power they represent, and their ability to pervert democracy is an existential threat to freedom in America today.  We should reject the attempts to distract and divide us put forward by the amanuenses who do their bidding.

Will Robert Hugin meet conservatives half way?

It's "the-past-as-future" for the neo-Whitmanites who want to make the New Jersey Republican Party their private, personal playground.  Yep, just like the good-old-days of "pass the cigars" and "let the interns beware."  And that was just what the ladies got up to! 

The current mantra coming from some GOP establishment types in New Jersey is that only a "moderate" can win statewide.  This is, of course, simply an opinion and an opinion that ignores the fact that the only Republican who has won statewide in the last twenty years has been Pro-Life, Pro-Second Amendment, and opposed to Same-Sex Marriage.  

Besides, in these very partisan times, merely having an "R" next to your name -- leave out supporting Donald Trump or Chris Christie -- is enough to preclude any significant support from voters who self-identify as Pro-Choice on Abortion, Pro-Gun Control, and Pro-LGBT.  If these are your first tier issues, what floats your boat, you are not voting Republican.  Period.

Despite this, there is a full court press to mint Republican candidates at all levels who intentionally suppress key parts of the GOP base.  And the trend has got worse, with the suppression of actual conservative candidates by key players in the neo-Whitman, "My-Party-Too" crowd.  Like true greedy crony capitalists, it's not in them to share.  But in elections that increasingly depend on identifying and turning out anyone who will even consider voting Republican, this is a disastrous trend. 

Of course, squishy candidates are real popular with the dregs of the GOP's Whitman-era glitterati --  cocktail-party liberals and crony capitalists who still want to show that they run the NJGOP -- and who are increasingly uncomfortable in the knowledge that they make up just a thimbleful of actual Republican voters.  Unfortunately for them, most voters are not looking to transfer more wealth and power to the one-percent, while infantilizing various "groups" deemed worthy of protection. 

Working class Republican voters and working class Democrat voters are really not that different.  They care about being able to have the means to life.  They want jobs, the opportunity to start a small business; to be free from the worry of foreclosure; an education system that balances costs with results; a safety net that hasn't all been spent before they need it, and a justice system that looks on them a free citizens and that keeps safe the places where they live, work, and shop. 

The  needs of working people are pretty straight forward.  If it were an ice cream shop it would be plain vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.  Of course, the oligarchs of the Democrat Party can't provide that -- so they advertise a dozen flavors other than vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry -- while the "My-Party-Too" Whitman Republicans have placed out a sign that says, "Closed for business, we've run out of ideas."

Why this is so was the subject of a study conducted by Princeton University.  Take the time to listen to this video.  This is an issue that unites both Left and Right:

Which brings us to Mr. Robert Hugin of the Celgene corporation.  He is the promising candidate for the United States Senate that has the whole GOP establishment buzzing.  They say this erstwhile Marine is the man to beat Bob Menendez.  And a big reason they are so excited about Hugin is his ability to fund his own campaign.

Hugin earns over $20 million a year -- making him one of the best paid bosses in the pharmaceutical industry.  Before joining Celgene, he worked for Wall Street's J.P. Morgan & Company.  Hugin is a longtime member of Chris Christie's fundraising inner-circle, whose allegiance was transferred to Donald Trump after Christie dropped out of the 2016 presidential contest.  Hugin even served as a Trump delegate.  This biography strongly defines the man, making it hard to see how the average Bernie or Hillary voter could ever mark a ballot for him. 

But sure enough, it has emerged that Hugin is conveying to people the idea that he is "a different kind of Republican" and not one of "them" -- as in Pro-Life, et al.

Hey, you donated six figures to Chris Christie and served as a Trump delegate... so do you think you're going to fool a committed Democrat with that Pro-Choice on Abortion line?  You will only drive away thousands upon thousands of voters who want to vote for you, but for whom you will make it so that they can't, in good conscience.

Could Hugin run as the kind of populist who doesn't need cultural conservatives?  Sure, as a Democrat.  Those chocolate and vanilla "kitchen table" issues are grafted onto a cultural worldview that makes you a Trump populist or a Bernie populist.  Neither could have attracted so many voters had they adopted the other's cultural positions. 

In trying to have it all their own way, the "My-Party-Too" crowd might end up destroying the Republican Party in New Jersey.  Ideas matter to most voters and it is ideas that draw people to identify with a political party in the first place.  But in New Jersey, ideas are merely advertising gimmicks for the lobbyists, vendors, and consultants who increasingly run the GOP.  It is something almost unknown to most Republican voters... but too, too easy to demonstrate.  So few don't have Democrat money in their DNA. 

Many GOP leaders make money off Democrats -- or with Democrats.  Lots of money.  While most Republicans just get taxed by Democrats.  That's the great divide.  So where do you stand?  And would you like to know?

Already, conservative libertarian Dr. Murray Sabrin is thinking about another third party run -- like the one in which he almost sunk Christie Whitman.  Perhaps an even stronger candidate will emerge.  Surrendering cultural issues conservative voters to these candidates would not be a good strategy for Mr. Hugin. 

If cultural conservatives, reform conservatives, good-government conservatives, non-insider/crony capitalist conservatives, were to figure out that the fix was in, and that no matter how hard they worked with the GOP establishment they would never get a break, then who knows  -- in these troubled times of Trumpian rebellion and Bernite reaction -- how this could flower?  Would we see its fruit in the low, low turnout 2019 elections?  Would a third-party, seeking that elusive 10 percent, find its way?

Instead of trying to stand-out and apart from the "usual" Republican through the tired and ultimately unconvincing trope of "a different kind of Republican" when it comes to issues like abortion and LGBT rights, Robert Hugin could act boldly to unify Republicans -- the establishment thimbleful and the conservative majority -- by finding a way to meet both half way. 

Yesterday, Senate Democrats blocked an effort to bring the United States into line with most of the nations on earth in preventing abortions after 20 -weeks, the point at which science has shown that an unborn child is sensitive to the pain of being... killed.  Every other country on earth recognizes this fact except North Korea, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, and the Netherlands.  Isn't it time we bring our laws into line with science and the rest of the civilized world?

The Senate's vote was on whether to stop the Democrats’ filibuster of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.  This legislation highlights how unborn children feel intense pain when they are killed in abortions. Fifty-one senators (forty-eight Republicans and three Democrats) voted to take the bill up for debate, but 60 votes were required.  Because Republicans don’t have 60 votes in the chamber to overcome the filibuster, Democrats successfully stopped the bill, which came after President Donald Trump indicated he would sign the bill into law.

Hey, you can still support Roe v. Wade and acknowledge the scientific fact that after 20-weeks, a child should not suffer the kind of death that the U.S. Supreme Court wouldn't apply to serial killers, mass-murder terrorists, and rapists who murder children in the commission of a sexual assault.  That, the Court would argue, is "cruel and unusual" for the worse criminals... but for unborn children... are we supposed to look the other way?

So be "Pro-Choice" on abortion.  But support the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act too.  Give conservatives something.

Just a Minute: Frelinghuysen critic has a Super-PAC???

There have been three stories in the New Jersey Herald about the controversy between Bank Executive Saily Avelenda and Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen. 

There have been a bunch of other stories from around the state.  None that we read have mentioned this:

National Journal: Hotline Latest Edition (USA)

March 9, 2017

Protests, Super PAC Suggest Frelinghuysen Could Face Serious Challenge

Author: Colin Diersing

Article Text:

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) "has never had a hard time getting re-elected. The 22-year incumbent represents a district so safe that Michael Moore in 2000 tried to run a ficus tree against him to highlight the lack of competition. ... But Frelinghuysen's streak of effortless elections may come to an end in 2018, just as he's at the height of his power as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee."

"Anti-Trump activists have incessantly called on Frelinghuysen to hold a town hall .. He's refused. And now, NJ 11th for Change has a super PAC, founded last month by Google executive Jonathan Bellack and local bank executive Saily Avelenda. ... Donald Trump won Frelinghuysen's district last year, but barely — and by a significantly smaller margin than Mitt Romney won it in 2012." ( Politico)

Nearly all of these news stories fail to provide readers with Ms. Avelenda's full title:  Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of the Bank.  Yep, she is a fully-fledged member of the one percent!  Before landing her latest job with Lakeland Bank, in 2010, Ms. Avelenda was general counsel for Hann Financial Service Company, and was a vice president and counsel for Hudson United Bank.

And far from being a simple everywoman the press makes her out to be, Ms. Saily Avelenda is wrapped up with some even bigger mega-rich political operators.  Ms. Avelenda is actually a partner in a Super-PAC with GOOGLE multi-millionaire Jonathan Bellack, a guy who drops $33,400 on a single dinner ticket to hang out with Barack Obama.  $33,400 is what the average working American pays for a new car if they can afford it -- and this fancy arsed executive drops that much on some political chicken dinner?  This is courtesy of WikiLeaks:

Jonathan Bellack is a mega-rich guy who uses his vast wealth to shout down working class voters who can't throw the kind of money around that he can.  While most people worry about their kids' college tuition, property taxes, and staying out of foreclosure, just look at the kind of money this rich liberal throws around on dirtbag politics:

Joint Fundraising Contributions

These are contributions to committees who are raising funds to be distributed to other committees. The breakdown of these contributions to their final recipients may appear below

Joint Fundraising Contributions

These are contributions to committees who are raising funds to be distributed to other committees. The breakdown of these contributions to their final recipients may appear below

Wow, that is a lot of dough!

Here are the actual filing papers for the Super-PAC controlled and operated by mega-dirt rich corporate executive Jonathan Bellack and lawyer/banker corporate executive Saily Avelenda.  Talk about poster children for our screwed-up political system!

Really?  Really???  When did Democrat activists stop being union guys and started being one percenters, corporate executives, lawyers, bankers, owners of Super-PACs, and other corporate scum?

Super-PACs and the people who own them -- people like Jonathan Bellack and Saily Avelenda -- are the problem with politics in America today.  They have destroyed representative democracy in America.  They have destroyed our Republic.  Don't believe us -- listen to this study from Princeton University:

There you have it.  The problem wonderfully explained.  The rich one percent get their way -- the lobbyists, bankers, lawyers, corporate executives, and especially the owners of Super-PACs are responsible for the shit we are in.

Politician Lobbyists straddle both parties

Too many voters persist in believing that the two political parties work in opposition to each other.  In fact, both are neo-liberal in their economic policies and both believe in crony capitalism.  The only difference may be which interests benefit from that crony capitalism. 

The Democrats fill the place of a traditional party of the Left -- a party of the poor and working class.  The Republicans play the role of a party of Middle Class conservatism -- of small business and traditional values.  In fact, the Democrats have worked to make the poor more dependent on politicians and have sided with big business to support immigration policies to drive down the value of labor, while supporting trade policies that have driven high-paying manufacturing jobs overseas.  For their part, the Republicans side with big corporations and wealthy special interests to offer tepid opposition to a rabidly commercial agenda set on destroying local businesses and imposing a global set of standards on both economic and human relationships.

New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney summed it up when -- in the midst of an economic downturn, high unemployment and underemployment, no property tax relief, mass foreclosures, homelessness, debt, record poverty, and children going hungry -- he declared that same-sex marriage was the state's "top priority" and the most important thing on the legislative agenda.  Why not?  Billionaires like Paul Singer and Tim Gill were funding the project.  It was important to them and they have the money to push an issue to the front of the line. 

A recent Princeton University study nailed it when it reported that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

Now you know why all those referenda voting down same-sex marriage meant jack dick.  Money uber alles.  Simply put, the citizen and his or her vote simply don't matter to the critters who run our legislative bodies.   

Witness the rise of the lobby/public relations/political consulting entity -- often an arm of a law firm -- that employs both Democrats and Republicans.  Gone are the days of simply relying on campaign contributions to make a legislator sweet.  Now a lobbyist is likely to be the party chairman of a county or municipality -- somebody who can knock a legislator off the party "line" in the primary or find a popular mayor to run against him. 

And forget the idea that Democrat lobbyists only lobby for "Democrat" issues and Republicans for "Republican" issues.  They lobby for whomever it is that pays them and simply use their party offices to beat legislators into voting the way the rich corporations or interests who pay want them to vote.  There was a long line of Republicans taking money to lobby for same-sex marriage.  Republicans have trousered George Soros' money and have lobbied for everything from corporate crony solar projects to raising taxes.

Republican voters are beginning to figure out that their party's establishment doesn't care what they think and uses their votes to get hired by people who do not have their interests in mind.  Social conservatives got the message first.  That's why we had historically low turnout in New Jersey in last year's Assembly races.  The Trump phenomenon -- which began after he made a no nonsense comment about the supposedly taboo subject of illegal immigration -- is further evidence that the old b.s. no longer works.

The Reagan-era alliance between the social conservative and Chamber of Commerce wings of the GOP has gone off the rails.  For years working class social conservatives voted against their economic self-interests for candidates who promised to respect their traditional values, only to watch those candidates do the bidding of the rich who fund their campaigns and piss on every traditional value.

Why should social conservatives vote to keep the taxes of a corporation like Johnson & Johnson low, when that corporation takes the money it saves and uses it to make propaganda media to push same-sex marriage or helps to underwrite the operations of Planned Parenthood.  A year ago, more than 100 of the richest and most powerful corporations signed an amicus brief in Obergefell v. Hodges in support of same-sex marriage and in direct opposition to much of the world's major religions.  Among those to codify this global corporate position on faith and morals was Johnson & Johnson. 

A New Jersey business organization that relies on Republicans elected with social conservative votes to support its agenda, rewarded this loyalty by inviting the former president of Planned Parenthood to be the keynote speaker at an event sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.  Will social conservatives be asked by this business group to support less regulation for Johnson & Johnson, now that it has lost a court battle that disclosed its callous disregard for women and children who use its products? 

When a resolution is proposed in the Legislature, calling for the condemnation of Johnson & Johnson's corporate leadership for failing to warn women that its talc-based products could cause cancer, will so-called women's advocates like Senator Loretta "Mother Roach" Weinberg sign on?  Will Senator Sweeney?  After all, these corporate monsters knew as far back as the 1980's that their products caused cancer but they were so addicted to profits that the greedy pigs kept selling it and kept quiet about the cancer.   

Wow, doesn't support for same-sex marriage and Planned Parenthood mean that you are "progressive," that you're one of the so-called "good-guys"?  Obviously not.  The same corporation that makes fashion statements in support of "LGBT rights" and "women's reproductive rights" was happy to expose women and children to the possibility of slow, painful, horrible deaths in order to keep its profits high.  Corporate fashion statements are a diversion, a scam. Money uber alles.

Polling: Politicians govern without our consent

You might have heard that the electorate is angry this year... but angry about what?  Well, it seems that it is beginning to dawn on voters that they don't matter and that politicians govern without their consent. 

First, take the Princeton University study released in April 2014 that confirmed what many suspected already...

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argues that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

To understand this better, take a look at the resumes of the folks who run the party organizations in New Jersey.  It will quickly become clear that party politics in New Jersey isn't an altruistic or even an ideological occupation -- it is a business venture controlled by people who serve as conduits between those who seek to influence government and the elected officials who exercise power over government.  Lots of money changes hands in direct payments to the conduits who, as party leaders, exercise power over elected officials who want to stay elected; and in contributions made directly to candidates or political committees.

Read these headlines and weep:

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy - BBC News

New Princeton Study Confirms US Is No Longer A Democracy

Princeton makes it official — USA Has Become Oligarchy

America is an oligarchy, not a democracy or republic

US is No Longer a Democracy – Princeton Study

How the US Became an Oligarchy - Truthout

Princeton study: US is no longer a democracy

Now new polling from Rasmussen suggests that voters are beginning to understand this, with just 12 percent of Republicans, 20 percent of Independents, and 30 percent of Democrats believing that "the federal government has the consent of the governed."  Black voters are less likely than white voters to believe that they are governed with their consent.

Voters also question the election process itself, with just 24 percent of black voters, 44 percent of white voters, and 40 percent of other minority voters believing it to be "fair."

Only 27 percent of voters now believe that "the government does the right thing almost always or most of the time."  67 percent of all voters describe themselves as "angry" towards the current policies of their government.

It is no wonder that groups like RepresentUS are growing by leaps and bounds: