More on “Project 2025” reported on here from ABC NEWS. (Also note: I posted about this in July seen here). Also, related coverage from SALON and the DAILY SIGNAL:
“Republicans want next GOP president to curb security agency that
angered Trump”
The story highlights (formatted to fit the blog):
A group of influential Republicans are preparing for the
possibility that their party will retake the
White House next fall – and, if they do, they're
planning to scale back on the federal government's oversight of online misinformation.
The proposal is part
of “Project
2025,” a sweeping new initiative led by the Heritage
Foundation think tank to prepare: (1) a policy agenda, (2) a transition plan,
and (3) a personnel database for the next GOP president.
Among hundreds of other changes, Project 2025's nearly
1,000-page policy blueprint,
called “Mandate for Leadership,” singles out the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is the arm of the Department of
Homeland Security focused on guarding the nation's critical infrastructure,
including the systems used to conduct elections.
CISA's work around election misinformation has drawn the ire of Trump, who continues to wrongly claim he
won the 2020 election, and other conservatives who say it is interfering in
speech. CISA has pushed back on that view, calling it “patently false.”
Project 2025 blueprint recommends ending CISA's efforts to counter the flow of misinformation and disinformation by dismissing the panel of experts that advises the agency on matters of cybersecurity, or else housing the agency under the DOT rather than the DHS with the proposal stating: “The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth.”
Herb Lin, a senior
research scholar for cyber policy and security at Stanford University, said: “The
net effect and impact of that proposed overhaul would be to make CISA less
powerful. Moving the agency into the DOT, for example, would hamper its ability
to deal with national security, and that the way of emasculating the agency –
that is, it prevents it from doing its job.”
During the 2020 election cycle, CISA alerted social media
companies to posts that contained mis- or disinformation. Project 2025 proposals
focus on CISA and the government's role in handling false information online
has alarmed some democracy experts.
Republicans argue that CISA exceeded its mandate during the
2020 election, coordinating with nonprofits working on misinformation in order
to outsource an action that would otherwise be considered illegal censorship.
Lawrence Norden,
senior director of the Brennan Center's Elections and Government Program said:
“There are verifiably false things that are said about our elections ...
Regardless of party, we should all be against that. And the fact that we can't
say that, I think, is very troubling for our democracy.”
Brian Cavanaugh, a
former DHS official who helped author the CISA-related portion of Project 2025
said: “I don't think the government needs to be policing digital social
media platforms and sharing its thoughts and opinions on what it believes to be
accurate and not accurate. Are they the appropriate individuals to be wearing
the referees' shirt on what's misinformation, disinformation and what's fact?”
Executive Director
Brandon Wales said in a statement to ABC News, noting that CISA shares
information on election literacy and security in response to concerns from the
public adding: “CISA does not and has never censored speech or facilitated
censorship; any such claims are patently false.”
All in all, CISA officials have defended their work.
Trump himself has rebuked the agency for its efforts to counter election misinformation.
As
president, Trump fired Chris Krebs,
who was then the head of CISA, in response to Krebs debunking Trump's baseless
accusations of 2020 fraud one day after his statement.
Krebs tweeted after his dismissal: “Honored to serve. We
did it right.”
Note: I skipped the
middle parts to reach the article conclusion:
Spencer Chretien, the associate director of the Project 2025
project, told ABC News that his team has made the major GOP presidential
candidates aware of the blueprint and is “...building ties with the campaigns”
then he added: “We represent the whole conservative movement. And so it's
important to be able to speak as a movement and to say to the next president: This
is what the movement expects from you and your administration.”
Then the Heritage Foundation touted the fact that Trump drew heavily on their prior
edition of the blueprint during his time in the Oval
Office.
F/N of reporting on Trump plans for 2025:
Here are six specific
proposals (from the Washington Post) that have recently surfaced
in Trump’s speeches — and what each might look like if he pursued them or any others from the White House during “Project 2025.”
1. Execute drug
dealers: Trump has a long record of supporting the death penalty and
has advocated executing people for drug crimes since at least 2018.
2. Move homeless
people to outlying ‘tent cities’: As Trump has honed a law-and-order
message, packing his speeches with graphic accounts of violent offenses and
bleak appraisals of America’s cities, he has particularly focused on images of
people living on the streets. Trump’s solution is to move homeless people to “tent
cities” on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, staffed with medical
professionals, and built to house hundreds of thousands or even millions of
people.
3. Deploy federal
force against crime, unrest and protests: In recent speeches, Trump has
said he showed too much deference to local leaders and wished he’d ordered more
federal intervention. Trump indicated he wouldn’t hesitate in the future.
4. Strip job
protections for federal workers: On August 6, Trump called for the
president to have the authority to fire federal employees deemed “corrupt,
incompetent or unnecessary” and calling on Congress to overhaul the civil
service system.
5. Eliminate the
Education Department: Trump also said on August 6 that the Department
of Education should be shut for teaching “radicalism and wokeism” in schools.
6. Restrict voting to one day using paper ballots: Trump said on July 26: “Our goal should be same-day voting with only paper ballots.”
Note: Requiring everyone to vote on one
day would upend elections across the country. Trump has not gone as far as some
allies who also want the paper ballots to be counted by hand. Machines have
been used to count ballots in the United States since the 1960’s.
My 2 Cents: That last statement from Heritage above is both new and scary.
I believe that “Project 2025 and MAGA” will form into a new Trump working label like this:
“My Angry Gross Aggressors.”
Of course, with him as a one-man
ruler in total charge of every part of government top to bottom, his new title would be: “Dictator Don.”
It’s just that simple – you
don’t have to believe me or even what you read or see or hear – just listen to Trump
in his words, then study the 2025 plan.
The Trump threat will loom no matter under any label. So stay alert as I’m sure you will.
Thanks for stopping by.
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