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Page 2 The Skanner March 1, 2017 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Melanie Sevcenko Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2016 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com Opinion This Is Why Trump Is Lying about Voter Fraud and Crime T here are two subjects in particular that the Trump Administra- tion lies about the most: crime and voting. During a recent interview on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, President Trump’s senior advisor Ste- phen Miller lied about voter fraud during the 2016 elec- tions. Miller said that, “And you have 14 percent of nonciti- zens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic.” That statement is simply false. Miller couldn’t pro- duce a single shred of evi- dence when Stephanopoulos pressed him on the subject. But Miller was just repeat- ing what his boss said shortly before the election. At a rally in Cleveland, Ohio on Oct. 23, 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump said that, “14 percent of nonciti- zens are registered to vote.” President Trump entered office lying about voter fraud and threatening an investiga- tion. Civil rights leaders have called for an investigation of voter suppression during the 2016 presidential elec- tion. More recently, the lying crossed over into the topic of an increased “crime wave” Lauren Victoria Burke NNPA Columnist that doesn’t exist. Now, the lies about a vast American crime wave and record levels of illegal voting seem to be coming together. On Jan. 23, during a meeting with members of Congress and the White House, Presi- dent Trump lied about voting again. Trump and his 31-year-old aide Stephen Miller, who was sent out on all the Sunday “ al, former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, had a history of prosecuting African Amer- icans, who were register- ing too many other African Americans to vote as an As- sistant U.S. Attorney. Having provided no explanation or apology for his past prosecu- tions, particularly that of the late Albert Turner Sr., there’s no reason to believe that Ses- sions won’t pick up where he left off in Alabama in the 1970s. Even though, Sessions’ past statements and actions as a prosecutor in Alabama are clear, the public perception of Sessions the man is mixed. Turner’s son, Albert Turn- er, Jr., issued a statement en- it’s voter ID, closing polling places, cutting Sunday voting and purging voting rolls. The continued strategy used by present day Republicans is still the “Southern Strategy” — they’ve just added Hispan- ics to the list of targets. The Immigration Customs En- forcement (ICE) raids started only two days after Attorney General Sessions was sworn- in. “The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keep- ing of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!” Trump tweeted on February 12. Trump tweeted about his “crackdown on illegal crim- inals” a day after El Paso ICE spokes- woman in El Paso Leticia Zamarripa stated that, “ICE regularly con- ducts targeted enforcement operations during which ad- ditional resources and per- sonnel are dedicated to appre- hending deportable foreign nationals.” Many immigrant rights ad- vocates knew the raids were not routine before anyone communicated anything. The Trump Administration would appear to be laying the groundwork to justify a new law that would make it harder for people to vote morning talk shows on Feb- ruary 12, appear to be lying for two reasons. First, Trump can’t come to terms with the fact that Hillary Clinton re- ceived almost three million more votes than he did, and second, the Trump Admin- istration would appear to be laying the groundwork to justify a new law that would make it harder for people to vote, particularly minorities. Trump’s Attorney Gener- dorsing Sessions that said, “I believe that he is someone with whom I, and others in the civil rights community can work if given the oppor- tunity.” Still, American history of the disenfranchisement of African American (and other minority) voters is also clear. In the late 1800s, it was a poll tax, literacy tests and other re- quirements that Black voters were unlikely to meet. Today Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2017 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds THE WAKE OF VANPORT COMING IN APRIL Sign up for breaking news and event notifications at TheSkanner.com Civil Rights Will Suffer under AG Sessions Donald Trump’s first weeks in office have left Americans reeling from what Republican speechwriter Peggy Noonan called his “cloud of crazy.” His cabinet nominees seem intentionally perverse: an ed- ucation secretary who has no clue about public schools; an energy secretary who want- ed to eliminate the depart- ment; a treasury secretary from Goldman Sachs who ran a home foreclosure factory. So when a White nationalist sympathizer, Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, was confirmed to be Attorney General, it passed by as just another absurdity. The coverage of the confir- mation battle focused pri- marily on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s outrageous muzzling of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she tried to read a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing Sessions. The muzzling was an un- forgivable indignity. Lost in the furor was the thrust of King’s letter. She was writing to urge the Republican-led Senate of the time to reject President Reagan’s nomina- tion of Sessions to the federal bench because he had “used the power of his office as U.S. attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the Rev. Jesse Jackson NNPA Columnist ballot.” Sessions had opposed the Voting Rights Act, made racist statements and falsely prosecuted Black civil rights leaders seeking to register people to vote in Alabama. He “ president boasted of doing — assault. He is leading oppo- nent of immigration reform and supported Trump’s ban on Muslims. On civil rights he learned, as Strom Thurmond’s late oper- ative Lee Atwater put it, that “you can’t say ‘n—–’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like … states’ rights and all that stuff.” Sessions remains a fierce advocate of states’ rights over civil rights. Even as he joined 97 senators make voting more difficult for African Americans and the young. Striking down the voter ID law in North Caroli- na, the federal appeals court found that the new provisions “target African Americans with almost surgical preci- sion,” while providing “in- ept remedies” for an alleged problem of voter fraud that is nonexistent. Now Sessions will take his states’ rights views to the Jus- tice Department. He will have more power than George Wallace ever had. Wallace had state power. Sessions has na- tional power with a state agenda, with thousands of lawyers under his command. He will help shape the Supreme Court. And simply by inac- tion — by refusing to enforce the Voting Rights Act as states act to restrict voting — he can do more to undermine civil rights than Wallace could by standing in the schoolhouse door. Every senator who voted for this nomination shares the shame. He is in position to poison the well of justice for a long time. By confirming Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to serve as the next Attorney Gen- eral, Donald Trump and the Republican Senate put in office someone who is com- mitted to undermining that Constitution was an ardent and unrelent- ing opponent of civil rights. The Republican Senate reject- ed his nomination. Sessions views have not changed. He opposed Su- preme Court decisions strik- ing down laws banning ho- mosexual sex and same-sex marriage. He voted against equal pay for women and against reauthorizing the Vi- olence Against Women Act, and he argued that it would be a “stretch” to call grabbing a woman’s genitals — as the in voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006, he gave a speech declaring its en- forcement sections unconsti- tutional. When the Supreme Court’s conservative gang of five gutted the law, he praised their decision, saying prepos- terously, “(I)f you go to Ala- bama, Georgia, North Caroli- na, people aren’t being denied the vote because of the color of their skin.” Even as he was saying that, states across the South were preparing a raft of laws to Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com