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Remember the Brexit Battle Bus with this slogan, We send the EU 350 million a week lets fund our NHS instead Vote Leave? It was powerful and misleading according to the UK Statistics Authority. Mr Farage referred to it as a mistake.

No! The number plastered on the side of the Brexit bus was a big fat lie.

It was not a mistake because it affected the Brexit result the way Mr Farage wanted.

In short, we were misled and those who subverted our democracy with this deception have gone unpunished. Therefore it will happen again to further diminish democracy.

Last month the CPS announced that there would be no criminal charges brought against 14 MPs over their expenses in the 2015 election. In March 2017, The Electoral Commission fined the Conservative Party a record 70,000 for numerous failures in reporting expenses for the 2015 General Election. For that election the Conservatives raised some 38, 000,000.

Their fine for gaining an unfair advantage in winning the 2015 election is 0.01842105% of their 38 million war Chest. An inconsequential punishment and a ballot box bargain!

In short, there is no effective discouragement of the financial subversion of our democracy. Whether it was accidental or deliberate matters not. What matters is the harm done to our democracy and the acceptance of such harm to our democracy.

This CPS decision also undermines our legal system. It stated - it is clear agents were told by Conservative Party headquarters that the costs were part of the national campaign and it would not be possible to prove any agent acted knowingly or dishonestly. Therefore we have concluded it is not in the public interest to charge anyone referred to us with this offence.

In short, the CPS establishes the precedent that if your [political?] boss tells you to do something illegal and you do it, then no one will be prosecuted.

The BBC Trust ruled that BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg breached the BBCs impartiality and accuracy guidelines by editing film so that Mr Corbyn appeared to answer one question when he was, in reality, answering another. The Trust found this inaccuracy was compounded when she went on to state that Jeremy Corbins message couldnt be more different from that of David Cameron. The Trust also found that there was no evidence of bias or intent on the part of the journalist.

Even without bias or intent this is a fundamental abuse of trust and professionalism for either there was no need to change the film or, if there were, that fact could and should have been stated.

James Harding, the director of BBC News, stated, While we respect the Trust and the people who work there, we disagree with this finding.

In short, the head of BBC News is content with his viewers being presented with information that was not duly accurate, as the Trust said with a critical question at a time of extreme national concern.

Perhaps this election is about more than winning seats. Perhaps it is also about our speaking up, and possibly more, to make our country safe and healthy for democracy?

* Steve Trevathan is chairperson of Lyme Regis and Marshwood Vale Liberal Democrats.

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This election is about protecting our democracy - Liberal Democrat Voice

Three young leaders from Asia are in the Cowboy State learning about government and U.S. democracy.

Zahkung Tu Mai, Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen and Ooi Tze Howe are participating in a program in which leaders under 40 visit the United States. Young American political leaders then visit foreign countries as part of the exchange.

The idea behind the 51-year-old American Council of Young Political Leaders program is for people to learn from each other, which will ultimately result in better representation and policy for folks at home, said Bryan Pedersen of Cheyenne, a former state lawmaker who has participated in the exchange and is passionate about its benefits.

Pedersen and Dick Shanor, a Cheyenne city councilman and Wyoming Department of Education chief of staff, have largely organized the leaders schedule in Wyoming, which included visits to public meetings and the Wyoming Supreme Court. They also spent a week in Washington.

Pedersen said hes been to India and Pakistan and later Japan.

The experience taught him how to be empathetic toward people with different backgrounds. When working with others, he said he looks for their different talents, temperaments and convictions.

A better understating of where (people) come from will lead to a more constructive dialogue, he said.

And that leads to better legislation and policy, he said.

Zahkung, of Myanmar, is learning about tourism efforts in Cheyenne.

Myanmar, also called Burma, was ruled by the military for five decades, Zahkung said.

Htin Kyaw recently became president. He is counseled by Aung San Suu Kyi, a renowned human rights activist who was under house arrest by previous regimes for years.

A social scientist, Zahkung said that he was struck by the amount of support and collaboration among the tourism industry, the city of Cheyenne and Wyoming.

The government is very supportive, which you will not see in my county, he said. We have to engage a lot with the government in my county.

Yii, a doctor and attorney in Malaysia, is interested in Shanors work on City Council and at the Wyoming Department of Education.

The main difference between the United States and my country is the decentralization of education here in the United States, he said. The states have autonomy.

Yii said the strength of the U.S. system is that instruction and curriculum can be tailored for different cultures and state priorities.

He sees a weakness in the system in that there arent a lot of national standards to ensure education is fair across the nation, he said.

In Malaysia, he said, schools are equally funded across the country. In the U.S., some states spend more on education than others, he said.

Tze Howe, who goes by TH in the United States, is also from Malaysia. He is an engineer for Schlumberger.

TH is encouraged by the level of civic engagement in the United States. He attended Cheyenne City Council and Laramie County Commission meetings and was amazed at the number of members of the public who attended and commented on local development projects and business licenses.

Theres not that level of engagement in Malaysia, he said.

When he returns home, he would like to educate people on their rights, the separation of powers in government and the Malaysian constitution.

People dont really understand the background, the reasons the system is set up in such a way, he said. Theres not much discussion on how we can make the system better. So Im positioning myself to improve that, to make a difference on what I have learned over here.

Follow political reporter Laura Hancock on Twitter @laurahancock

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Asian leaders learn about American-style democracy in Cheyenne ... - Casper Star-Tribune Online

Communism is a political ideology that seeks to establish a future without social class or formalized state structure, and with social organization based upon common ownership of the means of production. It can be classified as a branch of the broader socialist movement. Communism also refers to a variety of political movements which claim the establishment of such a social organization as their ultimate goal.

Early forms of human social organization have been described as "primitive communism". However, communism as a political goal generally is a conjectured form of future social organization which has never been implemented. There is a considerable variety of views among self-identified communists, including Maoism, Trotskyism, council communism, Luxemburgism, and various currents of left communism, which are in addition to more widespread varieties. However, various offshoots of the Soviet and Maoist forms of MarxismLeninism comprise a particular branch of communism that had been the primary driving force for communism in world politics during most of the 20thcentury.

The book contains Marx and Engels' Marxist theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism.

In 1925 he joined the Young Communist League of Germany (KJVD). In 1929 he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He worked as a volunteer in the communist publishing house Kmpfer-Verlag in Chemnitz. He became a member of the regional leadership of KJVD in Saxony. In 1932 he became editor of Junge Garde ('Young Guard').

With the National Socialist takeover in Germany, Verner went into exile. Towards the end of 1933, he became a member of the Scandinavian Bureau of the Young Communist International, and edited Jugendinternationale (the German-language publication of the Young Communist International). In 1934 he shifted to Paris, were he became editor-in-chief of Junge Garde (now published in exile), a position he held until the spring of 1935. He moved to Belgium, as the KJVD reorganized. Verner fought as a volunteer in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. After the Spanish Civil War, he emigrated to Sweden.

4. Stalin, from the time of the first revolution leads the life of a professional revolutionist. Prisons, exiles, escapes. But during the entire period of the reaction (190711) we do not find a single document article, letter, resolution in which Stalin formulated his own appraisal of the situation and its perspectives. It is impossible that such documents do not exist. It is impossible that they are not preserved, if only in the archives of the police department. Why dont they appear in the press? It is perfectly obvious why: they are unable to strengthen the absurd characterization of the theoretical and political infallibility that the apparatus, which means Stalin himself creates for itself.

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Portal:Communism - Wikipedia

It was a scene straight out of the 1950s, but the year was 2017. Travis Allen, a Republican from southern California, took to the floor of the state assembly on 8 May to denounce communism. To allow subversives and avowed communists to now work for the state of California, he railed, is a direct insult to the people of California who pay for that government.

Allen was speaking out against a move to remove language from the California code that that bars members of the Communist party from holding government jobs in the state.

Anti-communist language remains on the books in several states, and in California at least, its not going anywhere. After facing backlash from Republicans, veterans and the Vietnamese American community, the bills sponsor, Democratic assemblyman Rob Bonta, announced last week that he would not move forward with the bill.

Ive been called a commie. Ive been told to go back to China. Ive had death threats, Bonta told the Guardian. He described as ironic and curious the fact that one of his Republican opponents was wrapping himself in the flag while supporting a law that blatantly violates our first amendment rights, but said he respected the emotions that the issue had raised for refugees from communist regimes.

With intrigue about Russia driving the daily news cycle, cold war sentiments are bubbling up again, despite the fact that our erstwhile adversary is decidedly capitalist these days. Its a marked reversal from just a year ago, when an astonishing number of Americans embraced the candidacy of a self-identified socialist, and a reminder of how deep anti-communist suspicion runs through the American psyche.

Bonta is not the first legislator to fail in an attempt to drag state laws into the 21st century. A similar effort was made in California in 2008, when a bill passed only to be vetoed by then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. I see no compelling reason to change the law that maintains our responsibility to ensure that public resources are not used for purposes of overthrowing the US or state government, or for communist activities, the governor wrote in his veto statement.

Joe Fitzgibbon, a Democratic state representative in Washington, has attempted three times since 2012 to pass legislation getting rid of his states law barring communists from voting or having government jobs, but has faced considerable opposition from Republicans.

He called the law a mark of shame for Washington state in a recent interview with the Guardian, and said he will keep trying.

I wonder if now that Republicans have a different opinion on Russia, if maybe theyll be more receptive, he said. My hope is that they will change their tune on whether people should be discriminated against for their political beliefs. Maybe they can talk to their Russian friends about that.

Lest there be any misunderstanding: members of the Communist party are currently allowed to hold government jobs in every American state. Such laws were passed around the country during the so-called red scare of the 20th century, but they have long since been ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court.

Some states have managed to move on. Arizona lawmakers voted in 2003 to update the states loyalty oath. Now, instead of swearing they are not members of of the Communist party, elected officials and public employees must vow not to be terrorists. Candidates for elected office in Illinois still receive a loyalty oath when they register to run, but filling it out is optional. Pennsylvania stopped requiring candidates to sign a loyalty oath in 2006, after a Socialist Worker party candidate objected.

While these red scare relics can seem comical, Michael Risher of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California said they can still have serious consequences. Occasionally someone will dredge them up and use them to try to scare people to stop them from speaking out, he said.

In 2006, he recalled, a California legislator asked the state attorney general whether an anti-subversive law could be used to go after Mexican American student activists. At the time, there was considerable rightwing suspicion about the student group MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztln) and its supposed goal of reconquista, or returning California and other parts of the south-west to Mexico.

The danger is not so much that someone will be sentenced to life in prison, but that they will be restrained from doing something that they would otherwise do, Risher said.

In New York City, a public school principal has been placed under investigation over allegations of recruiting students to join the Progressive Labor party, a communist group. The principal, Jill Bloomberg, is an outspoken critic of racial inequality in the school system, and she has sued the citys department of education for violating her civil rights.

Bloomberg accused the school district of using a tactic that people have used for years to discredit very, very legitimate anti-racist fight back: to cast it as communism, as if that automatically discredits it. She is not a member of the communist group, she said, but if I were, it would not be illegal or a violation of the schools regulation.

Either way, she said the investigation has placed a pall over her school, as teachers second-guess their ability to speak freely to their students. If youre teaching the Harlem renaissance and the civil rights movement, can you say Paul Robeson was proud to be a member of the Communist party? she asked. Or can you only talk about communism if you present it as a negative?

For Rossana Cambron, a national vice-chair of the Communist Party USA, which has about 5,000 members, the failure of Bontas bill was very disappointing. Still, she said, such efforts are in no way a priority.

Were too busy fighting Trump to be looking into those kind of things.

Read more here:
America's obsession with rooting out communism is making a comeback - The Guardian

Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan has called on people not to worry about a communist resurgence in the country because he said the government would not let the banned ideology return.

"We must overcome this issue about communism. All Golkar members must be deployed to help the government overcome this issue and we must ensure that there is no room for the growth of communism," the senior Golkar Party politician saidon Sunday during the party's national leadership meeting in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan.

(Read also:Government will not apologize for 1965 massacre)

"We can't bury the ideology. It will still exist, but ifthose people try to establish a political party or aim to change the country's ideology [of Pancasila], we have to [combat] that because that violates the Constitution," Luhut said.

Despite the now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) having been banned for almost 50 years, Indonesian government, law enforcement and military officials are currently experiencing another surge of communist-phobia.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) has cracked down on people selling and wearing T-shirts bearing the hammer-and-sickle symbol and religious zealots have even forced Bank Indonesia to clarify that its signature recto-verso logo on new bank notes have nothing to do with the PKI.

The official fear has grown worse because of unfounded reports about huge numbers of Chinese workers coming into the country.

Luhut said that there were definitely many Chinese workers arriving along with Chinese investment and illegal workers were unavoidable. (wit)

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No room for communism: Luhut - Jakarta Post