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One sure sign you’ve got a dictatorship in the making is when the would-be dictator does everything in his power to crush the ability of his opponents to be heard. In today’s Russia, those dissidents have a history of falling out of windows or suddenly becoming deathly ill. In North Korea, even the dictator’s family members end up dead. In the United States, Donald Trump is using all the tools at his disposal – legal and illegal – to silence his critics.

In a break from our usual format, we’re going to focus our opening discussion on one issue: Trump’s assault on free speech. Later in the podcast we’ll get into the Lansing budget mess and Michigan politics when we’ll be joined by veteran Lansing reporter and columnist Kyle Melinn.

As we look at the death of free speech, We begin with the latest example; the attack on late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, misrepresenting a Kimmel joke and using the threat of broadcast license revocations to muscle Kimmel off the air.

Another favorite Trump tactic: bogus lawsuits, known as SLAPPs. The latest is his laughable $15-billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. Mark Brewer discusses the endless bogus lawsuits.

Other tactics of an aspiring dictator:

• Manufacturing federal “emergencies” to paper over legal and constitutional violations (declaring Antifa a terrorist organization)
• Withholding federal money to extort concessions
• Using the bully pulpit to destroy reputations, often with false accusations
• Manufacturing criminal investigations (dating back to his “perfect call” to Zelenskyy urging a criminal investigation into Biden)
• Directing the IRS to challenge tax-exempt status of targets (university endowments, NGO’s, ActBlue)
• Firing federal whistleblowers
• Ending the autonomy that’s designed as a fail-safe; inspectors general replaced, establishing direct control of formerly independent agencies (CDC, NLRB, FEC, FCC, FTC)
• Firing career managers in all federal agencies – fill the jobs with inexperienced/unqualified sycophants
• Effectively lying to the courts, saying the right things to the judge(s) but ignoring court orders in the darkness

Government turmoil isn’t limited to Washington D.C. We have a few problems in Lansing as well. The new state fiscal year starts in two weeks and it’s increasingly likely there will be no budget adopted, and much of state government will shut down. What does it mean for the people of Michigan? Joining the discussion is someone who knows as much as anybody about the workings of state government: Kyle Melinn. Kyle is the editor and Vice President of the MIRS Newsletter, a daily on-line political news service covering state government and politics.A professional journalist for 20 years who has covered the state Capitol for the last 13, Kyle hosts a weekly podcast called MIRS Monday, available at iTunes. Before MIRS, Kyle served as a freelance writer for the Boston Herald and as a senior editor for SchoolSports.com. He is a graduate of Michigan State University, who grew up in Byron Center.

Clay Jones-claytoonz.com

Matt Davies:Newsday

This episode is sponsored in part by
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EPIC ▪ MRA, A full service survey research firm with expertise in
• Public Opinion Surveys
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• Focus Group Research
• Bond Proposals – Millage Campaigns
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