Support Our Troops

A new report Thursday reveals that Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake told two Democratic senators his department will not help injured veterans register to vote before the 2008 election.

"VA remains opposed to becoming a voter registration agency pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act, as this designation would divert substantial resources from our primary mission," Peake said in an April 8th letter to Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) acquired by Steven Rosenfeld at Alternet.

Peake refers to a 1993 law that allows government departments to engage in voter registration efforts, Rosenfeld says.

What this means is that many injured veterans still in VA hospitals who can't find means to register outside of their facilities will effectively lose their right to vote.

  Raw Story

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Democrats Do It, Too - Part Whatever

Last March, the Nevada Democratic Party came together and put together the rules of the caucus. Because of the high number of casino workers in Las Vegas, and because those workers have to work on weekends, the Democrats of Nevada decided to have special, at-large caucus sites in certain select areas (like right on the Vegas Strip) to give those working people a chance to make their voices heard.

[...]

Suddenly, a mere days before the caucus, we now see a lawsuit to shut down those at-large sites and deny the casino workers their right to vote. Three of the plaintiffs voted for the very plan they’re now trying to block – reasonable people have guessed they’re changing their minds presumably because just a few days ago the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Barack Obama.

  John Kerry

That lawsuit would allegedly be filed by Hillary supporters.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update: Suit dismissed.

More Problems with Voting Machinery

Dennis Kucinich is calling for a look at the New Hampshire voting. Brad DeLong comments:

Hillary Clinton seems to have received a full 7 point advantage in Diebold precincts, versus hand-counted ones.

However, as mentioned last night, that disparity doesn't necessarily indicate anything in and of itself. There could be any number of reasons to explain it. For example, it's the smaller and more rural precincts who count by hand, where the larger towns use Diebold/LHS Associates to count. It could well be that Obama is more popular in smaller towns, and Clinton in larger.

We do note, however, the following rather remarkably anomalous result which was reported late this afternoon by analysts from the Election Defense Alliance (EDA). As noted by one of the researchers, IT Consultant Bruce O'Dell:

Analysts at the Election Defense Alliance (EDA) have confirmed that based on the official results on the New Hampshire Secretary of state web site, there is a remarkable relationship between Obama and Clinton votes, when you look at votes tabulated by op-scan v. votes tabulated by hand:

Clinton Optical scan 91,717 52.95%
Obama Optical scan 81,495 47.05%

Clinton Hand-counted 20,889 47.05%
Obama Hand-counted 23,509 52.95%

The percentages appear to be swapped. That seems highly unusual, to say the least.

  Brad Blog

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Democratic Strategy in Michigan

In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state's Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters [...] in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes. In 1988, Republican voters again crossed over, helping Jesse Jackson win the Democratic primary, helping rack up big margins for Jackson in Republican precincts. (Michigan Republicans can clearly be counted on to practice the worst of racial politics.)

[...]

We're not going to beat around the Bush. If you want to help make mischief for the Republican Party - and bolster the Democrats' chances for taking the White House this November - read on!

Are you a Democrat or independent registered to vote in Michigan? If you are, vote for Mitt Romney in the Republican primary on Tuesday, January 15th!

Do you know any Democrats or independents in Michigan? If you do, encourage them to vote for Mitt Romney in the Republican primary on Tuesday, January 15th!

And if you don't know anyone in Michigan, then forward this e-mail on to your like-minded friends - you never know who they might know.

Okay, so, I know - you must think I'm nuts to suggest that anyone ever vote Republican. But this situation is special. [...]

  

Check it out at Daily Kos.

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

New Hampshire Results

It's hard for me to remember an election where the trend of polling and the final poll results so failed to predict the actual vote. Certainly, there's no example I can remember of it happening in such a high profile contest.

  TPM

Has he forgotten the exit polls of the presidential election of 2004 so soon?

Jon Krosnick, in an ABC article, says Clinton beat Obama because her name was at the top of the ballot, and if it hadn’t been, Obama might have won. “Who are you voting for, sir?” “I don’t know. It’s too hard to choose. I’ll just pick whoever’s at the top of the list.” Right.

On another note: Romney cracks me up. He’s the ultimate politician. And sailor, perhaps. Which way is the wind blowing? Tack. After the press picked up the drumbeat from the Democratic swell in Iowa (Change, Change, Change, Change), Romney starts throwing the word into his speeches. Suddenly, he’s the guy all about change. What meme can we start next to further test his agility?

Addendum: If I were a "conspiracy theorist", I can see that the Clinton win with the Obama-skewed polls could be a larger plot to put the Clintons back in the WH. Political campaigns have to be shrewd, you know. Rigged voting and phony presentations like creating a cowboy out of George Bush, phony ranch and all. Hillary's teary-eyed speech could have been coached. The whole thing could have been set up to let Obama win big and then make Hillary look like a real "come-back kid". Get people all excited. The Clinton camp doing the same thing the Romney camp does, only doing it at a much better level - a pro versus an amateur.

Well. It could be.

Update 1/10/08: The Daily Howler reports that the polls were also very wrong in 2000...in New Hampshire! We have such short memories.

Update 1/11/08: More machinery funny business?

Further Update 1/11/08: Iron my shirt.

Democracy Now!

Tonight on Democracy Now! Amy Goodman interviewed Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote and co-author of Every Vote Equal.

One quiet story from last week is the State of New Jersey passed the National Popular Vote plan and sent it to Jon Corzine, who’s likely to sign it, to make the second state to enter this interstate agreement. And that’s the way, we think, can change the Electoral College, but we’re not going to have that in place this year.

[...]

[A] lot of people thought we needed to change the Constitution to establish a national popular vote, but it turns out that states have the power to do it themselves.[…]. They determine how to allocate electoral votes, and they have the power to enter into interstate agreements with one another. So the idea of New Jersey and Maryland, which is the other state that has passed this, is they will give all of their electoral votes to the slate of the candidate who wins the national popular vote and do it once the number of participating states can guarantee election of the president.

And that plan is moving forward in a number of states. It’s actually been introduced in almost every single state. I think it’s going to pass in several more this year. We’ll see another lousy presidential election, in the sense of political equality being completely thrown out the window, and I think we’ll have it in place by 2012.[...] we may have a whole different kind of presidential election in 2012. [Emphasis mine.]

  Democracy Now

Speaking of Congress

As difficult as it is to believe, there are even varying degrees of loyalty to Bush within the 41 Bush Dogs. The following six Democrats not only voted for a blank check on Iraq, not only voted to continue warrant-less government spying on American citizens through FISA, but also voted against S-Chip:

Vital Stats on “The Ultimate Bush Dogs”

Member	District	PVI	Term	2006 win %	New Dem	Blue Dog
Boren	OK-02	R +4.9	2nd	73%	No	Yes
Ethridge	NC-02	R +2.7	6th	66%	Yes	No
Hill	IN-09	R +7.1	1st / 4th*	50%	Yes	Yes
Marshall	GA-08	R +8	3rd	51%	No	Yes
McIntyre	NC-07	R +2.8	6th	73%	Yes	Yes
Taylor	MS-04	R +16.3	10th	80%	No	Yes

  Open Left

Blue Dog Democrats are a group of 47 moderate and conservative Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives. The Blue Dogs are a coalition seeking to promote what they see as fiscally responsible budget reforms and accountability for taxpayer dollars. Many members come from conservative districts, where liberal Democrats comprise a decided minority. In 2006, Blue Dog candidates such as Heath Shuler and Brad Ellsworth were elected in conservative-leaning districts, ending years of Republican dominance in these districts.

The term is a reference to the "Blue Dog" paintings of Cajun artist George Rodrigue of Lafayette, Louisiana; the original members of the coalition would regularly meet in the offices of Louisiana representatives Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes, both of whom had Rodrigue's paintings on their walls (and both of whom later switched to the Republican Party). It may also be meant as an ironic counterpoint to the traditional "Yellow Dog" label, which is applied to those Southern Democrats said to be so loyal to the party that they would vote for a yellow dog before voting for a Republican.

  Wikipedia

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Dartmouth Democrats Debate

I watched the "debate" (why do they call them debates when mostly they just answer questions and rarely debate anything?) tonight, and I'm only going to tell you one thing. Dennis Kucinich said we could have a president who was right on Iraq and right on the PATRIOT act, or we could have a president who's tall. I was with him until he also said he wants to lower the drinking age to 18 and the voting age to 16.

Of course, the old argument was there that if you're old enough to fight and die in the military, you're old enough to vote and drink, but I think that's bass ackwards. Neither the drinking age nor the voting age (although it already has been) should be lowered to match the military enlistment age of 18; the military enlistment age should be raised to at least 25. And there shouldn't even be a legal - and therefore illegal - drinking age. There should just be serious consequences for drunken activity that harms someone else.

As for voting - let's get a decent, fair, reasonable system before we start throwing more people at it. (That was easy, and gets me out of having to squeal about sixteen-year-old reasoning capacity.)

Update: I'll tell you one more thing, and the rest you can read at USA Today if you didn't watch. Tim Russert, the moderator, asked the last question of every candidate: What's your favorite Bible verse?

What in the name of the Constitution of the United States has that got to do with political issues and the presidency? At any rate, most of them didn't actually quote a verse, and Senator Biden is going to be in hot water with the Jews, because he said something to the effect that there are too many Pharisees. No matter what he meant, he's going to be really sorry about his choice of descriptors.

GOP Vote Control

This Brad Friedman post recalls Clint Curtis' allegations that Florida Representative Tom Feeney asked him to create a vote-stealing touch screen program for the 2000 elections. While no legal charges have yet been brought against Representative Feeney with regard to the vote rigging scandal in Florida, it seems that he is receiving large donations to his defense fund in the Abramoff scandal from his old friends and partners in the voting systems companies. And, in case you were thinking that the "conspiracy theories" about the GOP putting the fix on U.S. elections is merely the product of paranoid minds, Friedman's post adds force to the Curtis claims by virtue of a new investigative report by Dan Rather. For the sake of getting these things into serious discussions, I'm sorry to say, I think Dan should allow other reporters who haven't been publicly tainted to take the catbird seat and the credit. At any rate, among the revelations in the Rather report:

Sequoia [Voting Systems] company whistleblowers reveal on camera that, despite their objections, they were forced to use poor quality paper for the punchcards to be used in Florida in 2000. They also revealed that they had been instructed to deliberately misalign the chads for ballots going to Palm Beach County, FL, only.

Now can we have some serious investigations?

Fulll Rather video report here. Summary of the Curtis/Feeney story here.

Purge: Attorneys and Democratic Voters

Slate gives us more information on the voting rights angle of the Great Attorney Purge. As I've been saying since the story broke and I read a Black Commentator piece about the Bush administration DOJ's Civil Rights Division, it appears that the major purpose of the purge was more insurance for Republican election successes.

[The American Center for Voting Rights] ACVR—the only prominent nongovernmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem, a problem warranting strict rules such as voter-ID laws—simply stopped appearing at government panels and conferences. Its Web domain name has suddenly expired, its reports are all gone (except where they have been preserved by its opponents), and its general counsel, Mark "Thor" Hearne, has cleansed his résumé of affiliation with the group. Hearne won't speak to the press about ACVR's demise.

[...]

Presidential adviser Karl Rove and his allies, who have been ghostbusting illusory dead and fictional voters since the contested 2000 election, apparently mounted a two-pronged attack. One part of that attack, at the heart of the current Justice Department scandals, involved getting the DoJ and various U.S. attorneys in battleground states to vigorously prosecute cases of voter fraud. That prong has failed. After exhaustive effort, the Department of Justice discovered virtually no polling-place voter fraud, and its efforts to fire the U.S. attorneys in battleground states who did not push the voter-fraud line enough has backfired.

[...]

But the second prong of this attack may have proven more successful.

If you read the rest of the Slate article, it explains how the AVCR helped to push the ideas behind recent laws in many states that make it more difficult for minority citizens to vote.

Democracy overseas - our favorite export. But it just isn't what we want here.

Tuesday Morning Tidbits

The following news articles were gleaned from headlines at The Project for the Old American Century.

Purge

Carol Lam, the United States attorney in San Diego, was fired after she put Randy Cunningham, known as Duke, in prison. Paul Charlton, in Arizona, was dismissed while he was investigating Rick Renzi. Dan Bogden, in Nevada, was fired while he was reportedly investigating Jim Gibbons, a congressman who was elected governor last year.

[...]

[Debra Wong Yang of Los Angeles] was investigating Jerry Lewis, who was chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Ms. Lam and most of the other purged prosecutors were fired on Dec. 7. Ms. Yang, in a fortuitously timed exit, resigned in mid-October.

[...]

Kyle Sampson, the Justice Department staff member in charge of the firings, told investigators last month in still-secret testimony that Harriet Miers, the White House counsel at the time, had asked him more than once about Ms. Yang. He testified, according to Congressional sources, that as late as mid-September, Ms. Miers wanted to know whether Ms. Yang could be made to resign.

  New York Times article

Hold up a minute. If the US Attorney firings are all aboveboard, serve at the president's pleasure, can be replaced any time, yada yada yada, then why wouldn't you just replace Yang? Why try to find a way to force her to resign?

Well, anyway, she did indeed resign, in order to take a job in a private law firm.

Press reports say she got a $1.5 million signing bonus to become a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a firm with strong Republican ties. She was hired to be co-leader of the Crisis Management Practice Group with Theodore Olson, who was President Bush’s solicitor general and his Supreme Court lawyer in Bush v. Gore. Gibson, Dunn was defending Mr. Lewis in Ms. Yang’s investigation.

Say what? She went to work for the firm that represented the man she was prosecuting as US Attorney?? Okay. Yang should have been fired. But let's have a look into that business of the White House counsel trying to force US Attorney resignations.

Rats Abandoning a Sinking Ship?

As rancor in the nation rises over handling of the war in Iraq, at least 20 senior aides have either retired or resigned from important posts at the White House, Pentagon and State Department in the past six months.

[...]

"You would expect to see vacancies arise as things wind down, but it's about six months early for this kind of a mass exodus," [Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University] said.

[...]

At the White House, four top officials have stepped down, including [Deputy national Security Advisor J.D.] Crouch; Meghan O'Sullivan, another deputy national security adviser who worked on Iraq; Tom Graham, the senior director for Russia, and director for Asian affairs Victor Cha, point man for the Koreas.

[...]

Graham's resignation comes as tensions with Russia rise over U.S. missile defense plans in Europe, and Cha leaves amid concerns over North Korea's failure to comply with deadlines to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs.

[...]

The State Department has been hit hardest with at least five so-called "principals" - people in the top four tiers of the bureaucracy - stepping down.

[...]

A total of 12 senior officials have left the State Department in recent months

  UK Guardian article

Isn't that Condi's bailiwick?

Colorado Campaign

Daniel J. Kopelman of Aurora, CO, whose duties include oversight and maintenance of the state's master voter registration database, was offering "GOP campaign help" in the form of voter and "fresh" fundraising lists at the web site of his privately-owned company Political Live Wires.

In response to ePluribus Media's inquiries, a spokesperson for Sec. of State Mike Coffman stated that his office had no knowledge of Kopelman's "side business" and saw his actions as a "conflict of interest." Furthermore, upon learning of Kopelman's activities, Deputy Sec. of State William A. Hobbs met with the state's voter database manager and directed him to take down his web site.

  ePluribus Media post

But not to stop selling voter lists to the GOP?

Of Purges and Pimps

The DC Madam's assistant's day job is in the law offices of Monica Goodling's attorney. Cozy world, eh?

PTSD in the Military

[M]ore than 300 [military women have] been treated at the woman's trauma recovery program in Palo Alto, Calif., which is run by the Department of Veteran's Affairs.

[...]

Of those treated for PTSD at this program, 78 percent were admitted with military sexual trauma. Therapists at the facility say applications have increased significantly.

  MSNBC article

"Sexual trauma." The women were raped by fellow soldiers. Let that sink in.

And, finally, you can watch a video of the LA police "handling" the immigration protest here.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Purge

Remember how we've talked about the US attorney purge being essentially a voter purge aimed at controlling elections? Greg Palast has some more evidence in the firing of Arkansas Attorney Bud Cummins (who says he was warned to keep quiet about it). Or more exactly, the replacing of Bud Cummins with Rove buddy Tim Griffin.

Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove’s assistant, the President’s pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

[...]

In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn’t mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.

However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails — potential evidence of a crime — to email addresses ending with the domain name “@GeorgeWBush.com” he sent them to “@GeorgeWBush.ORG.” A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns “GeorgeWBush.org.” When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.

And we dug in, decoding, and mapping the voters on what Griffin called, “Caging” lists, spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic voters from Democratic precincts.

Palast also has an article on Harriet Miers' role in the attorney purge, plus some background on previous firing and hiring Harriet has done for Bush and why he needs to keep her on his good side, going back to the days when George was helped into the Texas Air National Guard.

[C]ontrol over a US Attorney and what is called their “prosecutorial discretion” is worth its weight in gold to politicians. They can provide protection for cronies and exact punishment on enemies. And no one knows that better than “Justice” Harriet Miers and her boss, fighter pilot George W. Bush.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update: The Boston Globe today has more on this same theme, but dealing with Brad Schlozman in Missouri.

Schlozman is emerging as a focal point of the investigation into the firing of eight US attorneys last year -- and as a symbol of broader complaints that the Bush administration has misused its stewardship of law enforcement to give Republicans an electoral edge.

[...]

"Schlozman was reshaping the Civil Rights Division," said Joe Rich , who was chief of the voting rights section until taking a buyout in 2005, in an interview. "Schlozman didn't know anything about voting law. . . . All he knew is he wanted to be sure that the Republicans were going to win."

And TPM Muckraker talks about Schlozman's efforts as US Attorney in Missouri to file last minute voter fraud charges in the elections.

And now the Justice Department is inventing "unwritten exceptions" to its policies to cover for him.

Bushie Award

In typical Bush Administration fashion (think George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer receiving Medal of Freedom awards), Robert Coughlin, who just resigned from the Justice Department, was given last year's Attorney General Award for Fraud Prevention.

David Kurtz comments:

In September, Coughlin was honored for his work on fraud and white collar crime. By the following April, he was out because of his alleged connections to the one of the largest white collar crime investigations in DOJ's history. Only in the Gonzales Justice Department.

P.S. If you need more evidence to connect the Gonzales DoJ to efforts to prevent Democratic votes, Kurtz also points out that another lawyer to receive an award (including cash) earned it by being the only one of four in the civil rights division to vote in favor of a voter identification law that was later struck down as being discriminatory to minorities.

Election Fraud

On November 3, 2004 -- the day before election day -- the Hosting History [of the Ohio Secretary of State’s webpage] reports a switch from OARnet to Smartech Corporation of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The hosting switches back to OARnet on November 5, 2004 -- the day after the election.

  Cannonfire post - sources credited

Why would that be? And who is Smartech?

For one thing, Smartech hosts the gwb43 web server of the RNC, where members of the administration and the DoJ have been sending emails to avoid going through the White House servers, which are subject to public (and Democratic) scrutiny. You remember - the "lost" emails that the Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed.

On Election Night 2004, the Republican Party not only controlled the vote-counting process in Ohio, the final presidential swing state, through a secretary of state who was a co-chair of the Bush campaign, but it also controlled the technology that allowed the tally of the vote in Ohio's 88 counties to be reported to the media and voters.

There are plenty of allegations of and investigations into fraud in Ohio 2004, including Bush victories in three counties with 120, 124 and 131 percent voter turnouts, and one precinct having 638 presidential voters, but 4,258 votes for George W! Cannonfire quotes a source that says these results "were routed by county election officials through Ohio's Secretary of State's office."

And Smartech?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Abramoff Strikes Again

Convicted felon lobbyist Jack Abramoff's gifts keep on giving.

Florida Representative Tom Feeney regrets an "embarassing episode" in his career.

Federal agents also have asked the St. Petersburg Times for an email sent to the newspaper by Feeney's office describing a golfing trip the congressman took with Abramoff to Scotland in 2003.

Feeney did not return calls for comment Monday. But his Washington office released a statement to the Times late Monday.

"Rep. Feeney considers this an embarrassing episode in his 17-year career as an elected official and an expensive lesson for him as a public servant," according to the statement.

  St. Petersburg Times article

Yes, since his fellow golfers Bob Ney and Tom Delay are respectively in the slammer and under investigation, and John Doolittle (R-CA) just gave up his House seat after being raided by the FBI last week, Tommy is (at least pretending to be) contrite. (And pretending to be a public servant, as well.)

Not so much about the episode where he allegedly attempted to contract a man to rig voting machines. (You should know that he denies it, and that the man who claims he was approached switched parties and ran against Feeney in the 2006 election.)

Feeney's biggest expense this year: legal fees - $23,000. Oh, and he just recently gave $1,000 of his Abramoff donated money to charity. Perhaps $1,000 is all he had left.

Maybe you know Mr. Feeney by his other distinction: named by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as one of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress.

We Prefer Freedom Fries

And France has all the trappings of a fair and democratic election.

Wouldn't it be neat if every candidate, Nader included, got the same amount of paid radio and television media? Wouldn't it be cool if we had run-off voting, so that one could vote "Green" or "Socialist" or "Anarchist" or ... and still vote for the better of the two major parties? Wouldn't it be wicked if the media had to STFU before calling Florida for Bush or Ohio for Bush or where ever the next SCOTUS-promoted fraud steals the election?

That's how it works in France

  Wampum post

Purge

What we're really getting down to in the Attorney Purge case is vote manipulation, election fraud. And that lies squarely in Karl Rove's bailiwick. It's been speculated that eventually Bush will let Gonzo go in an effort to protect Turdblossom. (Yes, I know Bush says he has full confidence in Gonzales, but that's what he said about Rumsfeld, Mike Brown and Tenet before him.) But, Karl could be getting snappy these days, not only because the handcuffs are getting close to him (and he's just had a very close brush in the Valerie Plame outing case), but because, in the case that Bush himself might be implicated, it would then stand to reason that the Turdblossom would get the axe in an effort to protect the turd.

The administration has given as a prime reason for firing the eight US attorneys that they weren't sufficiently prosecuting voter fraud claims. These "voter fraud" issues took on special urgency after the Democrats took over Congress in '06, but were important to the administration as soon as the Bush band of marauders set foot in the White House, having just "won" Florida through a combination of scrubbing voter rolls in heavy Democratic counties and Supreme Court interference.

On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the [Justice Department's] Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.

  Columbia Tribune article

I guess you could argue that that's because the Republicans' side is right. However, that wouldn't be the considered opinion of Joseph Rich, chief of the Voting Rights Section until 2005:

“As more information becomes available about the administration’s priority on combating alleged, but not well-substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens."

As I quoted in an earlier post, out of all the civil rights cases the Bush DoJ prosecuted, only one was in favor of the minority African American cause.

Despite its efforts to make the Republican party the permanent Congressional majority, the GOP realized it was in hot water when the 2006 elections came around.

In Missouri, where Republican Sen. Jim Talent was fighting to hang onto his seat and hold the U.S. Senate for the GOP, a Republican-backed photo ID requirement cleared the state House of Representatives by one vote in May 2006 after an intense lobbying effort in which backers alleged voter fraud in heavily Democratic St. Louis and Kansas City.

“The White House was heavily involved” in the effort to win passage, state Rep. Bryan Stevenson, the Republican floor leader, said in a telephone interview.

At the moment, we are waiting for further information about how far into the White House the attorney purge reaches. We've heard that both Karl Rove and George Bush were personally involved in the firing of US Attorney David Iglesias for refusing to bring charges against a Democratic candidate for a seat in the New Mexico House in 2006. The Scoop lays it out:

Cong. Heather Wilson (R-NM) trailed her Democratic opponent in the first congressional district. She needed help. It appears that she requested a boost from U.S. Attorney Iglesias in the form of a timely pre election scandal involving a prominent Democrat. That’s how Iglesias read her phone call concerning a pre election indictment.

Sen. Pete Domenici, (R-NM) called Iglesias as well. According to Iglesias, there was a clearly implied request for a pre midterm Democratic sacrifice at the altar of election injustice. Iglesias reports that when he refused on the grounds that he lacked evidence (one of those minor details that tends to annoy those in power), Domenici simply stayed on the phone … silent.

Iglesias was gone in a heartbeat for not cooperating with a prosecution that would influence the 2006 midterm elections in his state. But who made the decision? Fingers were pointed but nothing stuck until last week. The Albuquerque Journal reports that during talks with Sen. Domenici, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to fire Iglesias unless the president gave the OK.

Well, Iglesias was fired wasn’t he?

Indeed he was.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Sidestepping the Electoral College

Can somebody help me out here? What am I failing to see? This just seems idiotic. I think there are good reasons to eliminate the Electoral College, but skirting it just to have presidential candidates take notice of your state doesn't cut it.

Everything is show these days, forget the substance.

In a similar move for the sake of publicity and the appearance of leadership, and presumably to get presidential candidates to pay more attention to the state, Texas just moved its primary up from March to February, because so many other states are doing it - all vying for early attention. One state, and I cannot now remember which (Arizona?) recently made the decision not to move its primary up, because they figured they wouldn't get any attention by doing it now that everybody else was. They thought they'd garner more attention by being the only late primary state.

And now this foolishness...

Maryland officially became the first state on Tuesday to approve a plan to give its electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the candidate chosen by state voters.

[...]

[Senator Jamie] Raskin, a Democrat, said he hoped Maryland's support for the idea will start a national discussion and "kick off an insurrection among spectator states - the states that are completely bypassed and sidelined" during presidential campaigns.

  MSNBC article

So, he'd essentially say, "screw you" to the state of Maryland's voters if they didn't vote the way the national popular vote went? Does he plan on getting re-elected there in Maryland?

Other states are considering the change to avoid an election in which a candidate wins the national popular vote but loses in the Electoral College, as in 2000 when Democrat Al Gore lost to George W. Bush.

Al Gore lost to George Bush when the Supreme Court halted the legal process of vote recount in Florida. That's what happened in 2000. The change to avoid the possibility of a president losing the election after winning the popular vote would be to eliminate the Electoral College all together. To have your state's voters choose one candidate and then give their votes by way of the Electoral College to whoever gets the most votes nationwide is simply robbing your voters of their votes. How's that make anything better?

Hawaii's legislature recently passed a similar measure, sending it to Republican Gov. Linda Lingle. California lawmakers adopted the measure last year, but Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

[...]

North Dakota and Montana rejected it earlier this year.

[...]

The plan would only take effect if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes decided to make the same change.

So, it's essentially pointless anyway, huh?

Until the lemming effect takes hold.

What am I missing here? Surely I'm not understanding something, because this just doesn't make any sense to me at all.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Purge

Kyle Sampson's testimony must have been a great show. Talk about your political theater!

Sampson said that he was collecting viewpoints from various administration officials about their views on particular US Attorneys but that he couldn't remember specifics and that no one issue was ever determinative. He also said whatever records or notes he kept about the process likely no longer exist.

TPM post

"I let the attorney general and the department down. . . . I failed to organize a more effective response. . . . It was a failure on my part. . . . I will hold myself responsible. . . . I wish we could do it all over again."

The witness fessed up to an expanding list of sins. He admitted that the Justice Department was trying to circumvent the Senate confirmation process. He confessed that he proposed firing Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leak case. "I regretted it," he explained. "I knew that it was the wrong thing to do."

But the self-sacrificing witness still managed -- inadvertently, perhaps -- to implicate Gonzales and Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove. Sampson, who resigned from the Justice Department earlier this month, admitted that Gonzales "had received a complaint from Karl Rove about U.S. attorneys in three jurisdictions." Asked about the accuracy of Gonzales's claim of non-involvement, Sampson confessed: "I don't think it's entirely accurate what he said."

WaPo article

But then...

"We've just received word that the Republicans have objected, under the Senate rules, to this meeting continuing," Leahy (D-Vt.) announced before angrily bringing down the gavel.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), in the middle of questioning Sampson, was puzzled. "Does it apply to a Republican, too?" he inquired.

High comedy, that.

The GOP quickly claimed that there had been a misunderstanding, and the show went on, with the "I don't remember" defense in high gear.

It may have been a tactical effort to limit his risk of perjury, but Sampson displayed the recall of a man who recently fell off a ladder.

[...]

"I can't pretend to know or remember every fact that may be of relevance," he warned at the start -- and he wasn't kidding. He used the phrase "I don't remember" a memorable 122 times.

He didn't remember if he talked about the proposed firings with the President. He didn't remember if he talked about them with Rove.

After Schumer elicited three consecutive I-don't-remembers, John Cornyn (R-Tex.) objected to the questioning style.

Leahy overruled him. "We're trying to find what in heaven's name he does remember," the chairman said.

Not much.

Hey, it worked for Reagan.

Joseph Rich, formerly in the Justice Department's civil rights division would like to take this opportunity to pick a bone or two.

A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest.

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed.

[...]

From 2001 to 2006, no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African American or Native American voters. U.S. attorneys were told instead to give priority to voter fraud cases, which, when coupled with the strong support for voter ID laws, indicated an intent to depress voter turnout in minority and poor communities.

[...]

At the same time, career staff were nearly cut out of the process of hiring lawyers. Control of hiring went to political appointees, so an applicant's fidelity to GOP interests replaced civil rights experience as the most important factor in hiring decisions.

[...]

Outright hostility to career employees who disagreed with the political appointees was evident early on. Seven career managers were removed in the civil rights division. I personally was ordered to change performance evaluations of several attorneys under my supervision. I was told to include critical comments about those whose recommendations ran counter to the political will of the administration and to improve evaluations of those who were politically favored.

LA Times article

Racial factor? Well, considering which way the racial groups tend to vote...

Corporate media pundits speculate as to how this will fly with Latino voters, but most often neglect to mention that Gonzalez was acting as hatchet man for ongoing Republican efforts to disenfranchise Black and Latino voters. More than any other tactic, systemic suppression of the Black and Latino vote is central to preserving a Republican majority in state and national politics.

U.S. Attorneys are key to this subversion of voting rights. Under Republican administrations, they are expected to mount spurious investigations of voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns in Black and Latino precincts. Failure to do so - a refusal to pursue bogus cases with enthusiasm, energy, and the full weight of the federal government - can be fatal to a Republican U.S. Attorney's career, despite the fact that the GOP has turned up no credible evidence of significant voter fraud in minority communities.

[...]

In New Mexico, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a Latino and a Republican, was marked for termination because he wasn't aggressive enough in criminalizing Democratic efforts to register voters in mostly Hispanic and Black precincts. In Arkansas, a U.S. Attorney on Gonzalez's hit list was replaced by a political operative whose claim to fame was his contribution to suppressing the Black vote in Florida. However, these and other facts of racial motivations in the scandal are assigned a low profile by Democratic leaders, even as they pretend to mount a full-court press against the Republicans.

Black Agenda Report

From the K-Street Project to the Attorney Purge - it's all about takeover for a permanent GOP. They've slipped now. Will they fall?

Josh Marshall has some questions about one of the attorneys who replaced one of the ousted ones.

Back in 2000, did Patriot Act-appointed US Attorney Tim Griffin really say he makes the bullets in the war against Democrats?

TPM post

TPM video here.

And remember Dan Dzwilewski? The San Diego FBI bureau chief who said Carol Lam's dismissal was definitely political and who was then warned to shut up?

Well, he just resigned.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Ohio funny business

Further exposition:

Two Cuyahoga County elections officials were indicted Tuesday on charges of not handling ballots correctly during the recount of the 2004 presidential election.

  Raw Story article