Democracy In Chains

The Guardian ^ | 6/23/06 | Greg Palast

[Oshkalaboomboom]

US Republicans are planning to change the law to stop black, Hispanic and Native American voters going to the polls in 2008.

Don't kid yourself: the Republican party's decision yesterday to "delay" the renewal of the Voting Rights Act has not a darn thing to do with objections of the Republican's white sheets caucus.

Complaints by a couple of good ol' boys to legislation have never stopped the GOP leadership from rolling over dissenters.

This is a strategic stall that is meant to decriminalise the Republican party's new game of challenging voters of colour by the hundreds of thousands.

In the 2004 presidential race, the GOP ran a massive, multi-state, multimillion-dollar operation to challenge the legitimacy of black, Hispanic and Native American voters. The methods used breached the Voting Rights Act, and while the Bush administration's civil rights division grinned and looked the other way, civil rights lawyers began circling, preparing to sue to stop the violations of the act before the 2008 race.

So Republicans have promised to no longer break the law - not by going legit but by eliminating the law.

The act was passed in 1965 after the Ku Klux Klan and other upright citizens found they could use procedural tricks - "literacy tests", poll taxes and more - to block citizens of colour from casting ballots.

Here is what happened in 2004, and what's in store for 2008.

In the 2004 election, more than 3 million voters were challenged at the polls. No one had seen anything like it since the era of Jim Crow and burning crosses. In 2004, voters were told their registrations had been purged or that their addresses were "suspect".

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Greg Palast is an investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering turned journalist. Tribune magazine called him “the most important investigative reporter of our time” and he is best known in his native USA for his investigative work on how thousands of black people were not able to vote in the Florida ballot at the 2000 election in which George Bush was elected president.

So as you can see from his biography Mr. Palast specializes in fiction, tho I'm sure he's a featured speaker at the tinfoil hat conventions.

[Jeff Chandler]

Talk about hysteria!
(The root hyster- comes from the Greek word for womb. So, the psycholological disturbance termed hysteria was originally believed to be a disease of women and resulted from some disturbance in the uterus.)

[West Coast Conservative]

What an idiot.

Only a DUmmie could take this fool seriously.

[wildcatf4f3]

actually they believed that the utereus would wander in the body causing mental disorder

[Question Liberal Authority]

Cripes. Where I live, it's not even legal to ask voters for ONE PIECE OF ID when casting a ballot.

[Allegra]

What a crock.

They're getting desperate.

And it shows.

[Question Liberal Authority]

Complaints by a couple of good ol' boys to legislation have never stopped the GOP leadership from rolling over dissenters.

I can't count the number of time the good ol' boys have been begging the GOP leadership for a guest worker program, amnesty for illegal aliens, and absolutely no fence on the border.

[Nitro]

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but here in NYC where the Demon-rats run the schools, only fractions of classes graduate.

New York is actually churning out 4 times more morons than ever. Of course in defense, Randi Weingarten is carping about the teachers not making enough.

If I was the mayor, I would offer a raise as soon as an entire class graduated.

The way it is now, most NY Public School children earn a GED at Rikers Island.

[Jeff Chandler]

actually they believed that the utereus would wander in the body causing mental disorder

Eeeewwww!

[Richard Axtell]

Yes, Palast has been in the forefront of exposing wrongdoing and corruption, even though he could find absolutely no facts or evidence indicating such. This is truly and important distinction. He also has carefully avoided researching and exposing the obvious vote fraud corruption perpetrated by Democrat officials during the idiotic "Gore hanging chad recount" fiasco. He has effectively missed clues and indications of blatant vote manipulation via this phony gambit that a blind man could see. No wonder Poltroon Magazine has honored him with the "most least important investigative journalistic failure to ignore in 2006" award.

[American in Singapore]

the Republican party's decision yesterday to "delay" the renewal of the Voting Rights Act has not a darn thing to do with objections of the Republican's white sheets caucus.

Wow, this nutcase refers to the KKK at least 3 times in this article; the only ex-KKK member I know of in Congress is U.S. Senator Robert "Sheets" Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia.

Oh, the irony of it all :-)

[raybbr]

Michael Moore shows Florida voter "scrub list" on reporter Greg Palast's computer. (photo: M.Pascarella)

Greg Palast and... Ta Da. You guessed it.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

This person has touching faith. Generations may come and go, the Republican Party may switch from the assumption that tax revenue is proportional to tax rate to the assumption that tax revenue is weakly or even negatively influenced by tax rate, southern whites may drop their tradional allegiance to the Democratic Party and even join the party of Lincoln - but he has faith that white southerners will never be respectable.

Blacks may dominate voting districts in all our cities, and the reported turnout in Philadelphia may exceed the adult population of the city - but this foreigner knows that blacks are discriminated against in voting. He has faith. Facts? He don't need no stinkin' facts! He can make up facts anytime he wants!

[Bigun]

Talk about hysteria!

Yep!

Isn't it wonderful to see the b*$tards squirming around so?

[cpdiii]

What many people missed in the first machine voter recount in Florida was the statistical impossibility of what happened. The first recount increase Al Gore's vote total by several thousand. When dealing with a set of data in the millions the gains and losses from each candidate would have canceled out and the second count should have had the same distribution as the first count with the following exception. Since the ballots were essential computer punch cards and a small fraction of them will be damaged at each machine count both candidates should have lost a few votes due to a ballot that was not readable. There is no way in hell Al Gores vote total should have increased. Both vote totals should have decreased.

The first machine recount had massive ballot box stuffing in favor of Gore. They just did not stuff enough into the first recount to give Gore the victory. They did try very hard.

[cpdiii]

Wow, this nutcase refers to the KKK at least 3 times in this article; the only ex-KKK member I know of in Congress is U.S. Senator Robert "Sheets" Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia.

He is the most senior DEMONICrat in the Senate. On a lighter note, the deceased Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who was black, would say to Senator Byrd when he had occasion to bump into him, "Whats shaking sheets?" I did not care for many of Marshall's rulings, but I did love his sense of humor.

[ClaireSolt]

You got that right. Here in Palm Beach county, we contributed 10,000 more Gore votes in a matter of three hours. And, the election officer gave Bob Montgomery, tobacco lawsuit litigator a black eye.

[kitkat]

Laurel and Hardy up to their misguided shenanigans again.

[ClaireSolt]

btw, when I workled as a poll watcher in 2002, the poll workers told me that their voter rolls still had 1/3 dead people to accomodate busloads of non-English speaking Haitians clamoring to exercise their voting rights.

[musicman]

"Cripes. Where I live, it's not even legal to ask voters for ONE PIECE OF ID when casting a ballot."

Thank goodness here in Volusia County Florida, WE don't have to put up THAT. Volusia County Florida requires fool=proof, secure ID here, otherwise, NO VOTE FOR YOU !!

I just have to show a COPY of my "light bill".

It keeps those darn idiots with no electricity from trying to screw with the voting process. I would HATE to be one of the poll workers here though. Lots of families name the whole family with the same FIRST initial, and some of them are BIG families !! You know, like "J Smith".

That makes it hard,when say :

John,Jeremy,Joyce,James,Jacqueline,Joseph,Juanita,Jimmy,Joe,Johnny,Jeremiah,Jean, and Joey Smith, are all at the same address,and vote on election day.

( I think it's a little strange when parents name all the kids like that, but at least THEY come out and vote and not stay away from the polls on an election day like some people !!)

Glad I don't have to put up with all that voter fraud mischief, with people trying to vote with NO ID !!!

I'd just hate to have to work the polls that day and try to read through all those light bill COPIES !!