Stealing Democracy: Florida Strategy Goes National

Does anyone really want to know how George W. Bush became president in 2000? It’s only important if you care about how the Republicans plan on stealing the election in 2012.

“In the months leading up to the November balloting, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State Katherine Harris ordered local elections supervisors to purge 57,700 voters from registries on grounds they were felons not entitled to vote in Florida. As it turns out, these voters weren’t felons, at most a handful. However, the voters on this “scrub list” were notably, African-American (about 54 per cent) and most of the others wrongly barred from voting were white and Hispanic Democrats.

…I also freely offered up to CBS this information: the office of the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, brother of the Republican presidential candidate, had illegally ordered the removal of the names of felons from voter rolls – real felons, but with the right to vote under Florida law. As a result, another 40,000 legal voters (in addition to the 57,700 on the purge list), almost all Democrats, could not vote”.

From the book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by Greg Palast

Yep, Florida’s Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris illegally scrubbed some 97,000 LEGAL VOTERS from the voting roles which helped tilt the vote into Jeb’s bother’s favor. When the vote counting got close, 573 votes to be exact, the Republican controlled U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and against the U.S. Constitution ordered Florida to stop counting the votes. Thus handing George W. Bush the White House

That is how George W. Bush and the Republicans stole the election from the American people in 2000. Since it worked for the Republicans in 2000, why not try stealing the election again in 2012? The Republicans certainly know the supremely partisan U.S. Supreme Courts will once again step in and order states to stop counting votes if need be. The Rpugs can also just simply illegally deny millions of voters their right to vote.

Republicans know that they can’t honestly win. Therefore, dirty tricks on an unprecedented level will be employed in the upcoming elections. Florida’s new Governor, Rick Scott, with his cohort in crime Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, have already indicated that they plan on denying thousands of legal voters their Constitutionally protect right to vote.

This time it is under the guise of preventing illegal voters from voting. Regarding the problem of voter fraud, the Christian Right Republicans have been lying through their teeth for years. No government or academic study has ever shown a case of widespread voter fraud anywhere in the country over the last 50 years. Never has there been any attempt to overthrow a statewide, let alone a national election by mass illegal voting. Ballot box stuffing and organized efforts to get a mass group of people to vote under false names just don’t happen in the U.S. The real concern is when the President of Diebold, who owns the software of the voting machines, states in a private meeting that he plans on doing everything he can to help the Republicans win the election.

Remember, in the 2008 campaign, John McCain accused Obama of being connected to ACCORN, which the Republicans falsely asserted were engaged in voter fraud. The Right-wing has long hated organizations that lobby for the rights of the poor. The Christian Repugs created massive misinformation campaigns designed to spread fear, vicious LIES, cruel distortions, manufactured and irrelevant hate filled propaganda against ACCORN. This served the so called Christian Right in tying up their opponents by forcing them to defend themselves against the onslaught of false charges being leveled against them. But that’s just how the Christian Right-wing Republicans roll.

The truth is, as Factcheck.org reported in 2008, after an exhaustive investigation into Republican allegations of voter fraud leveled against ACORN, the scholars at the Annenberg Foundation concluded, “Neither ACORN nor its employees have been found guilty of, or even charged with, casting fraudulent votes.” Those facts didn’t stop “ratface” James O’Keefe III from making his now famously edited pimp video which grossly distorted the facts and helped bring down the single most effective advocacy group for the poor in the nation. And the Christian Right rejoiced in destroying the careers of thousands of community organizers and further disenfranchising millions of poor, mostly people of color

In the case of voter fraud in the U.S., overwhelming research has shown that there is no evidence of any widespread problems. As U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has pointed out, voter fraud is virtually “nonexistent”. For example, The Brennen Center for Justice documented, in this study
http://brennan.3cdn.net/c176576c0065a7eb84_gxm6ib0hl.pdf
, widespread voter fraud in the U.S. just doesn’t exist. It’s an irrelevant problem. It’s a straw man argument used as an excuse to deny legal Americans, mostly people of color, their right to vote. The following is an extended excerpt from the study:

“Allegations of widespread voter fraud, however, often prove greatly exaggerated. It is easy to grab headlines with a lurid claim (“Tens of thousands may be voting illegally!”); the follow-up — when any exists — is not usually deemed newsworthy. Yet on closer examination, many of the claims of voter fraud amount to a great deal of smoke without much fire. The allegations simply do not pan out.

These inflated claims are not harmless. Crying “wolf ” when the allegations are unsubstantiated distracts attention from real problems that need real solutions. If we can move beyond the fixation on voter fraud, we will be able to focus on the real changes our elections need, from universal registration all the way down to sufficient parking at the poll site.

Moreover, these claims of voter fraud are frequently used to justify policies that do not solve the alleged wrongs, but that could well disenfranchise legitimate voters. Overly restrictive  identification requirements for voters at the polls — which address a sort of voter fraud more rare than death by lightning — is only the most prominent example.”

Across the country Republicans are attempting to install draconian voter laws designed to disenfranchise an estimated 3 million LEGAL VOTERS. The only thing holding back the “Christian Right” from stealing our election is the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the courts. In Florida, it has been estimated 87 % of the legal voters targeted to be scrubbed by this Republican dirty trick are people of color.  This should come as no surprise to anyone. And, of course, that vast majority of people of color vote for the Democratic ticket.

Florida Governor Rich Scott says he is going to ignore the Attorney General’s demands to end the illegal voter purging. Republicans plan to continue to steal legal votes until the courts step in, and maybe even go behind the backs of the courts. The  Repugs are determined to gain the keys to the White House by any means necessary. If that means breaking a few moral and legal laws, so be it. Similar efforts to purge legal voters of their rights are going on in Colorado and New Mexico. However the Justice Department has not yet commented on their actions.

You can take action by joining the Color of Change petition calling on AG Holder to push hard on Florida to end their illegal purge. Florida has currently around 180,000 names on their purge list.
http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/rickscott/?akid=2518.147439.NMyIbs&rd=1&t=3

Something Stinks in Wisconsin

Bad Cheese by BrainlessTales.com

Something stinks in Wisconsin, and it’s not the cheese.  Once again a ultra right-wing Koch brothers astroturf group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and the Republican Party are engaging in voter suppression, if not outright voter fraud.  AFP is one of the organizations that helped fund the phony Tea Party organizations.

Some might recall, during the primary elections earlier this month in Wisconsin the Republican Party placed six fake Democrats on the ballots in order to confuse voters.  Fortunately for the voters, the news of the phony candidates got out, made it to mainstream media outlets, and the Republicans plan was foiled. All six of the actual Democrats won their primary challenges and are now in a recall race against the Republican state Senators that voted for the bill stripping public employees of their free speech rights to collective bargaining.

Today,  POLITICO posted on their website a copy of an absentee ballots flier found over the weekend on the door handles in two heavily Democrat leaning districts. The fliers clearly state the ballots must be in the hands of the city clerk “before Aug. 11.” However, the actually election date is August 9. Anyone that sends in their ballot after the 9^th will not have their vote counted.

Of course, Republicans have been on a nationwide campaign to restrict lawful Americans from voting. In Wisconsin, the stink is especially repugnant.  State Representative Robin Vos, Republican co-chair of the powerful Legislative Joint Finance Committee, pushed through a bill that “enacting one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the nation”, according to John Nichols in a recent article in the Nation titled “Rigging Elections”.

Nichols goes on to point out Vos connection to another Koch brothers funded organization the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC). “As ALEC’s chair for Wisconsin, Vos was doing what was expected of him. Enacting burdensome photo ID or proof of citizenship requirements has long been an ALEC priority. ALEC and its sponsors have an enduring mission to pass laws that would make it harder for millions of Americans to vote, impose barriers to direct democracy and let big money flow more freely into campaigns.”

In a final, disturbing piece of Wisconsin news this weekend, a fire broke out in the Wisconsin office of a Democratic advocacy group, We Are Wisconsin, supported by local labor groups. The fire started around 9:30 a.m. Saturday and completely destroyed the office, along with a warehouse and small apartment building. No one was injured.

While the fire is still under investigation and may only be a coincidence, one need only look back at the heath care debate to see the rights-wings willingness to use a concerted campaign of threats and violence to intimidate their political opponents.

One might remember Tea bagger and Patriot militia leader  Mike Vanderboegh  advocated breaking the windows  of members of congress the day before the Affordable Health Care Act was passed  and signed into law. Vanderboegh stated that if the rightwing breaks enough Democrat Party members windows, the Dems just might get the message, “and make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary… BREAK their windows. Break them Now.”

Again, while the investigation into the fire may lead to a simple electrical problem or accident, there is no reason why liberals and progressives should not feel under attack, both figuratively and potentially physically. Moderate Democrats need to come to the same realization.

The Republican party has been taken over by a group of libertarian billionaires that secretly fund dozens of right-wing extremists groups/thugs that are willing to use dirty tricks, fraud, and intimidation to gain and hold onto power.  The radical libertarian agenda aims to strip away the middle-class in order to attain their lasses-faire corporatocracy.  This is class warfare on a grand scale, and it is up to every American citizen, whether you’re from Wisconsin or liberal California, to stand-up to this radical right-wing assault on the middle-class, freedom, and democracy.

 

We are Wisconsin's burned out building

Republican Lies Kill Americans

Republicans just helped kill Americans! That is right, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, end-of-life counseling both extends life and improves the quality of life. Nonetheless, Republicans and rightwing nut jobs pushed Obama to reverse his decision yesterday on providing Medicare funding for end-of-life counseling by telling a series of lies . As a result, tens of thousands of Americans will not receive such counseling, pay more in health care, and live shorter lives.

With today’s swearing in of the new Republican congress, I starting a new blog called Republican Body Count. Since Republicans and rightwing phony freak-o-patriots wish to strip millions of Americans away of their health care, safety, and overall general welfare, I will keep a tally of the eventual millions of Americans adversely affect by Republican policies in the next two years.

I start with the end-of-life counseling Republicans have been shouting about this past week. As some that follow Fox News and the rightwing blogs already know, the Rupugs have resurrected the whole “death panels” issue when they learned that Obama authorized Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling. However, after a great deal of Republican pressure, Obama reversed his decision and called for more debate on the issue.  As a result, if only 2% of the terminally ill do not receive professional end-of-life counseling, roughly 22,000 American lives could become shortened and their bank accounts depleted.

But don’t take my word for it, here is Dr. Atul Gawande, associated professor at Harvard School of Public Health and a practicing surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston explain the horrific consequences of the Republican “death-panel” lies on democracynow.org:

“End-of-life discussions are not death panels. But you say it over and over again, you brand it over and over again, and you begin to define what the meaning is of a major policy that’s passed. Being able to provide funding for discussions that have been shown to have a huge difference in improving the quality of life patients have and, in a recent study published in the New England Journal, also generated longer life for patients by helping them make better decisions about when to stop therapies that have become harmful to them, like that fourth round of chemotherapy and so on, those kinds of studies indicate we need more, longer and better discussions with doctors, overall. Repeal is a major mistake.”

The Obama administration says only a small percentage of Americans would actually be affected by the end-of-life Medicare provision. Fair enough, since there are an estimated 1.1 million terminally ill Americans in the U.S. annually. I will set the Body Count at 22,000 Americans directly affected by the Republican lies at the start of this year. I believe I am making an extremely conservative estimate, more than 1% of terminally ill Americans and less than 5%. Nonetheless, this is 6 times more Americans killed and economically plundered than on 9/11. With control of the House, Republicans have vowed to repeal health care reform, which would mean millions of Americans will end up losing their health care. Add their efforts to repeal Food Safety regulations, environmental protections, and worker protections and we can see the Republican Body Count go into the tens of millions in just two years. Let’s hope not!

For story by story update and body count of Americans hurt by the new Republican congress, check out the new website RepublicanBodyCount.wordpress.com