A terrific editorial by BuzzFlash.com sums up 6 years of Republican misrule and criminal electioneering in one page: Reactionary, party-first Republicans target and then systematically DISENFRANCHISE LEGAL VOTERS by illegal 'purge' campaign tactics, and then use criminal corruption, and million-dollar tax cuts for major media corporations, to sustain a narrative that it is the Democrats, not Republicans, who are engaged in massive, systematic VOTE FRAUD. Or, in shorter form yet, the Republicans are back to the old conservative SEGREGATION and disenfranchisement of legal voters, in violation of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, and can maintain the illegal DISENFRANCHISEMENT by sheer, overwhelming control of the media-narrative and US government machinery.
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Once again, the Democratic Party leadership is FALLING INTO THE TRAP laid by the Republican Party: the Democrats are DEFINING THEMSELVES as the party that wants to exit Iraq - while not being nearly aggressive enough in CONFRONTING the misdemeanors and high- and low-crimes of the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration here in America, or with regards to mercenaries, torture, fruadulent contracts, and other illegal conduct in Iraq.
This allows the Republicans to continue THEY MYTH that Democrats are "Soft on terror" and that the Democrats are "the party of "bleeding-heart tax-and-spend liberals" - even though it is the BUSH ADMINISTRATION that gives a FREE PASS to SAUDI FUNDING OF AL QAIDA TERRORIST groups (aka "Sunni insurgents"), and even though the Bush administration has done NOTHING to bring the ANTHRAX-TERRORIST murder to justice, and even though the Bush administration's signature mode of "leadership" in the Iraq occupation is MASSIVE CONTRACTOR CORRUPTION and chronic underestimation of insurgent capabilities.
We hate to 'unload' on the Democratic leadership, but they are falling into the mode of Al Gore in 2000, Tom Daschle in 2002, and John Kerry in 2004 - ALLOWING THE REPUBLICAN MEDIA MACHINE to DICTATE the media narrative, thereby putting Democratic candidates on the defensive - and above all, ALLOWING the media to serve up a "CONVENTIONAL WISDOM" narrative that is, in the case of the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and Fox 'news', usually indistinguishable from RNC talking points faxed from Karl Rove's WH office.
It is true that the Democrats won the majority in the 2006 midterm elections - BUT - beyond DSCC and DCCC fundraising, the heavy-lifting of Campaign 2006 was OUTSIDER candidates vocally and forcefully challenging Republican incumbents. In addition, a serials of trials, criminal convictions, and breaking scandals crashed over the Republicans in the weeks and months leading up to election '06, boosting Democratic challengers. But make no mistake: THOSE CONVICTIONS of Republican lobbyists (Abramoff), fundraisers (Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling), and leaders (Bob Ney, Randy 'Duke' Cunningham) were THE LAST GASP of an independent, non-partisan, professional justice system. Karl Rove, the embodiment of Republican sense of entitlement and beyond-the-law arrogance, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Republican Party have set out to SUBVERT the entire US government criminal system to an entirely partisan organization - as the Ken Starr "INDEPENDENT" prosecution of the Clinton's Whitewater real-estate losses eventually led to Starr's graphic portrayal of Bill Clinton's infamous affair with Monica Lewinsky, leading to the impeachment of President Clinton.
As of April 2007, it looks like the Republican CRIMINAL, unconstitutional DISENFRANCHISEMENT MACHINE is in place and is now GEARING UP to steal elections, smear Democratic candidates, and hamstring those Democrats who do win elections.
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Karl Rove's Jim Crow Voter Suppression Machine is Humming Along Just Fine, All Ready for 2008
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 04/24/2007
Buzzflash.com
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/134
It was an April 21st article that could easily escape your notice: "Ruling lets Arizona require proof of citizenship from voters." The first paragraph of the Associated Press story reads, "A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an attempt to halt enforcement of Arizona's first-in-the-nation requirement that all residents prove they are U.S. citizens when they first register to vote."
Not that the one article in itself should set off alarm bells. But when you put together evidence from the Bush Administration in regards to voter suppression tactics, the partisan U.S. of prosecutors, and other indicators, it becomes clear --as Greg Palast has been warning us – that the Bush Republican Party plans to hold onto the White House for the GOP in 2008 through whatever means possible.
The key electoral strategy, beginning with the infamous "felon purge" in Florida in 2000, has been minority voter suppression. And when they can’t suppress enough votes, they just steal the election, as Scalia and the Supreme Court felonious five did to put Bush in office. (Remember that Gore beat Bush in the popular count by more than half a million votes.)
ProsecutorGate has revealed the missing link that tied the Rovian "Jim Crow" game plan together in one neat package.
It goes something like this. First, use every means possible to suppress minority and other Democractic votes. This includes passing "Jim Crow" style voting laws in the states. Secondly, employ tactics like the Florida felon purge to deny voting rights to Democrats. Thirdly, use U.S. prosecutors to magnify minor voting irregularities in Democratic areas and make it appear as if the Dems are engaging in widespread voter fraud. Fourthly, use the legal action brought by partisan GOP U.S. Attorneys to have loyalist Republicans cite them as justification for "Jim Crow" laws at the state level.
Actually, the U.S. Attorney component is vital to the overall Rove electoral strategy for several reasons. One, it is most often employed before elections (in relation to voter registration, etc.) to try and influence electoral outcomes in favor of Republicans by muddying up the Democrats. Two, it helps to cover up widespread and orchestrated Republican voter fraud. (Remember the New Hampshire phone jamming case that was tied directly to the RNC. The RNC paid more than a million dollars in legal fees to defend the perpetrators of the illegal effort to interfere with a Union voter turnout effort. And who was doing political work through the RNC e-mail system? Karl Rove and other White House staffers, including his "opposition research" protégé who was just appointed U.S. Attorney in Little Rock.) Three, it gives Republican state legislators "evidence" to "demand" tough voter registration and voter identification requirements.
Of course, Rove’s long-term voter suppression strategy doesn’t include Rove’s long-term vote theft strategy, which is an additional story related to electronic voting and packing the courts with right wing hacks.
What is clear is that the Bush Administration is not continuing to try to expand totalitarian "Unitary Executive" authority so that the Bush Republicans can hand over a virtually unchallengeable presidency to a Democrat. They are steam rolling a dictatorial presidency forward with the expectation that they will be handing over unprecedented powers to a Republican.
As BuzzFlash has written before, remember that after all of the hullabaloo about the replacement of U.S. Attorneys with GOP hit men and women who will do Rove’s bidding, those loyalists are still in place and gearing up for carrying out the political dirty work that will help defeat a Democrat for president in 2008.
Furthermore, the U.S. Attorneys who weren’t fired and have cooperated with Rove’s grand scheme to deny minorities the right to vote, those U.S. Attorneys who conducted partisan prosecutions are also still in place.
Gonzales may or may not stay in office. But whether he leaves or not, you can be sure that his replacement -- an Orrin Hatch or Ted Olsen, for example – will make sure that the Department of Justice’s role in voter suppression keeps humming along.
The RNC and Rove e-mails that the White House claims are "lost" no doubt would reveal the grand scheme behind the effort for the Bush Republicans to control the U.S. government for 100 years, as Rove has bragged.
It won’t be because they received the most votes. It will be because they suppressed the most votes.
And Rove is smiling because the machine he built is not being dismantled.
To the contrary, it is just being fine-tuned.
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Additional BuzzFlash Note: William Rehnquist, who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and was one of the felonious five at the time of the theft of the 2000 election, cut his GOP teeth aggressively challenging minority voters at polling places in Arizona. Ain't it ironic?
