Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sits with President Bush. Despite pledging in January 2007, upon assuming leadership of Congress, NOT TO WRITE BLANCK CHECKS for Bush's war in Iraq,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/07/ftn/main2335193.shtml
Speaker Pelosi has done EXACTLY THAT... just one of many dozens of examples of her flip-flopping, timid, not to say "fearful" brand of "leadership".
Now we learn the details - Speaker Pelosi's REFUSAL to CONFRONT PURGE-GATE, the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House hyper-partisan prosecution of Alabama Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman, now has some other names to add to the list of Democrats wrongfully TARGETED by Republicans, with NO PROTECTION from their Democratic "leaders"
http://www.alternet.org/election08/80589/
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While NANCY PELOSI, the Democrat's "leader" in Congress, wants to make an international issue of Chinese persecution of Tibetans in Tibet, here in America she turns her back on Democratic voters, activists, and even elected officials PERSECUTED by Republican murderously corrupt ABUSE of the Justice Department and state proscutor powers. This NEGLECT by the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE to OVERSEE JUSTICE - to oversee the exective branch administration of justice, and to reign in, with new laws, any "conservative" judiciary attempts to interpret existing laws in partisan or unfair means of justice (such as the Voting Rights and Civil Rights laws were passed in 1964 and 1965 in order to overcome "conservative" court rulings that flagrantly ignored the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution) - is simply DISGRACEFUL.
STOLEN ELECTIONS are at the heart and core of eight long, deadly, treasury gutting years of Republican misrule, yet Speaker Pelosi joins the Washington inside-beltway establishment in laughing off persistent cases of Republican VOTE FRAUD CRIMINALITY as the fault of the victims of those vote stealing schemes; from the New Hampshire Democrat phone-bank INTERFERENCE on election day - robo phone calls that overwhelmed the Democrat's phone bank, SPONSORED BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, to even Alabama Governor DON SIEGLEMAN ROBBED of his re-election and rail-roaded into prison by a selective, deceptive, and partisan prosecution, to now, finally, 'the other shoe' has dropped: WE FINALLY GET SOME NAMES of those mythical "Democratic voter activists" that we have heard of, voter activists who have been harrased, or even PROSECUTED, by CORRUPT, PARTISAN REPUBLICAN PROSECUTORS, without the "mainstream media" paying ANY attention to such Republican election thuggery.
WORLD, MEET Willie Ray, Glorida Meeks, and Jamillah Johnson... three real-life victims of those well-rumored by never nailed-down reports of REPUBLICANS PROSECUTING Democratic VOTER ACTIVISTS.
FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS are at the HEART AND SOUL of American democracy - the "freedom and democracy" the Bush-Cheney administration crow about at every opportunity, as a propaganda effort to legitimize their license to kill in Iraq. But here in America Bush, Cheney, and their Republican supporters are CONTEMPTUOUS of free and fair elections, and voter rights, reflecting the decades long traditions of SEGREGATION and active voter suppression in the Deep South and northern states, as well. (NOTE: Until Senator Strom Thurmond led the Southern White Democrats' DEFECTION from the Democratic Party during his "Dixiecrat" party run for president in the 1948 election, Southern white segregationists were uniformly Democrats, reflecting Southern hate of the Republican administration of President Abraham Lincoln, which defeated the South during the Civil War, and imposed freedom and equality for Blacks in the Deep South during the Reconstruction era. From Thurmond's 1948 lead till present, Southern "conservative" and neo-segregation (racist) voters and leaders have steadily migrated to the Republican Party, a trend that was accelerated starting with President Nixon's "SOUTHERN STRATEGY" of coded appeals to White racism as the bedrock of Republican electioneering... a trend which accelerated even more when Ronald Reagan selected Philadelphia, Mississippi, out of ALL the towns, cities, and forums in America, to launch his 1980 presidential campaign. WHAT possible significance could Ronald Reagan draw from starting his campaign... in such a small town, in Mississippi, of all places??? - answer: Philadelphia, Mississippi, was the scene of the MURDER, lynch-mob style, of Black voter registration activists!
FAST FORWARD to the tail end of the Bush-Cheney administration's foul reliance on "the SOUTHERN STRATEGY" for their 8 long years of electioneering, and NANCY PELOSI PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE!
Madam Speaker, by ALLOWING your 110th Congress to all but IGNORE Republican SELECTIVE PROSECUTION of DEMOCRATIC VOTER ACTIVISTS, you ENABLE the Republican efforts to go back almost THREE DECADES to Mr. Reagan's Philadelphia campaign launching... if not to the CENTURY of active white supremacist efforts to DENY VOTER RIGHTS during the segregation and lynch mob eras.
You have your pearls, you limousine, and big donors WHILE YOU WRITE BILLION DOLLAR CHECKS for the Bush administration's miserable conduct of the war.. while here in America, you IGNORE vote stealing and gang style voter intimidation and even fraudulent prosecutions!
http://www.alternet.org/election08/80589/
Since 2005, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been prosecuting Democratic Party activists, almost all African-Americans and Latinos, as part of an effort to eradicate what he said was an "epidemic" of voter fraud in Texas.
"These guilty pleas demonstrate precisely why it is so important to uphold the integrity of our election process in the state," Abbott said, speaking of Ray and Johnson's conviction in a press release. "We will visit justice upon any who ignore the fact that we have election laws in Texas and they apply to everyone."
But Texas Democrats, such as Lisa Turner of the Lone Star Project, onestarproject.net a political action committee that first exposed Abbott's prosecutions, issued reports on it and maintains a staff to fight voter suppression in the state, said Abbott's goal is not merely to prosecute little old ladies. Rather, Turner said it was to send a message to Texas' minority communities, which lean Democratic, by sowing fears among the elderly about voting by mail.
"It's the equivalent if when a gang moves into a neighborhood and spray paints their graffiti or their marker; it's not to deface one building. It is to send a message," Turner said. "You have agents of the attorney general, walking through a neighborhood, walking past three crack houses, to go talk to a voter. Think about that. What does that say their priorities are? It's about holding onto the levers of power."
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Texas Prosecutes Little Old Ladies for Voter Fraud
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted March 31, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/election08/80589/
State's Attorney General has prosecuted Democrats who help seniors vote by mail while ignoring documented Republican ballot box stuffing. Willie Ray was a 69-year-old African-American City Council member from Texarkana who wanted her granddaughter, Jamillah Johnson, to learn about civil rights and voting during the 2004 presidential election. The pair helped homebound seniors citizens get absentee ballots, and once they were filled out, put them in the mail.
Fort Worth's Gloria Meeks, 69, was a church-going, community activist who proudly ran a phone bank and helped homebound elderly people like Parthenia McDonald, 79, to vote by mail. McDonald, whose mailbox was two blocks away from her home (she recently died), called Meeks "an angel" for helping her, a friend of both women said.
And until he recently moved out of state, Walter Hinojosa, a retired school teacher and labor organizer from Austin, was another Democratic Party volunteer who helped elderly and disabled people vote by getting them absentee ballots and mailing them.
Today, Ray and Johnson have criminal records for breaking Texas election law and faced travel restrictions during a six-month probation. Gloria Meeks is in a nursing home after having a stroke, prompted in part, her friends say, by state police who investigated her -- including spying on Meeks while she bathed -- and then questioned her about helping McDonald and others to vote. Hinojosa, meanwhile, has left Texas.
Their crime: not signing their name, address and signature on the back of the ballots they mailed for their senior neighbors, and carrying envelopes containing those ballots to the mailbox. Since 2005, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been prosecuting Democratic Party activists, almost all African-Americans and Latinos, as part of an effort to eradicate what he said was an "epidemic" of voter fraud in Texas.
"These guilty pleas demonstrate precisely why it is so important to uphold the integrity of our election process in the state," Abbott said, speaking of Ray and Johnson's conviction in a press release. "We will visit justice upon any who ignore the fact that we have election laws in Texas and they apply to everyone."
But Texas Democrats, such as Lisa Turner of the Lone Star Project, onestarproject.net a political action committee that first exposed Abbott's prosecutions, issued reports on it and maintains a staff to fight voter suppression in the state, said Abbott's goal is not merely to prosecute little old ladies. Rather, Turner said it was to send a message to Texas' minority communities, which lean Democratic, by sowing fears among the elderly about voting by mail.
"It's the equivalent if when a gang moves into a neighborhood and spray paints their graffiti or their marker; it's not to deface one building. It is to send a message," Turner said. "You have agents of the attorney general, walking through a neighborhood, walking past three crack houses, to go talk to a voter. Think about that. What does that say their priorities are? It's about holding onto the levers of power."
Attorney General Abbott and the election laws that he has used to bring the prosecutions have been challenged in federal court under a suit that is slated to go to trial this spring. In September 2006, Gerry Hebert, a former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's Voting Section -- which oversees the nation's voting rights laws -- and now executive director of the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, filed a suit challenging the Texas attorney general, secretary of state and a 2003 Texas law that criminalized practices often used to help the elderly to vote by mail.
Abbott's office would not comment on the suit, but Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who works for Abbott, issued a statement in September 2006 saying it "has no basis in law" and "the plaintiffs are combination of political operatives and individual criminals who have already pleaded guilty to voter fraud."
Meanwhile, Texas' attorney general has continued to prosecute middle-aged and elderly political volunteers under a law his office says stops people from impersonating voters and taking advantage of seniors by falsifying ballots. The accused are almost all African-American and Latino and likely Democrats.
In February 2008, Abbott indicted four Duval County residents, Lydia Molina, 70, Maria Soriano, 71, Elva Lazo, 62, Maria Trigo, 55, for allegedly delivering "mail-in ballot applications to numerous residents in Duval County, many of whom were ineligible to vote by mail," his press release said. Under Texas law, only the disabled, people 65 or older, or people expecting to be out of state on Election Day can vote absentee. The accused checked a box saying voters were disabled "when they were not," he said, referring to their actions in the 2006 election.
"The voter registrar's office then mailed the actual ballots to the residents," Abbott's release said. "Once the ballots were completed by the residents, the defendants allegedly retrieved these and mailed them to the registrar to be counted without identifying themselves on the carrier envelope." They face six months and a $2,000 fine.
Only likely Democrats prosecuted
Despite Abbott's repeated declarations nobody is above Texas law, he has prosecuted no Republicans.
"What is especially troubling is that while Greg Abbott's office has prosecuted minority seniors for simply mailing ballots, he has not prosecuted anyone on the other side of the aisle for what appear to be open and shut cases of real voter fraud," Hebert told Texas House Elections Committee, on January 25, 2008, as the panel held a hearing on a bill making the state's voter I.D. laws tougher.
