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".
Denied the right to the regular voting booths, these challenged voters were given "provisional" ballots. More than 1m of these provisional ballots (1,090,729 of them) were tossed in the electoral dumpster uncounted.
A funny thing about those ballots: about 88% were cast by minority voters.
This isn't a number dropped on me from a black helicopter: they come from the raw data of the US election assistance commission in Washington DC.
At the heart of the GOP's mass challenge of voters was what the party's top brass called "caging lists" - secret files of hundreds of thousands of voters, almost every one from a black-majority voting precinct.
When our investigations team, working for BBC TV, got our hands on these confidential files in October 2004, the Republicans told us the voters listed were their potential "donors". Really? The sheets included pages of men from homeless shelters in Florida.
Donor lists, my ass. Every expert told us, these were "challenge lists" meant to stop these black voters from casting ballots.
When these "caged" voters arrived at the polls in November 2004, they found their registrations missing, their right to vote blocked or their absentee ballots rejected because their addresses were supposedly "fraudulent".
Why didn't the GOP honchos fess up to challenging these allegedly illegal voters? Because targeting voters of colour is against the law. The law in question is the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The act says you can't go after groups of voters if you choose your targets based on race. Given that almost all the voters on the GOP hit list are black, the illegal racial profiling is beyond even Karl Rove's ability to come up with an alibi.
The Republicans target black folk not because they don't like the colour of their skin; they don't like the colour of their vote: Democrat. For that reason, the GOP included on its hit list Jewish retirement homes in Florida. Apparently, the GOP was also gunning for the Elderly of Zion.
These so-called "fraudulent" voters, in fact, were not fraudulent at all. Page after page, as we have previously reported, are black soldiers sent overseas. The Bush campaign used their absence from their US homes to accuse them of voting from false addresses.
Now that the GOP has been caught breaking the voting rights law, it has found a way to keep using its expensively obtained "caging" lists: let the law expire next year. If the Voting Rights Act dies in 2007, the 2008 race will be open season on dark-skinned voters. Only the renewal of the Voting Rights Act can prevent the planned racial wrecking of democracy.
Before the 2000 presidential ballot, then Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black citizens' registrations on the grounds that they were "felons" not entitled to vote. Our review of the files determined that the crime of most people on the list was nothing more than VWB -- Voting While Black.
That "felon scrub", as the state called it, had to be "pre-cleared" under the Voting Rights Act. That is, the US justice department must approve "scrubs" and other changes in procedures.
The Florida felon scrub slipped through this "pre-clearance" provision because Katherine Harris's assistant assured the government the scrub was just a clerical matter. Civil rights lawyers are now on the alert for such mendacity.
The burning cross caucus of the Republican Party is bitching that "pre-clearance" of voting changes applies only to southern states. I have to agree that singling out the old confederacy is a bit unfair. But the solution is not to smother the voting rights law but to spread its safeguards to all 50 of these United States.
Republicans argue that the racial voting games and the threats of the white-hooded Klansmen that kept African-Americans from the ballot box before the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act no longer threaten black voters.
That's true. When I look over the "caging lists" and the "scrub sheets", it's clear to me that the GOP has traded in white sheets for spreadsheets.
What do you guys think?
Here is the Profile of the guy who wrote this:
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.
He has specialised in exposés on electoral manipulation, the “war on terror” and globalisation and, in the UK, his work has appeared in the Observer and on the BBC.
He wrote the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, the academic book Democracy and Regulation and made the BBC documentary Bush Family Fortunes.
His latest book, Armed Madhouse, published by Penguin, is available now.
If any of it were true it would of been proven 10 years ago. I wonder if this blogger also covered the ballot stuffing efforts of the democrats. There were reports that "Voter Drives" were rounding up people and giving them free meals for registering and voting, even though many had no proof of ID nor a valid mailing address.
I don't trust either side and believe all allogations shold be investigated. I also believe this is good proof of why we need a strong Pirate Party.
I'm sure there are thousands of "alien autopsy" blogs out there, as well. I mean really, how could the GOP possibly hope to win an election without the all-important Native American vote?
The Voting Rights Act has been renewed many times and remains in force. It was renewed in 1970 and 1975. In 1982, Congress amended and renewed the Act for another 25 years. Some portions of the Act are up for renewal in 2007. As of 2006, however, a number of Republican lawmakers have acted to delay renewal of the Act. One group of lawmakers led by Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland, come from some pre-clearance states, and claim that it is no longer fair to target their states. Another group supports an amendment offered by Steve King of Iowa, seeking to strip provisions from the Act that require that translators or multilingual ballots be provided for U.S. citizens who do not speak English.[1]
I can see some of those provisions being objectionable, like "provisions from the Act that require that translators or multilingual ballots be provided for U.S. citizens who do not speak English."
Quote:
in which several Republicans also balked at extending provisions in the law that require ballots to be printed in more than one language in neighborhoods where there are large numbers of immigrants, said several participants.
Which means that some would get preferential treatment and others not... That hardly seems fair (or necessary)
Quote:
Bipartisan opposition to amendment
The amendment has powerful opponents. From Republican and Democratic leaders on down the House hierarchy, they argue that states with documented histories of discrimination may still practice it and have earned the extra scrutiny.
"This carefully crafted legislation should remain clean and unamended," Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, who worked on the original bill, which he called "the keystone of our national civil rights statutes."
By his own estimation, Westmoreland says the amendment stands little chance of being adopted.
The House also could bring up an amendment that would require the Justice Department to compile an annual list of jurisdictions eligible for a "bailout" from the pre-clearance requirements.
That amendment, too, has little chance of surviving the floor debate, leaving the underlying bill likely to pass the House. The Senate is scheduled to consider an identical bill later this year.
Other efforts to chip away at the act have faltered under pressure from powerful supporters.
One such measure, sponsored by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, would have stripped a provision that requires ballots to be printed in several languages and interpreters be provided in states and counties where large numbers of citizens speak limited English.
"It seems sort of redundant to have both of those provisions," said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Georgia. He added that any foreign-speaking voter must prove some English proficiency to win citizenship.
However, Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, called that logic an effort to mix the divisive debate over immigration reform with the Voting Rights Act renewal. Three-fourths of those whose primary language is not English are American-born, he said.
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"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
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I can see some of those provisions being objectionable, like "provisions from the Act that require that translators or multilingual ballots be provided for U.S. citizens who do not speak English."
There is no "National Language", nor has there ever been one, nor should there ever be one in the USA.
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the whole point here is that there are issues that are being discussed, as well as parties trying to modify the act from it's current incarnation... from both sides. Not quite as black and white as was described here.
There hasn't been a national language, and issues with voting is a State's Rights issue... They determine things like ballot styles and languages and such... a Federal Act is considered by some to be an abuse of those local rights, so you have groups trying to ADD provisions to the act and some trying to eliminate provisions... AND it is still a year out.
This is just a BS thread looking to bash the repubicans over a made up "non-issue" dug out of a lefty-blog
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"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
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Ha ha ha and does any1 think their vote counts ? They already know who is going to be put in office beforehand. You going to the ballot box is just a way of making you think you are involved.The electorial college picks the president not the people and they dont care about who you voted for but about who there next good buddy is going to be. I dont vote for none of them losers I am not playing their game of stack the deck.
The kids are at a pep rally and when the school mascot comes out to do his dance, the gymnasium is overrun by protesters from PETA. They are protesting the use of a cow as the school's mascot. To eliminate the ongoing PETA threat, the school is going to hold an election to pick a new mascot. Kyle suggests that they get everyone to write in "Giant Douche" as their choice. Cartman suggests that they get everyone to write-in "Turd Sandwich." Kenny is on Kyle's side, Butters likes "Turd Sandwich" and Stan doesn't care. After much deliberation Jimmy likes "Giant Douche." The results are in and the top two nominations are the write-in candidates, and now the campaigning can begin. Stan tells Kyle he is not going to vote, he thinks the whole thing is stupid. Stan tells his parents he is not going to vote between a douche and turd, because he doesn't see the difference between the two. Stan gets a visit from Puff Daddy, who enlightens Stan on his "Vote or Die" campaign and that causes Stan to change his mind about voting.
Cartman and Butters are out campaigning and trying to get Clyde's vote. Stan shows up at the polls and tells Kyle that he is going to vote. Kyle is all for it, until he sees that Stan has decided to vote for "Turd Sandwich." Cartman tries to make sure that Stan's vote is cast, but Stan decides that despite the consequences he isn't going to vote. Stan and his parents are in Principal Victoria's office, she tells them that for his lack of participation in the election process, Stan has been banished from South Park. Stan is sent out of town on the back of a horse. Stan's horse brings him cross country and into the woods where his horse is saved from being Stan's slave by a group of PETA fanatics. They bring the horse (and reluctantly Stan) to their secret compound. At the compound, Stan is witness to the PETA members love for their animals. To see if Stan can stay at their compound, Stan has to get approval from the group's leader, Dr. Cornwallis, who from Stan's viewpoint appears to be a goat.
On the South Park Public Access channel there is a televised debate between the "Giant Douche" and the "Turd Sandwich," moderated by Jim Lehrer. Neither candidate comes off as a winner. At the PETA compound it is apparent Stan isn't fitting in and he is told he should go home. He tells them the how and why of his banishment. Stan learns the most fundamental rule of elections that you will always have to choose between a douche and a turd. Stan is found by Puff Daddy and his men. Puff Daddy's animal skins are hit with red paint, in the ensuing gunfire from Puff Daddy's men; the human population of the PETA compound is killed. Stan, who escaped the melee at the compound returns to cast his vote. While Stan's vote for "Turd Sandwich" wasn't enough to fight the landslide that "Giant Douche" won by his vote was important anyway. That is, it was, until the report comes in about the PETA slaughter and the old mascot is reinstated.
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Quote:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
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