Fla. Republican: We wanted to suppress black votes

[Silcc69]

In the debate over new laws meant to curb voter fraud in places like Florida, Democrats always charge that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote of liberal voting blocs like blacks and young people, while Republicans just laugh at such ludicrous and offensive accusations. That is, every Republican except for Florida’s former Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, who, scorned by his party and in deep legal trouble, blew the lid off what he claims was a systemic effort to suppress the black vote. In a 630-page deposition recorded over two days in late May, Greer, who is on trial for corruption charges, unloaded a litany of charges against the “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies” in his party, including the effort to suppress the black vote.
In the deposition, released to the press yesterday, Greer mentioned a December 2009 meeting with party officials. “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times (http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/jim-greer-denounces-florida-republican-party-officials-as-liars-and/1242157). He also said party officials discussed how “minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party,” according to the AP (http://www.theledger.com/article/20120726/POLITICS/120729446/1374?p=2&tc=pg).
The comments, if true (he is facing felony corruption charges and has an interest in scorning his party), would confirm what critics have long suspected. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is currently facing (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/florida-gov-rick-scott-defends-voter-purge-doj/story?id=16549565) inquiries from the Justice Department and pressure from civil rights groups over his purging of voter rolls in the state, an effort that critics say has disproportionately targeted minorities and other Democratic voters. One group suing the state claims up to 87 percent of the voters purged (http://news.wfsu.org/post/third-suit-challenging-floridas-voter-purge-calls-move-discriminatory) from the rolls so far have been people of color, though other estimates (http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/of-7000-felons-purged-from-voting-rolls-many-are-democrats-blacks/1231444) place that number far lower. Scott has defended the purge, even though he was erroneously listed as dead (http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/15/2850710/florida-voter-roll-listed-gov.html) himself on the rolls in 2006.


http://www.salon.com/2012/07/27/fla_republican_we_suppressed_black_votes/


Say it ain't so..............

[Prospero]

Thanks Sillcc... very revealing. Florida, front line in the Reoublican theft of the election when Bush was first elected, still trying to rig things...

[fred41]

... if true (he is facing felony corruption charges and has an interest in scorning his party)...

...as you said.

[Stavros]

Florida, Kentucky and Virginia are the worst affected; overall nearly 6 million people will be denied the vote.

On the one hand frauds must be stopped, but there has also to be some way of granting people who have 'done the crime and served the crime' citixenship rights, especially when some of the 'felons' who ended up in gaol because of the 'three strikes and you're out' rule were just shoplifters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/26/florida-assault-voting-rights?INTCMP=SRCH

I should add that in the UK there are probably worse violations of voting rights -the use by some Asian families of the postal vote enables men to vote on behalf of their wives and parents, there was a case of a residential care home in Cornwall some years ago where the manager filled out the postal votes of the residents, all of them voting Tory! When I was in the Labour Party in London I was told off for canvassing people with names like Bannerjee, Chatterjee, Singh, Patel and Khan because there was an 'Asian Panel' -I assume the Tories at that time weren't clued in to this tactic, which I thought was questionable in its motives. In effect, Asian members of the Party would visit voters in a block and effectively tell them scare stories about the Tories and so on. It didnt win Labour any general elections, and most Asians I have known were either from families with a long tradition of Communist activism, or natural conservatives. The party I was in was also corrupt, but that's another story and one reason I left it...

[onmyknees]

LMFAO....you threw out some rancid bait and fools like Prospero swallowed the hook, and here comes Stavros for his nibble at the bait. Let me get this straight.....This article is solely based on a scorned former party leader who is on trial for corruption? Do I have that about right? "Very enlightening" he says. The trouble is , unlike in merry old UK, one is innocent until proven guilty, and none of this even meets the smell test....but why worry about that? So let me ask you two brain surgeons, if 2 dupes like you are onto this...don't you think the most politically activist and race baiting Attorney General in the nation's history would be down there with legions of assistants following up every lead and then holding press conferences ??? Think about it. If Republicans are purging valid minority voters ( and the operative word is valid....meaning they meet the State's legal criteria) then that's a civil rights violation, and Mr. Holder will be getting back to you...count on it. Although he is a little busy at the moment investagating national security leaks, and dead border patrol agents.
The fact of the matter is...voter suppression is a political tactic....( Remember the New Black Panther Party standing outside the polls in Philadelphia holding night sticks.....funny how you 3 Einstein's didn't find that "enlightening" LMAO. What you're talking about a Federal Civil Rights violation. Let's see what happens, but my guess is it's nothing more that wishful thinking that fits your jaded narrative about folks that don't look, or think like you..
Now suppose I posted a recent article on voter suppression from the Obama loving NY Times and an award winning journalist and professor of Journalism at Colombia.....would you perhaps give that a little more weight than a guy on trial for corruption, and the hacks over at Salon? Or How about if I posted an blog on voter suppression by Andrew Sullivan...a guy who literally would drop to his knees ( similar to the 3 of you) in the presence of Obama....think that might peek your interest ?
http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/etc/clientlibs/dailybeast/img/logo/daily-beast.png.dimg.png/4be5b59_2.cached.png (http://www.thedailybeast.com/)

Andrew Sullivan The DishAndrew Sullivan The Dish (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/)

23 Jul 2012 12:57 PM Obama's Version Of Vote Suppression (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/obamas-version-of-vote-suppression.html)

The Obama campaign is not trying to whittle away the numbers of Republican votes through a purging of voter rolls, as the GOP is trying to do to Democrats in Florida and Pennsylvania. But it is aiming to lower voting among the non-college educated white working class. Tom Edsall explains why (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/the-politics-of-anything-goes/?hp):

Romney is particularly vulnerable to a campaign designed to suppress turnout because his support is more tepid than Obama’s. A New York Times/CBS poll (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57475178-503544/obama-romney-in-dead-heat-in-presidential-race/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel) released on Wednesday found that 52 percent of Obama voters back their candidate strongly, compared to 29 percent of Romney voters. In addition, a third of Romney’s voters say they are voting for him because of their dislike of Obama, while only 8 percent of Obama voters are primarily motivated by their hostility to Romney.
Vote suppression is important for Obama because his numbers among whites without degrees are worsening, despite the omnipresence of anti-Romney ads in the battleground states. Obama’s 29 percent level of support among non-college white men in the Quinnipiac poll cited above is a drop from 32 percent in its April survey, and the 28 percent level in the ABC/Washington Post poll is a drop from 34 percent in their May survey.
With his margins in this group falling, Obama directly benefits from every white non-college voter who stays home and does not vote for Romney.
http://secure-us.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/m?ci=ade2011-ca&at=view&rt=banner&st=image&ca=Citi-2012-Q1&cr=272537280&pc=395841515&pr=iag.sid,2500012650&pr=iag.tfid,3161&pr=iag.pageid,395841515&pr=iag.brn,CIT&pr=iag.cte,272537280&r=170382378http://pixel.dimestore.com/vi-pixel?action=pixel&id=eb2668498

July 23, 2012, 12:33 am 450 Comments (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/the-politics-of-anything-goes/#postComment)
The Politics of Anything Goes

By THOMAS B. EDSALL (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/author/thomas-b-edsall/)Barack Obama first captured the national spotlight (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19751-2004Jul27.html) with a speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston in which he called for an end to the politics of division. The audience roared back its applause at the end of almost every line:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.
Americans, Obama declared, are

one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?
Now, faced with a tough re-election fight, President Obama has, in fundamental respects, adopted the strategy he denounced eight years ago.
He is running a two-track campaign. One track of his re-election drive seeks to boost turnout among core liberal groups; the other aims to suppress turnout and minimize his margin of defeat in the most hostile segment of the electorate, whites without college degrees.
This approach assumes a highly polarized electorate and tries to make the best of it.
On his campaign web site, Obama singles out 16 specific target constituencies (http://www.barackobama.com/?source=action-bar) under “groups.” Some are listed because it would be politically damaging to fail to include them: People of Faith; Veterans and Military Families; Rural Americans; Seniors; and Small Business Owners.
Others make up the heart of the liberal-left coalition: African Americans, Environmentalists, Latinos, Young Americans, LGBT Americans, Native Americans, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, Educators, Jewish Americans, Nurses and Women.
Obama is actively courting all of these constituencies: ending (http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/immigration/deportation-of-young-illegal-immigrants-to-end-20120615)the deportation of many young workers who are in the United States illegally; endorsing (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-endorses-same-sex-marriage/2012/05/09/gIQAivsWDU_story.html) same-sex marriage; loosening (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/us/politics/welfare-to-work-shift-angers-republicans.html) work requirements for welfare recipients; pressing (http://www.statepress.com/2012/06/29/congress-keeps-lower-student-loan-interest-rate/) Congress to keep student loan rates low; rejecting (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/01/18/145397402/reports-obama-will-reject-keystone-pipeline-proposal) the proposal to build the northern portion of the 1,700 mile Keystone pipeline from Canada to Texas; and promoting (http://www.barackobama.com/record/womens-health?source=primary-nav) health-care reform that requires insurance plans to fully cover birth control without co-pays or deductibles.
Interestingly, the Obama campaign is not spending the lion’s share of its money on these groups. Instead, Obama’s television ads, at $65.6 million the biggest cost of his re-election bid (http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/expend.php?cycle=2012&id=N00009638) so far, are overwhelmingly aimed at discrediting Mitt Romney (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-16/obama-romney-bash-each-other-with-90-negative-ads.html).
The negative ads run by the Obama campaign and its allied “super PAC,” Priorities USA — ads demonizing Romney — target not only whites without college degrees, but in particular white men without degrees, a constituency Obama has no hope of winning.
The two anti-Romney commercials that appear to have resonated most powerfully, according to measures of YouTube views (http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/how-does-youtube-count-views/), are explicitly aimed at these voters.

Romney is particularly vulnerable to a campaign designed to suppress turnout because his support is more tepid than Obama’s.
The Priorities USA ad titled “Stage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLo0Jwj03JU)” — with over 1.4 million views — is narrated by Mike Earnest, a middle-aged white working-class man. He describes building a stage at a paper plant in Marion, Ind., that was in operation 24 hours a day. Shortly afterward, workers from all three shifts were called in. “A group of people walked out on that stage and told us that the plant is now closed and all of you are fired,” Earnest says. “Mitt Romney made over $100 million by shutting down our plant and devastated our lives. Turns out when we build that stage it was like building our own coffin, and it just makes me sick.”
An Obama ad, “Firms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud3mMj0AZZk)” with over 1.9 million views, shows Romney singing “America the Beautiful” at The Villages (http://www.thevillages.com/), a Florida retirement community. The screen shifts from Romney to images of shuttered factories and empty office rooms, overlaid with a series of headlines, “In Business, Mitt Romney’s Firms Shipped Jobs to Mexico and China,” “He Had Millions in a Swiss Bank Account,” “Tax Havens Like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.”
Obama’s current level of support from white men without college degrees is so low that “if sustained through Election Day,” it “would represent a modern nadir for Democrats,” Ron Brownstein pointed out (http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/from-bad-to-worse-with-bluecol.php) earlier this month in the National Journal. Brownstein cited a Quinnipiac poll showing Romney beating Obama 56-29 and a Washington Post/ABC survey putting the contest at 65 for Romney, 28 for Obama among these voters.
A central goal of the anti-Romney commercials is to cross-pressure these whites. Persuading more than 28 percent of them to vote for Obama is a tough sell, but the Obama campaign can try to make the alternative, voting for Romney, equally unacceptable. Conflicted voters, especially those holding negative views of both candidates, are likely to skip voting altogether (http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/intranet/rap/gwiasda.pdf).
In 2004, for example, in a tactic designed to decrease black turnout, the Bush campaign sent deeply religious black voters mail and email noting Democratic support for same-sex civil unions, with the goal of creating ambivalence toward Senator John F. Kerry. Over the past two years, Republican-controlled state legislatures have been conducting an aggressive vote-suppression strategy (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/opinion/27wed1.html) of their own through the passage of voter identification laws and laws imposing harsh restrictions on voter registration drives.
When a top Pennsylvania Republican remarked last month that the state’s new voter ID law would help Mitt Romney win Pennsylvania in November, which no Republican presidential candidate has done since 1988, he reignited a debate over whether the law is intended to curb fraud, as Republicans say, or to depress Democratic turnout, as critics charge.
Mike Turzai, the House majority leader in Pennsylvania, made the remark (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOT1bRYdK8) when he spoke to a meeting of the Republican State Committee. He ticked off a number of recent conservative achievements by the Republican-led legislature, including, as Turzai put it, “Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
Arthur Lupia, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, has demonstrated that in 2008, even if Obama had failed to boost turnout among key Democratic groups, he would have won because of the failure of many 2004 George W. Bush supporters to vote for John McCain. “Bush voters’ decisions not to vote or to support Obama were a sufficient condition for Obama’s victory,” Lupia wrote in “Did Bush Voters Cause Obama’s Victory? (http://www.themonkeycage.org/Lupia.pdf)” a paper published in PS, the journal of the American Political Science Association.
Romney and the Republican Party must achieve the highest possible turnout level among whites. Republicans, including Romney, have adopted anti-immigration stands that have extinguished the possibility of boosting margins among Hispanics. Asian Americans have become increasingly Democratic (http://projects.pewforum.org/2012/07/18/asian-americans-political-views-social-attitudes-and-socioeconomic-status/asianamericans_political-1/?src=prc-newsletter), self-identifying in public opinion surveys as Democratic rather than Republican by a 52-32 margin. African Americans remain reliably loyal (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2067/2012-electorate-partisan-affiliations-gop-gains-white-voters) to the Democratic Party by an 86 to 8 percent margin.
Romney is particularly vulnerable to a campaign designed to suppress turnout because his support is more tepid than Obama’s.
A New York Times/CBS poll (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57475178-503544/obama-romney-in-dead-heat-in-presidential-race/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel) released on Wednesday found that 52 percent of Obama voters back their candidate strongly, compared to 29 percent of Romney voters. In addition, a third of Romney’s voters say they are voting for him because of their dislike of Obama, while only 8 percent of Obama voters are primarily motivated by their hostility to Romney.
Vote suppression is important for Obama because his numbers among whites without degrees are worsening, despite the omnipresence of anti-Romney ads in the battleground states. Obama’s 29 percent level of support among non-college white men in the Quinnipiac poll cited above is a drop from 32 percent in its April survey, and the 28 percent level in the ABC/Washington Post poll is a drop from 34 percent in their May survey.
With his margins in this group falling, Obama directly benefits from every white non-college voter who stays home and does not vote for Romney. The importance of vote suppression in a close contest can be seen in the following hypothetical: say there are 1,000 voters evenly split, 500 to 500. Candidate A persuades just one of the voters backing his opponent to fail to go to the polls. Candidate A wins 500 to 499.
For Obama, hurdles in recruiting whites without a college degree are particularly high because of the employment patterns illustrated in this chart produced by RBC Capital Markets (https://www.rbccm.com/), which shows the devastating consequences of the 2008 financial collapse for non-college workers.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/22/opinion/22edsallch/22edsallch-blog480.jpg
Voters of all races and ethnicities without college have taken a hit in the job market; politically, however, the drop in employment is most damaging to Obama among whites. African Americans without college degrees are not only loyal to the Democratic Party, but the election puts at risk a second term for the nation’s first black president. Hispanics without college have a president who has taken a liberal stand on immigration reform (http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2012/06/22/Obama-tells-Latino-leaders-he-will-fight-for-immigration-reform.html), backed the DREAM Act and appointed the first Hispanic justice, Sonia Sotomayor, to the Supreme Court.
The problems Obama and the Democratic Party face with white non-college voters have deep roots. A study conducted by political consulting firm CRG Communications (http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/race/edsall.htm) for the Democratic National Committee in 1985 reached conclusions about the defection of working class whites to the Republican Party that remain relevant in 2012. CRG reported that these defectors believed that:

the Democratic Party has not stood with them as they moved from the working to the middle class. They have a whole set of middle class economic problems today, and the Democratic Party is not helping them. Instead it is helping the blacks, Hispanics and the poor. They feel betrayed.
Looked at this way, CRG reported, key Democratic constituencies — affluent liberals, gay rights activists, ethnic and racial minorities — were “leaving the ‘common man’ out of the picture.”
Demographic trends — the steady decline (http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2008/4/demographics%20teixeira/04_demographics_teixeira.pdf) of the share of the population made up of non-college whites, from 86 percent in 1940 to 48 percent in 2007 – have made winning these voters by increasingly large margins crucial to the Republican Party, while diminishing the Democratic Party’s need for their support.
The 2012 election will be another test of strength in the decade-long competition between this white voting bloc — which dominated in 2002, 2004 and 2010 — and such ascendant Democratic constituencies as Hispanics, college-educated women and young voters, who flexed their muscles in 2006 and 2008.

[Prospero]

The GOP demand that voters provide photo id before being allowed to vote. Clearly a move against poor minority voters who have no passport or driving licenes. So they don't get to vote.

This study by the NAACP makes clear the reality of what is going on aginst the torrents of prooganda and lies posted here by that festering and ludicrous propagandist OMK.

http://www.naacp.org/pages/defending-democracy

http://www.thisismyvote.org/

Aside from the sheer ignorance manifested in his post and his usual degree of vile bile, what a roar of fear and ignorant and prejudiced disinformation.

"The trouble is , unlike in merry old UK, one is innocent until proven guilty." You are such a ignorant clown OMK - a clown and a scumbag. Go back to jail and impress your cellmates.

[trish]

It's really difficult to believe, OMK, that you're the Christian you say you are. Here you are on the morning of the Lord's Day spewing your crass partisan hatred all over Hung Angels and no doubt surfing the threads for cock you can jerk off to after you finish your diatribe. Ya think maybe when God looks down on a loser like you He LHAO? I know I do.

The fact is that two black guys with batons outside a voting station is the exception, and an ineffective one at. Other interesting exceptions to the rule are the odd cases of voter fraud that are so small in number a second grader can enumerate them without trouble. The rule, not the exception, is that states from Florida to Pennsylvania deliberately disenfranchising voters via voter registration purges and voter id laws. Republicans themselves have let it slip that the purpose of these laws is to suppress the vote. Why would lovers of freedom and democracy want to suppress the vote? Lovers of freedom and democracy don't.

Happy wanking...and say Hi to God for me, when in Jesus's name you wank. Amen.

[Willie Escalade]

Just another way to keep the black man down.

(Tounge-in-cheek)

[onmyknees]

It's really difficult to believe, OMK, that you're the Christian you say you are. Here you are on the morning of the Lord's Day spewing your crass partisan hatred all over Hung Angels and no doubt surfing the threads for cock you can jerk off to after you finish your diatribe. Ya think maybe when God looks down on a loser like you He LHAO? I know I do.

The fact is that two black guys with batons outside a voting station is the exception, and an ineffective one at. Other interesting exceptions to the rule are the odd cases of voter fraud that are so small in number a second grader can enumerate them without trouble. The rule, not the exception, is that states from Florida to Pennsylvania deliberately disenfranchising voters via voter registration purges and voter id laws. Republicans themselves have let it slip that the purpose of these laws is to suppress the vote. Why would lovers of freedom and democracy want to suppress the vote? Lovers of freedom and democracy don't.

Happy wanking...and say Hi to God for me, when in Jesus's name you wank. Amen.


I just gave you a well documented essay of how the Obama campaign is suppressing votes, and you ask me why would lovers of democracy suppress voters? Are you on the sauce again...Or just toking a blunt while you fantasize about electric cars and carbon taxes?

You are right....it is Sunday, and Chick-Filets are closed otherwise I'd patronize one....the food is delicious, and god would encourage that. lmao ..So your penitence for being dull , bitter, angry, fact less and uninspiring is 3 Hail Mary's and 3 Our Fathers. And never speak of this again. :dancing:

[Stavros]

Now suppose I posted a recent article on voter suppression from the Obama loving NY Times and an award winning journalist and professor of Journalism at Colombia.....would you perhaps give that a little more weight than a guy on trial for corruption, and the hacks over at Salon? Or How about if I posted an blog on voter suppression by Andrew Sullivan...a guy who literally would drop to his knees ( similar to the 3 of you) in the presence of Obama....think that might peek your interest ?
[/URL]

Andrew Sullivan The DishAndrew Sullivan The Dish (http://www.thedailybeast.com/)

23 Jul 2012 12:57 PM Obama's Version Of Vote Suppression (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/obamas-version-of-vote-suppression.html)

[U]The Obama campaign is not trying to whittle away the numbers of Republican votes through a purging of voter rolls, as the GOP is trying to do to Democrats in Florida and Pennsylvania. But it is aiming to lower voting among the non-college educated white working class. Tom Edsall explains why (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/the-politics-of-anything-goes/?hp):
Romney is particularly vulnerable to a campaign designed to suppress turnout because his support is more tepid than Obama’s.
Vote suppression is important for Obama because his numbers among whites without degrees are worsening, despite the omnipresence of anti-Romney ads in the battleground states. Obama’s 29 percent level of support among non-college white men in the Quinnipiac poll cited above is a drop from 32 percent in its April survey, and the 28 percent level in the ABC/Washington Post poll is a drop from 34 percent in their May survey.
With his margins in this group falling, Obama directly benefits from every white non-college voter who stays home and does not vote for Romney.

I am puzzled -On the one hand I have provided evidence of the way in which three states are preventing citizens from registering to vote. In one example, in Florida the state does not allow convicted criminals to vote, even if they have purged their sentence, and so on -the point is not its legality, but the moral argument about what defines a citizen and his or her rights. The argument on providing photographic identity again, it may be legal, but if citizens cannot for reasons of transport, finance etc, provide it, they are being denied their right.

In the case of what you call 'Obama's Suppression' -none of the links you provide tell me how this 'white non-college educated working class' vote is being suppressed. I see no evicence of suppression. Are Obama Youth canvassing their neighbourhood to threaten 'white non-college educated working class' voters? It looks to me like the Obama campaign is identifying its strong and weak spots in the electorate and tailoring its efforts -if you were an election organiser, what would you do?

And if you read my earlier post, I offered two examples of the abuse of the democratic electoral process in the UK, one allegedly benefiting the Labour Party, the other the Conservative Party.

I could say Politics is a dirty game, but you might not believe me.

[trish]

I just gave you...complete and utter nonsense; see Stavros's reply.


I am puzzled -On the one hand I have provided evidence of the way in which three states are preventing citizens from registering to vote. In one example, in Florida the state does not allow convicted criminals to vote, even if they have purged their sentence, and so on -the point is not its legality, but the moral argument about what defines a citizen and his or her rights. The argument on providing photographic identity again, it may be legal, but if citizens cannot for reasons of transport, finance etc, provide it, they are being denied their right.

In the case of what you call 'Obama's Suppression' -none of the links you provide tell me how this 'white non-college educated working class' vote is being suppressed. I see no evicence of suppression. Are Obama Youth canvassing their neighbourhood to threaten 'white non-college educated working class' voters? It looks to me like the Obama campaign is identifying its strong and weak spots in the electorate and tailoring its efforts -if you were an election organiser, what would you do?...


...and god...Whoa, referencing "God" in small letters...speaks volumes!

[buttslinger]

You're a good little soldier, there, OMK, you enjoy your little cot and the M-1 we gave you, and you salute and say Yes, Sir, and stand at attention when your Superior enters the barracks. Save us from the big bad enemy.
Only now Rush Limbaugh is your superior, and you have a big bed and a big chopper, and your enemies are illegal aliens and liberals, and instead of twenty mile marches you walk on an eight hour treadmill so some rich fuck can pay zero taxes on his stock dividends. You're the biggest TOM on here.

[Silcc69]

Did OMK's really mention that New Black Panther fiasco LOL.

[Prospero]

OMK is abut as Christian as lucifer

[thombergeron]

The only part of Christianity OMK likes is the bigotry.

[thombergeron]

Seems kind of telling that our resident card-carrying member of the Grand Old Party thinks that disenfranchising voters and running negative ads are just two sides of the same coin.

[onmyknees]

Well, this is not quite what Trish and the rest of you pinheads would have us believe. You wet your pants at the mere thought of a disgruntled Republican operative making charges of voter suppression, however....

I recall when the New Black Panthers intimidation case first surfaced, as is always the case in matters of black and white...you all laughed it off...a real knee slapper. "Where's the beef"? "Even when career J.D. officials testified to a Congressional Committe they were getting pressure not to prosecute or pursue the case from The White House, you howled with childish, nervous laughter. "He's just another Republican Mouthpiece" is what you told me...Remember? Well now a Federal Judge has ruled on the evidence...unlike you all who makes conclusions on skin color, and ideology, and you never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

One more instance where this administration simply cannot not tell the truth. And don't bother.....I don't need vapid fools like you all all vindicating me. I know I'm right.




http://choices-st.truste.com/get?name=admarker-full-tr.pnghttp://choices-st.truste.com/get?name=admarker-icon-tr.pngConfidential (http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/beltway-confidential)




Federal Court finds Obama appointees interfered with New Black Panther prosecution

July 30, 2012
1116Comments (http://washingtonexaminer.com/federal-court-finds-obama-appointees-interfered-with-new-black-panther-prosecution/article/2503500#disqus_thread)
Senior Editorial Writer
The Washington Examiner @conncarroll (https://twitter.com/conncarroll)



A federal court in Washington, DC, held last week that political appointees appointed by President Obama did interfere with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New Black Panther Party.
The ruling came as part of a motion by the conservative legal watch dog group Judicial Watch, who had sued the DOJ in federal court to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the the New Black Panthers case. Judicial Watch had secured many previously unavailable documents through their suit against DOJ and were now suing for attorneys’ fees.
Obama’s DOJ had claimed Judicial Watch was not entitled to attorney’s fees since “none of the records produced in this litigation evidenced any political interference whatsoever in” how the DOJ handled the New Black Panther Party case. But United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton disagreed. Citing a “series of emails” between Obama political appointees and career Justice lawyers, Walton writes:

The documents reveal that political appointees within DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case, which would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not involved in that decision. Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials’ representations regarding the possible politicization of agency decision-making.
…
In sum, the Court concludes that three of the four fee entitlement factors weigh in favor of awarding fees to Judicial Watch. Therefore, Judicial Watch is both eligible and entitled to fees and costs, and the Court must now consider the reasonableness of Judicial Watch’s requested award.
The New Black Panthers case (http://blog.heritage.org/2010/07/16/the-new-black-panther-party-case-a-timeline/) stems from a Election Day 2008 incident where two members of the New Black Panther Party were filmed outside a polling place intimidating voters and poll watchers by brandishing a billy club. Justice Department lawyers investigated the case, filed charges, and when the Panthers failed to respond, a federal court in Philadelphia entered a “default” against all the Panthers defendants. But after Obama was sworn in, the Justice Department reversed course, dismissed charges against three of the defendants, and let the fourth off with a narrowly tailored restraining order.
“The Court’s decision is another piece of evidence showing the Obama Justice Department is run by individuals who have a problem telling the truth,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The decision shows that we can’t trust the Obama Justice Department to fairly administer our nation’s voting and election laws.”

[trish]

I recall when the New Black Panthers intimidation case first surfacedYeah those two dudes with batons made OMK shit his pants.


I know I'm right. Of course you do. You're always right. You never admit ignorance and are always the first the laugh your ass off.

Two dudes do not constitute a trend. But entire states purging voters registration records and passing voter id laws disenfranchising tens of thousands of citizens is more than a trend, it's a travesty of liberty and justice. These GOP sponsored laws, which have Romney's approval demonstrate beyond a doubt that we cannot trust Romney, nor any other Republican, to fairly administer our nation's voting and election laws.

[BluegrassCat]

Oh dear, OMK has embarrassed himself again. First, in order to show that the GOP is not suppressing votes but Obama is he cites an article that shows exactly the opposite. In fact, the very first sentence of the pasted article reads:
The Obama campaign is NOT trying to whittle away the numbers of Republican votes through a purging of voter rolls, as the GOP is trying to do to Democrats in Florida and Pennsylvania. [capitalization mine]

And also somehow negative ads = vote suppression according to OMK.

Now he pastes an article from one of his extremist sites in the right-wing echo chamber that finds again the opposite of what he says it does. The judge ruled only that political appointees had played a role in the decision process, not that they had behaved improperly. In fact, a DOJ investigation reported that:
We found no evidence of improper political interference or influence from within or outside the Justice Department in connection with the decision in this case.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2011/03/justice-departments-opr-no-political-considerations-in-handling-of-new-black-panther-party-case.php?page=1
OMK once again fails to comprehend (or perhaps even read) what he pastes on here as definitive evidence for his thoughtless, bigoted positions. Swing & a miss. LMAO.