It is a fact that Republican’s have always tried to suppress turn-out, while Democrats have tried to increase it. This time around they (McCain and Co.) do not have the resources with which to carry out “voter intimidation” — hence the cry of FRAUD.

The systematic efforts to suppress the minority vote (especially black), and Republican election rigging is legendary.

The most recent being the theft of Florida in broad daylight, in 2000, for George Bush, when his Florida campaign manager, Republican Secretary of State Kathleen Harris and Governor Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, illegally removed 57,700 voters from the rolls, 90% of who were Democratic.

How Bush Stole Florida - Part 1 0f 2

How Bush Stole Florida - Part 2 0f 2

According to Lori Minnite, a professor of political science at Barnard College, who has spent the last eight years studying the role of fraud in U.S. elections, the Republican crusade against voter fraud is a strategic ruse. Rather than protecting the election process from voter fraud — a problem that barely exists — Minnite says the true aim of Republican efforts appears to be voter suppression across the partisan divide. According to Minnite, investigating voter fraud has become a Republican cottage industry over the last 20 years because it justifies questioning the eligibility of thousands of would-be voters — often targeting poor and minority citizens in urban areas that lean Democratic. Playing the role of vigilant watchdog gives GOP bureaucrats a pretext for obstructing the path of marginalized and first-time voters headed for the polls…..[MORE]

As I write this post, there are plenty of ‘Jim Crawford’ Republicans working overtime to keep blacks, new voters and other minorities from voting.

The GOP relies on voter suppression methods developed in once-segregated South, and perfected for 2008. These include:

â?¢ Intimidating and mis-leading black voters through phone calls

â?¢ Making ballots in heavily Democratic neighborhoods ambiguous and hard to read. Some, especially the poorly educated end up voting for the wrong candidate. In 2000, because of the confusing layout of the ballot papers, thousands of Al Gore supporters across the state of Florida, ended up voting for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan, a Racist White Nationalist. Buchanan is currently peddling his Nativist Views at MSNBC News.

â?¢ Physically tampering with voting machines. This includes statewide computer database manipulation

â?¢ Sudden equipment shortages — causing long lines, confusion and thousands fail to vote

â?¢ Burdensome residency requirements and periodic registration

â?¢ Literacy or understanding requirements with stringent dis-qualification provisions

â?¢ Over aggressive voter roll purges

â?¢ Giving the power to challenge to private poll watchers — in some instances the police have been used to intimidate minority voters — The current Florida statute on voter challenges permits poll watchers to challenge a voter merely by signing an oath that states they have “reason to believe” that the voter is ineligible to vote and stating the reasons for the challenge.

â?¢ Voter Caging — a practice of sending mass direct mailings to registered voters by non-forwardable mail, then compiling lists of voters, called ‘caging lists,‘ from the returned mail in order to formally challenge their right to vote on that basis alone….[MORE]

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   [Cartoon By Gary Varvel]

ACORN — The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which registers low-income and minority voters who tend to favor Democrats, is under siege for allegedly falsifying voter registrations, and Republicans have sought to taint Obama with the allegations.

ACORN Grassroots Democracy Campaign

| ACORN Responds to Senator McCain’s Desperate Attack |

Obama Explains Ties With ACORN

According to Politico: Obama in the 1990s represented the group in a lawsuit, and on Tuesday, he said that ‘as an elected official, I’ve had interactions with’ the Chicago branch of the group, which he said has ‘been active,‘ according to a pool report.

‘But they are not advising our campaign,‘ stressed Obama, who himself worked as a community organizer in Chicago before attending law school.

Nevada authorities last week raided ACORN’s state headquarters after the branch submitted voter registrations with the names of celebrities including Dallas Cowboy stars Tony Romo and Terrell Owens, and other voters came forward alleging they were asked by ACORN employees to submit multiple registration forms.

Smelling blood, a malicious John McCain pounced on the controversy, releasing a statement last week asserting that given ‘ACORN’s recent efforts to engage in voter fraud and to disrupt our political system, Obama’s affiliation with this group raises serious questions about his judgment and ability to lead this nation.’ …[MORE]

It is important to note that ACORN pays its “Paid Volunteers” on a quota basis, therefore it is reasonable to expect a few bad apples who will concoct several fake registrations to earn some extra bucks. Yglesias wrote last week about the problem with “paying people based on the number of names they bring in — it creates an incentive for people to pad their lists.”

Registration FRAUD is not Voting FRAUD, and it is pretty obvious why McCain and the GOP are running so scared. This time around, they so overwhelmed by the millions of new Democratic registrations — they can’t stop the flood that is coming their way. A flood that will probably sweep McCain and the GOP filth away into permanent purgatory.

After all, a voter still has to present state issued documents before voting. So, a fake “Tony Romo” registered in Nevada will definitely not surface somewhere in Ohio to vote!

Fox News and affiliated barbarian “Hate News” outlets, have been all over this issue, vomiting huge quantities of lies on top of humongous falsehoods — and conveniently forgetting that McCain had no trouble fraternizing with ACORN in 2006, as the Key-Note speaker [see video below], when their political interests coincided with his. Now, his campaign is writing e-mails in his name bashing ACORN as a tool of the Obama machine.

Feb. 20, 2006 — McCain Praises ACORN

Olbermann Special Comment: McCain Suspend Your Campaign

Two days ago Obama had this to say: We’ve got the best voter registration and turnout and volunteer operation in politics right now, and we don’t need ACORN’s help,’ he told reporters in Toledo, Ohio while preparing for Wednesday’s debate. “We don’t need ACORN’s help.”

So, desperate McCain — Please SHUT UP! You are losing, and this time there is no THIEVING WAY AROUND IT!

——————————————————-

References:

Inciting The Mob

McCain Exaggerates Rally Attendance

1. Election FRAUD Alert: Republicans Are Preparing To RIG ‘08 Elections
2. ACORN Rallies Its Troops
3. Sen. McCain Stood With ACORN Rally In 2006
4. 08 Campaign Held Hostage By McCain’s ‘Stealth Weapon’ — RACISM
5. Behind the GOP’s voter fraud hysteria — As Republicans warn of catastrophe at the polls, an expert on election fraud explains the real partisan hoax — the suppression of Democratic votes.
6. Brunner loses lawsuit to GOP — Let county boards check new voters’ names, judge says

Popularity: 8% [?]

I am wondering — when will Lou Dobbs and co start laying the blame for the wall-street fiasco squarely on immigrants?

At times of economic difficulty in America, the xenophobic juices of right-wing whites flow like the Mississippi, and the bastard GOP politicians and pundits massage their baseless fears and prejudices like wicked witches.

Xenophobia and far right-wing extremism in America, as in Germany….and so on, are strikingly similar patterns of hostility towards immigrants a.k.a foreigners — unfounded fears and a wild perception of relative deprivation driven in by extortionist politicians and TV and RADIO SCUM like the Anti-Immigrant Bigot and Neo-Populist Crusader, Lou Dobbs — the resident nativist dung-thrower at CNN, and author of: “Bigots Day: Awakening the American ‘Racist’ Spirit.”

The stink gets worse when BLACK UNCLE TOMS join in — for example, Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio Secretary of State.

The sight of this TADPOLE yapping maliciously against Obama at Fox New’s O’Hannity and Coward show, really riles me, because it gives credence to Syphilitic “Nazi” Scumbags like Sean Hannity, who is hell-bent on derailing Obama’s presidential aspirations by hook or crook.

Obama is head and shoulders above McCain in intellect, integrity and honesty. He is a good man, and to watch black “leaders” coalesce with the racist thugs at Fox News, to disparage other blacks, is appalling indeed.

Obama seeks entry into the most segregated institution in the United States — the presidency of the United States, therefore his candidacy should be a momentous happening to ALL BLACK PEOPLE, given that we may never see one like him in many years to come.

Blackwell is a quintessential “Uncle Tom” — a perfect example of how the right (Republicans) uses “People of Color” to foster Racism.

Mr. Blackwell was a key figure in the GOP push to disenfranchise black voters in Ohio, in 2004, and according to the current Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, “Accidentally.”

Of course — to hide the rampant election corruption under Blackwell’s reign of fraud.

The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

The destruction of the election records also frustrates efforts by the media and historians to determine the accuracy of Ohio’s 2004 vote count, because in county after county the key evidence needed to understand vote count anomalies apparently no longer exists….[READ MORE HERE] [AND HERE]

Republicans can’t win anything fairly — if it is not immigrant-bashing, its terror-mongering or just out-right racism.

Now that it seems they cannot break Barack Obama’s back with their old and rudderless candidate, partnered with the dumbest “VP cheerleader” since Indiana’s Dan Quayle in 1988, their only option is to sow malicious seeds of doubt and/or to try and steal the election outright.

They have done it before. They can do it again! Punks!

| Blackwell’s “Uncle Tom” Views |

The Mis-Education of the Negro
[Review By -- Bakari Chavanu (Elk Grove, CA USA)]

This book ought to be required reading for every teacher, educator, administrator, and parents who intereact with children of African descent.

Woodson’s work helps us understand that African peoples are truely mis-educated.

We largely receive an Eurocentric or White middle class, elitist education that by and large does not serve the needs of our communities. This mis-education creates a serious identity crisis on the part of African youth and it causes many Black “educated” middle class people to spend more time trying to reach the consumer American Dream rather than working toward a real self-determination agenda of African peoples.

Thus it’s of little suprise today that most African students never enroll in a course on African/African-American studies. In fact, these courses are becoming more rare in high school and colleges across the nation. Even with the current renaissance of Black literature in this country, the study of African/Black culture, politics, and spiritual life are rarely discussed.

In Woodson’s words: “Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better, but the instruction so far given Negroes [and still today] in colleges and universities [and elementary and secondary schools] has worked to the contrary.

In most cases such graduates have merely increased the number of malcontents who offer no program for changing the undesiriable conditions about which they complain.” Woodson’s book is clearly not out-dated. In fact, it reads as if it were published last year, instead of 1933.

I would like to close this response to Woodson’s work with another classic quote from him:

“If you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a person feel that he/she is inferior, you do not have to compel him/her to accept an inferior status, he/she will seek for it. If you make a person think he/she is a justly outcast, yoiu do not have to order that person to the back door, that person will go without being told, and if there is no back door, the very nature of that person will demand one.”

Popularity: 11% [?]