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Politics and Policy
What would you do if someone tried to take away your right to elect your reprentatives? In 1775 our founding fathers took up arms based upon this principle. But what if it happens gradually? What if it is camoflauged under several layers of lies, so that it takes some work to ferret out the truth? What if the news media is generally afraid to report on it, because (a) it's complicated, and (b) the miscreants deny it, and attack the reporters in a variety of career-ending ways?
Over the past seven years, consider the following Republican attempts (mostly successful) to subvert the Constitution and the Electoral Process to ensure a “permanant Republican majority” (i.e., stealing elections):
(a) stopping recounts while they are in progress and declaring the Republicans the winner (Florida 2000).
(b) Taking polling booths out of Democratic precincts and putting them in Republican ones in swing states, thereby making likely Democratic voters wait in line for hours to vote, while likely Republican voters have no line at all (Ohio 2004)
(c) Illegally reporting likely Democratic voters as not living at their registered addresses and having them removed from the lists of registered voters, without any notice or effective opportunity to respond, even though in many cases their “absence” was due to service in the military in Iraq (Ohio 2004).
(d) Using the Florida 2000 misadventure as an excuse to replace punch-card voting in Florida with electronic machines with no audit or paper trail ability, ignoring reports that votes were being cast the opposite of what voters had indicated, and then having key precincts report voting results which gave Bush a victory completely beyond the any probability (i.e., over 90% of registred Democrats in the princinct would have had to vote for Bush) (Florida 2004).
(e) Attempting to change the method of counting electoral votes in the 2008 Presidential election in large Democratic-leaning states (such as California), but not in Republican-leaning states.
(f) Subverting the U.S. Dept. of Justice into a partison tool, by pressuring prosecutors to bring charges against Democrats and to announce those charges shortly before elections (New Mexico), to punish prosecutors who prosecute Republicans for corruption (California), to not investigate allegations of election fraud by Republicans (generally), and presuring prosecutors to bring unfounded charges of election fraud against Democrats (Washington State).
(g) Use the “K Street Strategy” to bring in an enormous flow of lobbyist money to fund Republican campaigns, and punish lobbyist who fund Democratic campaigns by denying them access to government officials.
(h) To engage in schemes to launder tax money to fund Republican electoral campaigns, on a large scale. Example: DeLay was instrumental in creating an office in Washington D.C. to represent the interests of Texas there. (Funny, I thought that was DeLay’s job). This office was paid for by Texas tax dollars. It’s main expenditure, aside from renting a small office and hiring a small staff, was to hire lobbyists, including Abramoff, to represent Texas. Abramoff and his cronies then make huge donations to the re-election campaigns of Republican politicians. Voila! Tax money becomes a campaign contribution! This has been repeated on a MUCH larger scale with Haliburton, KBR, Blackwater, et al…. The Bush administration gives no-bid contracts to friendly private companies with HUGE profit margins and inadequate auditing of their performance, the companies or their owners then give large portions of the same money back to the Republican party and its candidates (after laundering it to comply with election financing laws). VOILA! Tax money becomes Republican campaign money!
(i) Change the rules regarding FCC licensing of broadcast media, so that Republicans currently owning one radio, TV station, newspaper, or local cable TV franchise can own ALL of the news outlets in a selected market, thereby controlling the flow of news and information into that market (rule change pending).
I could go on, but there’s just so much, it’s hard to keep track of it all. Just some of the details of Republican rigging of elections can be found here:
Was the 2004 Election Stolen? How the Republicans ensured that they won the 2004 elections, and how they plan to win again in 2008.
The K Street Project How the Republicans turned government into a “Pay to Play” system.
Karl Rove in a Corner Some nice background on the master of electoral dirty tricks, printed shortly before the 2004 election.
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