Raging Caging: What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?

One aspect of the e-mail inquiry has to be the RNC vote-caging e-mails and their role in other USA firing e-mails.

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Raging Caging: What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?
By Dahlia Lithwick -- Jurisprudence: The law, lawyers, and the court.
Posted Thursday, May 31, 2007, at 6:24 PM ET
http://www.slate.com/id/2167284/pagenum/all/#page_start

... Monica Goodling referred several times to "vote caging" possibly done by Arkansas' soon to be ex-interim, never-confirmed U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin. ... liberal talk radio, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the blogosphere went nuts. ... Is vote caging the most underreported part of this U.S. attorneys scandal or the most over-hyped?

... "Vote caging, what's that?" we e-mailed each other at Slate. ............

Vote caging is an illegal trick to suppress minority voters ... The Republican National Committee reportedly stopped the practice following a consent decree in a 1986 case. Google the term and you'll quickly arrive at the Wizard of Oz of caging, Greg Palast, investigative reporter and author ...........

Palast supplies evidence linking Tim Griffin, then-research director for the RNC, to this caging plot; specifically, a series of confidential e-mails to Republican Party muckety-mucks with the suggestive heading "RE: caging." The e-mails were accidentally sent to a George Bush parody site. .......

.... once it became clear that he would undergo a hearing, why did Griffin sideline himself with the colorful observation that undergoing Senate confirmation would be "like volunteering to stand in front of a firing squad in the middle of a three-ring circus?" ...

I'd also like to hear from Karl and Harriet about why Griffin's elevation to the Arkansas job was so important, yet his confirmation so fraught. If Palast is right, Griffin and vote caging open the door to explaining the White House involvement in the U.S. attorneys purge. And the White House—not the Justice Department—has always been the least-understood part of this story. So, let's bake up some of those warm, crusty subpoenas. Last week was the first time most of us heard about vote caging. It shouldn't be the last.

eom

:evilgrin:

This is definitely something that we need to hear more about. And something that needs to be stopped, as it appears it's been used to eliminate as many non-Republican voters as possible.

First, the DoJ issue seemed to have a "voter fraud" spin.

Carol Lam had zero, zip, nada to do with voter fraud.
In her case, another excuse had been spun out to confuse, the
coyote issue, initially called illegal immigration. The Rs in the
Goodling hearing was the first usage of "coyote" I noted. Rep. Issa
was the one who leaked false info on Carol Lam before the Cunningham
case saw the light of public press. This timeline needs more review. But,
the digging deeper led to Medicare fraud when the Missouri firing came out.

5/06: Missouri attorney a focus in USA firings = Bradley Schlozman
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x832164

And there was a ton of spin in the "voter fraud" direction that did not
fit very well. Yes, there was the actual case of four individuals being
charged. It was such a stretch to think that this was going to alter
the result of the Presidential election; compared to the Ohio purges,
long lines, vote-switching, recount fraud, and long list of shenanigans,
the "firing" of the Missouri USA attribution to voter fraud seemed spin-ish.

And, there were some really big fish and big $$$$$$$ in the Missouri corruption pond.
In fact, the public corruption fishing hole everywhere seems to be the biggest pond.
Governor Matt Blunt tried to prevent the USA's office from investigating his
family's scandals by putting the wife of USA Todd Graves on the Blunt Family payroll
to the tune of a cool half million dollars a year, and he used taxpayer dollars to do it.
It was reported that USA Todd Graves and his family will personally benefit from no-bid
state contracts valued at more than $3.6 million given by Missouri Governor Matt Blunt.

Another connection came to light in Missouri, the investigation of Medicare fraud.
In both Missouri and California, Tenet Healthcare was a target bilking billions.

5/09: US Attorney Firing: Voter Fraud, Medicare Fraud, WHICH IS IT ???
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x853813

Suddenly, instead of "four" activists being indicted just before an election, the number
had jumped to "five" to "six" billion dollars in fraud agains hospitals and taxpayers.
Also suddenly, the number of USAs involved in the investigation jumped to "thirty."

5/13: 30 U.S. attorneys investigate BILKING BILLIONS, Medicare, Medicaid, Military’s Healthcare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x877011

And 50 USAs wanted to investigate the oil industry and price gouging!!
Other big numbers fit into the puzzle and connect surprising pieces.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying spent by single entities, billions spent by sectors!!
Now we are really talking about some very big fish in the pond. They tip the scale.



This is a complex story. Are whoopers still being spun by big fish, pointing to little fish?

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LEGAL AFFAIRS
The Scales Of Justice
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/070531nj1.htm

In the closing weeks of Missouri's tight 2006 U.S. Senate race, the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., took the unusual step of revealing that his office's investigation into possible state government contracting abuses in Missouri had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Republican Gov. Matt Blunt. .......

Do we know any of his rnc.com handles? Has he turned up in any of the caging e-mails? Others?

Can we be sure that someone above Griffin wasn't running the caging dirty tricks scheme??
Those e-mails went where again???

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Behind the "caging scheme"
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Vote_caging

Tim Griffin, a former Karl Rove protégé, Republican political strategist and top adviser to President George W. Bush, was "formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. The 2004 BBC News report showed that Griffin led a 'caging' scheme<2> to suppress the votes of African-American servicemembers in Florida."<3>

"African-American leaders denounced the caging scheme as 'another 'shameful' Republican effort to keep blacks from voting.'"<4>

based on what we know the "vote caging" was directed to minority voters, many of whom were serving in Iraq/Afghanistan at the time the letters were sent. (so much for supporting the troops and counting ALL the votes and having a big tent)

let's expand on this a bit and ask - what if caging letters weren't just directed at minority voters? Given the 2006 mid-term (s)election in the resulting GOPer losses and expected losses for 2008 - what if there was/are plans to expand the caging lists to include 'majority' voters?

It's not just the votes of minorites that are or will be manipulated, it's also the votes of all americans. Voting is the life of a Democracy.

Without a free, open and trusted voting system we don't have a real democracy - we have a sham wrapped in a flag

DNC: Bush Administration Owes Apology Over Assault on Voting Rights
http://prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=ind_focus.story&STORY=/www/story/06-01-2007/0004600075&EDATE=FRI+Jun+01+2007,+02:10+PM

WASHINGTON, June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Donna Brazile, Chair of
the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute, joined the
Chairs of the DNC's Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, AAPI Caucus, Seniors
Coordinating Council, and Native American Coordinating Council in
condemning the Bush Administration's assault on voting rights and its
politicization of the Department of Justice. The joint statement follows a
report in yesterday's Los Angeles Times confirming that one of the U.S.
Attorneys in Minnesota was apparently targeted by the Bush Administration
because he tried to "protect voting rights for Native Americans." (LA
Times, 5/31/07)

The Minnesota example, however, is just one of many
elements of a coordinated five-year political campaign by Bush Republicans
in the White House, the Justice Department, and the Election Assistance
Commission (EAC) to trump up charges of voter fraud in order to pursue
restrictive voter ID laws that would disproportionately disenfranchise
minority, senior, student, and disabled voters.
Recent reports make clear that this coordinated campaign included the
politicization of government agencies and government reports, and the
targeting of U.S. Attorneys who were deemed to be "insufficiently
aggressive in pursuing voter fraud cases." ........

"CAGING" AND THE U.S. ATTORNEY SCANDAL
In her recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica
Goodling was asked briefly about "caging." Both in her opening remarks and
in response to questioning by Linda Sanchez, Goodling said that Deputy
Attorney General Paul McNulty knew about the involvement of Acting U.S.
Attorney Tim Griffin in "vote caging," a process of systematically removing
voters from the registration rolls. McNulty had previously denied knowing
of the scheme. Not mentioned in the testimony is the fact that caging
voters is a crime.
Goodling told the committee:

-- As explained in more detail in my written remarks, I believe the deputy
was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in
the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge
of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as the interim
U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately
described the department's internal assessment of the Parsky Commission
and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that
Tim Griffin had been involved in vote caging during his work on the
president's 2004 campaign. House Judiciary Committee, 5/24/2007]

......................

Can you add any names to the list of persons whe were involved in the e-mails identified as "caging" lists?

Here is what I'm finding online, the controversial one that is the headliner in the news:

Caging Email Sent to RNC Research Staff from Kelly Porter with the Republican Party of Florida,
was sent from RNC Research Director Tom Griffin to members of the RNC research and political staff.
From: Tim Griffin -- Research/Communications mailto:tgriffin@rnchq.org
August 26, 2004 6:34 PM To:
kporter@rpof.org; Lindy Landreaux -- Political mailto:LLandreaux@rnchq.org
Miriam Moore -- Research/Communications mailto:MMoore@rnchq.org
Victoria Newton -- Research/Communications mailto:VNewton@rnchq.org
Shawn Reinschmiedt -- Research/Communications SReinschmiedt@rnchq.org
rkammerdiner@rnchq.org
sshiver@rpof.org
bdoster@georgewbush.org

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E-mails here, including those not related to caging, with full headers:
DEAD LETTER OFFICE
E-MAIL FROM THE GEORGEWBUSH.ORG "CATCH-ALL" MAILBOX
http://2004.georgewbush.org/deadletteroffice/headers.asp

and reduces it to whoever has the dirtiest tricks wins