LOOK At What's In The E-Mails - Yet Another Lie - NOT Just Another Rogue Operator

However, Moschella's e-mails suggest that he discussed the need for proposed changes with other Justice Department officials on Nov. 11, 2005, around the time when the bill was being drawn up.

"We support eliminating the court's role" in appointing interim U.S. attorneys, Moschella wrote to officials, including Michael Battle, the director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, "and believe the AG should have that authority alone."

The latest scandal rocking the Bush administration has its provenance in the issue of alleged "voter fraud." The original intention to fire 93 US attorneys and the eventual dismissal of seven of them was largely based on questions of political loyalty. The apparent litmus test for said loyalty was the willingness or lack thereof for prosecuting cases of so-called "voter fraud." Those who showed promise for prosecuting so-called "voter fraud" were considered "loyal" to the Bush Republican regime, and those who didn't, were not.
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One should note the White House and Justice emphasis on voter fraud, as opposed to election fraud. The distinction is not a minor one. Voter fraud places the blame for election scandals on so-called felonious and 'dead' voters whose votes are reputedly cast for Democrats. These felons and dead-men-voting are the old boogie men of Republican rhetoric regarding elections.

Election fraud, on the other hand, might include organizational, party-level, state-collusive manipulation and/or purging of voter rolls, the failure to count or the miscounting of ballots, the destruction of ballots, the failure to recount ballots when legally required to do so by state laws, the illegal use of election facilities for party purposes, the state-sanctioned targeting of precincts for faulty or inadequate amounts of equipment, and of course, the manipulation of electronic voting machine tabulations.
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What then could be the reason for the White House's and Justice's emphasis on voter fraud? Might it have been means by which to distract attention away from the systemic and well-documented election scandals of the past six years? Might it have been a form of retribution against Democrats for the well-founded accusations, lingering anger and outrage, and possible investigations regarding the last two presidential "elections" that resulted in utterly discredited results-the "elections" of GW Bush? Might the attempt to replace US Attorneys have been an attempt to refocus any possible future investigations toward VOTER as opposed to the well-known and utterly outrageous practices of ELECTION fraud undertaken by Republican party operatives during the Rove era?
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The first meeting of the Baker-Carter election commission was disappointing and, at times, outrageous and tainted with racially-charged innuendo. Let me make absolutely clear that I greatly admire former President Jimmy Carter and believe he was insightful and on-target throughout the hearing. However, given the incredible lack of balance and profound lack of good faith demonstrated by some of Carter’s fellow commissioners and many of the witnesses at this hearing, at times he seemed to be a very lonely voice of sanity.

The remarks of Mr. James Baker, III, which were echoed by a number of right wing political operatives called as witnesses, seemed to have a singular purpose of spreading hoaxes and conspiracy theories about ineligible Democratic voters being allowed to cast votes. The remedy was cleverly repeated like a broken record, “photo ID, photo ID, photo ID.” Right wing pundit John Fund was called as an “expert” witness by the hearing and offered racially charged proposals with racially charged rhetoric.

The substance of the testimony alleging “voter fraud” was a fraud itself. One panel on “access and integrity” inexplicably included two partisan Republican political operatives, Colleen McAndrews (most recently a leader in the successful campaign to recall former California Governor Gray Davis and described as a “behind the scenes force in Republican politics for years”) and John Fund (of the notoriously far-right Wall Street Journal editorial page). Fund’s Wall Street Journal Editorial Page once promoted bizarre claims that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton had participated in a cover-up involving the death of former White House Counsel Vince Foster. Today, his hoax appears to have shifted to claims of “voter fraud” (though I am sure he would say Senator Clinton is responsible for that, as well). The remedy, per Fund and McAndrews, – restrictions on provisional ballots and new voter identification requirements.

At the outset, Mr. Fund laid bare the nasty, racial underbelly of these proposals. The right-wing has been long engaged in tactics to suppress minority votes, but rarely lets slip about such tactics, as Fund did today. In a discussion about provisional ballots, Mr. Fund said that Congress should allow precinct workers to determine whether a provisional ballot should count because they would know who “looks as if they belong in the neighborhood.” Wonder what he meant by that?

But we don’t have to wonder what effect the discarding of provisional ballots would have on voters, particularly those that are racial minorities. As detailed in the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff’s report Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio?, the Republican Governor of Ohio rightly predicted that such a rule would result in discarding 100,000 valid votes. In one county alone, 1,100 eligible voters, who voted the correct ballot in the wrong precinct, had their ballots discarded. Fund wants to bring Blackwell’s tactics to the rest of the country so what went wrong in Ohio, can go right for Republicans across the country.
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For a moment, I was encouraged when someone appeared to have bumped the phonograph and the broken record of “voter id” suddenly stopped. Instead, a new broken record began repeating “no voter verified paper ballot, no voter verified paper ballot, no voter verified paper ballot.”

On a panel supposedly designed to address “voting technology,” only one of the four witnesses, Professor David Dill, spoke of the need for a voter verified paper ballot. Two of the witnesses on this panel spoke in total opposition to such a proposal.

The pattern of the hearing was clear: Republican political operatives, with little or no track record of involvement in voting rights issues, facing non-partisan advocates for civil rights. Predictably, this hardly was a fair fight. The deck was stacked from the beginning.

What can be said of a commission that holds such a hearing? What hope is there for the recommendations of such a Commission? I am scheduled to meet with Commission officials this week and I am trying very hard to have an open mind. But, frankly, at this point – seeing this first hearing – I think we should all be very wary of this Commission’s objectives.