Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Climbing a tree to tell a lie

... rather than standing on the ground and speaking the truth. That's your modern GOP hard at work. Here is Glenn Smith's expose' from HuffPo:

A right-wing group in Houston engaged in a systematic voter suppression and intimidation effort used a doctored photo in its showcase video. Tellingly, a hand-lettered sign carried by an African-American woman at a 2000 Florida, Gore-Lieberman recount rally was changed from, "Don't Mess With Our Vote," to read, "I Only Got to Vote Once."

Huffington Post editors first suspected the photoshopping after I posted "Possible Arson and the Right's Texas Voter Suppression Effort" regarding King Street Patriots' attacks on a nonprofit voter registration effort and the mysterious fire that destroyed all of Harris County's (Houston) voting machines.

In my regular Sunday FireDogLake column, I posted a follow-up piece, "Contempt for Democracy: Attacks on Voting Rights," that included a link to DigitalDupes.org, which had launched an effort to locate the original photo. Within hours, Newshounds found it.

In addition, a Gore/Lieberman sign was altered to read, "I'm With Stupid." Here is the doctored video as presented in King Street Patriots' video, followed by the original photographs.





In the video, King Street leader Catherine Engelbrecht says their effort is all about the truth, that they just want true, fair, honest elections. But if they are so committed to the truth, why did they use doctored photos? Why did they lie?

Because their real intent -- as it has been for similar voter suppression efforts for decades -- is to create barriers between the ballot box and the voters. They want to suppress the vote of people they suspect of opposing their agenda. In this case, as in most, that means assaulting the voting rights of the poor and minorities.

Now why would the Republicans bother with all of this cheating if they were actually as far ahead as the Lamestream Media bleats that they are? No, really; why?

Similar kinds of crap is happening everywhere.

Benjamin Pearcy, a candidate for statewide office in Arizona, lists his campaign office as a Starbucks. The small business he refers to in his campaign statement is him strumming his guitar on the street. The internal debate he is having in advance of his coming televised debate is whether he ought to gel his hair into his trademark faux Mohawk.

Pearcy, 20, is running for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission, which oversees public utilities, railroad safety and securities regulation. Although Mr. Pearcy says he is taking his first run for public office seriously, the political establishment here views him as nothing more than a political dirty trick.

Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats. Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates.

“These are people who are not serious and who were recruited as part of a cynical manipulation of the process,” said Paul Eckstein, a lawyer representing the Democrats. “They don’t know Green from red.”

The GOP has to recruit Greens to draw support away from Democrats in Arizona?!? Why, that's almost as ridiculous as their doing so in Texas. Oh, wait ...

Regarding Mr. Eckstein's quote at the end of the excerpt above, naturally our Greens in Texas sure can tell the difference, and they don't care. But that's a digression.

Why don't the Republicans just refocus their efforts? Why don't they try a little harder and come up with some fresh ideas to move the country forward instead of spending all this time, energy, and money on dirty tricks?

Because they can't help themselves; it's just their nature.

Sadder still, people actually do fall for it.  The Republicans constantly pull dirty tricks because it works.

I suppose if this mass delusion actually does manifest itself in November, then the people will get the kind of government they want. But what are the rest of us going to do?

Monday, September 06, 2010

Remember why (and who)

As many of us gather for parades, barbecues and festivities in honor of the many men and women -- past and present -- who toil day in and day out in hopes of a better life, let us not forget the 31 million who will be celebrating this Labor Day from the unemployment line.

Let us not forget that their burden is not theirs to carry alone. Let today serve as a reminder that the jobless are jobless through no fault of their own. They are casualties of the gravest recession since the Great Depression -- and they deserve our help.

They deserve a hand in the fight to get back to work. They deserve a decent paycheck -- not a meager unemployment benefit. They deserve to know where they'll be laying their head next month when the foreclosure notice shows up.

Neil also has some good historical posting for today.

Happy Labor Day (more in the sense of "Happy it's a paid federal holiday and we can sleep in!" than "Happy everything's super awesome on the labor front!").

From that socialist/communist hive of scum and villainy, the United States Department of Labor:

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. ... In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states---Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York---created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

But Tsk Tsk to Democratic President Grover Cleveland, who signed the bill only as an act of political make-up sex during election season after his tough tactics backfired during the Pullman strike. And to think I set up an Act Blue page for him.

Today we salute the working men and women of America.  All six of you.

Labor Day Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone is having a wonderful Labor Day weekend as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy takes a look at the positions of Chet Edwards and Bill Flores on energy, and finds it unlikely that leadership on the environment, clean energy, and climate change will come from Texas Congressional District 17. LoCS also covers the week in headlines.

WhosPlayin is watching the tax rate election for his local school district, where anonymous mailers are flying and things are not looking good for it to pass.

Libby Shaw is at again over at TexasKaos, exposing Republican puppetry of the rankest order. Who's pulling the strings? Check it out: Meet the GOP/Tea Party Billionaire Puppet Masters, Part 2.

This week at McBlogger, we take a look at Dick Armey and a really stupid fund manager who is pissy about finally being asked to pay the same taxes the rest of us pay.

Off the Kuff turned its attention to the state Senate this week, featuring interviews with state Sens. Rodney Ellis, John Whitmire, and Mario Gallegos.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders if anyone else is wary of the new ERCOT pricing scheme? Does anyone remember who the smartest guys in the room were?

Bay Area Houston believes that the Harris County voter registrar, Leo Vasquez, should resign before being indicted by the US Department of Justice.

The Harris County commissioners approved Clerk Beverly Kaufman's nearly $14 million emergency request for less than 25% of the necessary e-Slates to vote with, and she also included a rather large print order: 1.4 million paper ballots. PDiddie's Brains and Eggs has the details.

As Harris County Democrats draw a bead on the Republican attacks on legitimate voter registration drives and concern themselves with the county's response to the loss of all our voting machines in a fire, Neil at Texas Liberal had a brief Facebook exchange with Harris County Judge Ed Emmett on issues of election integrity.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

TDP sues Vasquez, he wails

Boyd Richie's statement:

“In 2008, the Texas Democratic Party was forced to take legal action in Federal Court to protect Harris County voters from the inappropriate, partisan actions of former Voter Registrar Paul Bettencourt, whose office rejected tens of thousands of legitimate voter registration applications.

When Leo Vasquez took office following Bettencourt’s sudden resignation after the 2008 election, he defended his predecessor’s actions. However, when the Texas Democratic Party presented the Court evidence of the serious misdeeds in the Harris County voter registration office, Vasquez ultimately agreed to a settlement, providing hope that those inappropriate practices had come to an end.

“Unfortunately, we believe Leo Vasquez violated the terms of our agreement last week, based on statements and information he distributed at a press conference that resembled a political pep rally. At that event, Vasquez made reckless accusations against a non-partisan organization based on a “review” of voter registration applications conducted by a group called “True the Vote.” In order to conduct such a review, Vasquez apparently provided the group access to the same applications he refused to provide the Texas Democratic Party last year, when he argued in Federal Court that such documents contained confidential information such as date of birth.

The DOJ is going to have to get involved down here.

“All Harris County residents should be deeply disturbed by how easily this office disregards election law and federal court orders and by how casually they distribute voters’ confidential information. Just last year, well-documented reports revealed that deputy voter registrar Ed Johnson was selling driver’s license information to Republican candidates as part of an illicit side-business with Republican state representative Dwayne Bohac.

“Given Mr. Vasquez’ actions last week, we have been forced to take legal action to make sure his office does not repeat the same kind of practices that denied almost 70,000 Harris County citizens the right to register and vote in 2008.”

Vasquez does have a response, but it isn't very calm or measured ...

“Houston Votes has taken off its non-partisan mask by sending in the Democratic Party machinery to fight its losing battle. They can’t deny the evidence this Office has put forward of their misdeeds; so, they try to divert attention by once again slandering this Office again.

“The Tax Office has, per the law, fully and completely processed each and every application that has been submitted to it, even those that evidence obvious questionability. It is our duty to refer that questionable work over to law enforcement.

“It is the Texas Democratic Party that is making reckless and baseless allegations. No third party group has been granted access to any confidential information of any voter outside of legal open records requests available to any citizen. We continue to zealously guard voter data.

“The Tax Office met today with representatives of the Democratic Party to discuss their concerns. However, the Democrats were not interested in discussing actual facts. As we have seen in the past, their lawsuit is just about political posturing.

John has called for Vasquez to step down. I concur.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Perry declines another DHS border security meeting

At first the reports read that Obama, while visitng El Paso's Fort Bliss yesterday, had turned down Perry's request to meet the president and discuss border security...

The Republican governor's spokeswoman said Perry's request for a presidential meeting to discuss border security was rebuffed. According to Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger, White House aides said the president would not be available for such a meeting. 

Now the media says Perry passed on a briefing with Homeland Security, just as he did three weeks ago.

The White House says Gov. Rick Perry was offered but declined to meet with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and a top adviser to President Barack Obama on border issues.

[...]


White House spokeswoman Moira Mack responded Tuesday by saying the Obama administration has directed unprecedented resources to the border since March 2009. Mack also says Perry declined a meeting with Napolitano and John Brennan, the president's top homeland security aide in the White House.

Overlook the obvious here; that Rick Perry isn't actually serious about "resolving border issues" (sic). No, Perry is so stupid that he doesn't realize he's missing a tremendous opportunity. See, he wants to demagogue the meeting with Obama; but he can't see he's skipping the chance to demagogue the meeting.

Governor: take the briefing with Napolitano. Then hold a press conference immediately after, declaring that the Obama administration isn't serious about border security since they ignore your letters and blow you off for face-to-faces (something you do quite well yourself). Be sure and point out how much 'they' hate Texas, and be sure not to say you -- for moaning about secession, for spitting on stimulus money while you accept the funds to balance the state budget, and all your other bullshit antics.

That's as wide an opening as they are going to give you to score points with your freak-right base, dude. And your score isn't going to be any higher if you just continue to lob water balloons at the president over this.

Take what they give you, dumbass.