SLATE CALLS FOR SUBPOENAS, SLAMS CORPORATE MEDIA FOR IGNORING VOTE CAGING STORY

[redacted]

<snip>

If the media have fallen down on this story, how much more so has Congress? Nobody tried to press Goodling about what McNulty allegedly knew and withheld from Congress in regard to Griffin's alleged vote-caging schemes. I'd be interested in the answer. I'd also like to hear what Griffin himself has to say about those lists the BBC has. If the RNC was paying good money to send registered mail to homeless black men in Florida, there must have been a reason for it. Griffin, after all, has left his Arkansas post and is looking for work. (Tim, if Sen. Thompson is a no-go, I need a babysitter next Saturday!) I bet he'd like nothing better than to clear his name and remove the taint of voter suppression from his résumé.

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.

http://www.slate.com/id/2167284/pagenum/all/#page_start

[snot]

1. K&R'd nt

[KT2000]

2. K & R

Let's go with this!!

[orleans]

3. k&r n/t

[caligirl]

4. Was the USattorney Patriot Act provision inserted intentionally as part

of the entire plan to subvert the 2008 election. They planned the caging, Griffin conducts it, rove gets him in to the Ark USA seat knowing he won't have to pass Senate confirmation, its all so neat and tidy.

[redacted]

5. Excellent point.

[acmavm]

8. I think so. I think they started planning for this right after the 2000 coup.

They couldn't rely strictly on hacking the voting machines. Wally Diebold's big mouth blew that one (that and the fact that not everyone was stupid enough to think that the Supreme Court had the right to decide the election instead of the people). KKKarl is a long-term planner. The guy's undoubtedly already made some moves towards the next election, but who knows what they are. Maybe shutting them down (ala bush**s signing statements giving him power of all three branches of government in the event of a 'catastrophic' national event, whatever that may be).

Something's up. That is the one damn thing you can bet on.

[EFerrari]

11. Somehow we need to keep working on the watchdog infrastructure.

It worked to a degree in 2006, imo.

[Chemical Bill]

23. I can't help thinking...

that they let us have 2006 so that we'd become complacent. Plus they'd have a Democratic congress to share the blame.

Bill

[EFerrari]

30. Several (many?) of us have had the same thought.

You're not alone.

[Hubert Flottz]

26. Congress needs to Waterboard Karl under oath!

[tblue37]

35. Evil people do not surrender power easily, especially

when there is possibility that they might have to answer for the crimes they committed while in power.

[flyarm]

37. they did caging in florida!! eom

[indepat]

17. Everything 'pukes do is to subvert something sacred to our founding principles

[Hubert Flottz]

28. There is a great reason for that...

They know they are losers in a fair game, every time.

[indepat]

31. Right on. Our country is a big loser for almost every 'puke on a national level and almost

every one of their supporter and enablers.

[Cobalt-60]

38. Mouth of Newt said just that to Bill Clinton

[bjobotts]

21. They already succeeded 2000 & 2004

And the USA Griffin appointment was a reward.
BTW...The WH staff would just ignore subpoenas just like Rice has. A corrupt and politicized DoJ will not enforce them.
Besides, it would interfere with the ongoing "internal" investigation already in progress (being conducted by Bush appointees and loyalists).
The capitol police are no match for the SS in the WH or the FBI in the DoJ.
See what I mean. Bush/Cheney/Rove/Miers/Rice/Gonzales are all just laughing their asses off while Congress continues to "gum it to death".
The constitution requires "brave" men to defend it and one man (Kucinich) cannot do it alone. Impeachment IS the only answer and Congress just keeps saying it's a waste of time because they don't have the votes. A brave man knows the votes would come because there is just too much corruption that would come out that could not be ignored. Sure, a vote tomorrow wouldn't get it done but after 3mos of investigation from a special prosecutor no one would be able to safely vote against it. Unfortunately, congress is good at ignoring the will of the people or in being unwilling to take a political chance to stand up for our constitution.

[eridani]

6. Write to your state DNC members

They have a voter protection committee--let's make them put some teeth in it.

[Duppers]

7. I wish I didn't have this sinking feeling

How many times have we cheered 'this is it' only to be let down.

Of course, they were involved in caging; stupid blondie even said so. But unless there's great interest in this in congress, and unless there's a followup with a Special Prosecutor, and unless there's hard evidence in Palast's emails, nothing will even begin to happen. Look at how much hard evidence our last SP Fitzpatrick had on Plame's outing, but Scooter is only going to spend time for perjury and he's looking to get out of that. And Rove didn't even have to testify! That case has collapsed and it should have been about treason, not perjury!

Sigh. We're losing our democracy!

on edit--I just slapped myself a few times. Now I'm going to forward the Slate link to my congress critters offices and keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks for posting that article; I read the whole thing. Dahlia Lithwick is on target.

[redacted]

19. Thanks Duppers. I think this article could be a real turning point

IF we aggressively and QUICKLY distribute it to the right people.

[salin]

9. Everytime any GOPer repeats the VoteFraud this should be

brought up. Pure Rove - but instead of his old MO - go after an opponents strength do nasty whisper campaigns and worse and turn the strength into a liability - he steps it up a notch - go directly to vote fraud (in this case obstruction of voting rights) while turning the "issue" into a weapon to use against democrats by repeating it enough to create the image in the public's mind that vote fraud is a democratic party "dirty trick". Ala blunt the charge so noone is looking at their bad actions per the real vote fraud.

[EFerrari]

10. Where is Mr. Conyers on this story? n/t

[Lochloosa]

12. Here is your answer

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2866263

[EFerrari]

13. Thank you. nt

[seemslikeadream]

14. Vote caging is an illegal trick to suppress minority voters

calling Fredda Weinberg, where are you?

[radfringe]

15. all the more reason for us to talk it up

e-mail, phone calls etc. to the MSM-puppies and ask them why they aren't covering this

especially since Griffin has resigned as AG and is reportedly going to work for Fred Thompson's campaign... might be a good time to ask Thompson if he has caging lists prepared?

[Supersedeas]

16. not a single backbone to be found in the Corp Media Establishment

[acmavm]

20. Or in our side of the aisle in the House or the Senate.

[Dinger]

18. I Forget, What Is "Vote Caging"?

I plead ignorance, sorry :-(

[redacted]

22. This article provides the most succinct vote caging explanation I've seen so far:

Here's the excerpt:

Vote caging is an illegal trick to suppress minority voters (who tend to vote Democrat) by getting them knocked off the voter rolls if they fail to answer registered mail sent to homes they aren't living at (because they are, say, at college or at war). 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 of the wickedly funny Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans—Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. Palast started reporting allegations of Republican vote caging for the BBC's Newsnight in 2004. He's been almost alone on the story since then. Palast contends, both in Armed Madhouse and widely through the liberal blogosphere, that vote caging, an illegal voter-suppression scheme, happened in Florida in 2004 this way:

The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and—you got to love this—American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.

Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation—and the soldiers were overseas.

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. They also contained suggestively named spreadsheets, headed "caging" as well. The names on the lists are what Palast's researchers deemed to be homeless men and soldiers deployed in Iraq. Here are the e-mails.

As Palast points out—and Griffin himself has observed—the American media barely touched this story, and Griffin has yet to explain the e-mails or the lists. He did tell The New Yorker's Jane Mayer last March that "caging is not a derogatory term. ... t's a direct-mail term. It derives from caging categories of mail in steel shelves and files." Still, that hardly explains why he was allegedly caging only transient African-American voters in those shelves or files, which would likely violate the Voting Rights Act.

[redacted]

24. Vote caging is also a lawbreaking triple-play. Here's how:

Caging as practiced in this situation is extremely illegal in all states. It is vote fraud, election fraud, and a Federal Voting Rights Act violation rolled up into a single crime. Palast made this point live on the NovaM radio network last Saturday afternoon.

And when the Loyola Law School professor quoted in the article says that Griffin's activities deserve further investsigation, that has to be the biggest understatement in the last 50 years of American jurisprudence. I can't understand why Congress isn't swarming all over this story demanding multiple immediate investigations. Palast says he thinks the issue went right over the heads of the committee members. But many of these folks are lawyers, some are very good ones, and they can't be that stupid that they don't understand the issue. I don't get it.

[Qutzupalotl]

25. Illegal vote suppression of a specific group

i.e., minorities

[Ganja Ninja]

27. No more threats. No more negotiations.

Just draw up the subpoenas and serve them. We're wasting time dealing with these people.

[redacted]

29. Folks, have you contacted your reps or member of the CBC to publicize this yet?

******This is a crosspost of some excellent work by DUer Bushfire from about an hour ago:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2866263&mesg_id=2866797

Want to see Karl Rove frog marched? Here's your challenge...

from gregpalast.com , and his excellent article on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom:

"(Monica) Goodling testified that Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin’s “involvement in ‘caging’ voters” in 2004."

We should be safe to assume if Congress would subpoena Tim Griffin there would be a good chance he'd plea bargain a felony conviction, and spill the beans on Rove if the orders to cage minorities came from Karl.

Your challenge? Contact your reps (both Senators and congresscritter) to read the emails Greg Palast gave to John Conyers. The legwork is done my friends. It's up to us to push it through. Greg Palast cannot do it all by himself. As of this morning there were at least 3 threads on the greatest page regarding Greg's work. If you've yet to read it, please go here:

http://www.gregpalast.com/index.php

If anyone has the tollfree number to congress, please post it below. I called using my daytime minutes on my cellphone today to D.C. I didn't want any delay if my representatives happen to be in DC now. If you live in a red state, or district please contact a member or two of the Congressional Black Caucus with this info. You can find a member here: http://www.house.gov/kilpatrick/cbc/member_info.html

Let's start with subpoena's for Kyle Sampson and Tim Griffin. Karl Rove should follow.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x473095

[Cetacea]

32. K+R

Thank you!

[L. Coyote]

33. Slowly, the Ozark Stonewall of Myriad Deceptions is Crumbling

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?

=====================================
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. .......

[babsbunny]

34. I sent tis to my local news channel

Thanks!

[redacted]

36. More BBC video reports from Greg Palast here:

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=Greg+Palast&x=0&y=0&scope=all&edition=d&tab=av&recipe=all

[redacted]

39. VIDEO: TONIGHT'S SONG DEDICATED TO RESIGNED U.S. ATTORNEY TIM GRIFFIN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-xVb1qsPCw

[proud patriot]

40. I'm listening to Palast on Randi's show today

talking about his meeting with Conyers ..