VOTE MACHINE - How Republicans hacked the Justice Department (Scott Horton)

[kpete]

VOTE MACHINE - How Republicans hacked the Justice Department
From the mailbag - Josh Mittledorf sends us this story from Harper's Magazine (PDF link to full story below):

The March edition of Harper's magazine has an important article by Scott Horton, documenting ways in which the Bush Justice Dept has been taken over for the purpose of tilting election results. The article mentions tampering with vote counts only in passing, but it takes a broad historic view and sounds appropriate alarms.

Excerpts:

For a long time now, the president's party has had the odd tic of projecting its own intentions onto its political enemies, and it seems to b project most intensely those desires it holds most dear. For instance, Republicans have decried the "big government" tendencies of "nanny state" liberals, even as they themselves have massively expanded the scope of the federal government... The 2000 GOP platform was openly contemptuous in its assessment of the Clinton Justice Department:

The rule of law, the very foundation for a free society, has been under assault, not only by criminalsfrom the ground up, but also from the top down. An administration that lives by evasion, cover-up,stonewalling, and duplicity has given us a totally discredited Department of Justice. The credibility of those who now manage the nation's top law enforcement agency is tragically eroded.

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

The first priority of the Justice Department, of course...was helping Republicans at the polls at eleciton time. One of the ways the department woujld accomplish this was by restaffing the branch primarily responsible for making sure Americans are allowed access to the ballot box--the Civil Rights Division--so that it would work actively to prevent minoritis fromvoting. The staff then in place would fight such a subversion with considerable institutional wile, which was why they had to be replaced...

If the theory (of Don Siegelman's prosecution) were to be applied uniformly, many in the Bush Administration would now be in prison. George W Bush singled out 146 individuals who gave ror gathered $100,000 (to his actual political campaign) for appointment to far more desirable postings as ambassadors, cabinet officers, or members of the transition team. No a single one of these appointments triggered a Justice Department investigation...

............
much more at:
http://mathforum.org/~josh/Horton-Harpers08Mar-PoliticizingJustice.pdf
http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/5458

[acmavm]

1. There is no 'Justice' Department. There is a bunch of criminals who belong

to a clique that we can call 'The Department Formerly Known as Justice'.

[ray of light]

2. Hair standing on end yet? It's not just about the republicans. It's about the

corporate interests that keep the republicans in power.

Also..think on this....

In January 2004, under the Help America Vote Act of 2000, the four commissioners of HAVA were FINALLY sworn in! Nine months before the 'most important election...' and the group that was suppose to protect peoples' right to vote was finally sworn in.

Then in Nov. 2004, guess where those HAVA commissioners were...

If you guessed anywhere that wasn't one of the 13 'swing states' then you guessed correctly!

[truedelphi]

3. error: Already recommended this thread.

Deserves two from me.

i have been trying unsuccessfully to get some action taken on the fact that the Marin County registrar of Voters employs a woman who goes around and disrupts the activities of voting rights activists on election day.

In Early January 2005 when I first tried to get the DA's office to help me, the detective they offered me was very sympathetic, but he said that any reports and complaints of felonious activity at the polls had to be reported tot he local San Francisco CA FBI.

ANd they of course were disinterested.

Now it comes out in an organized way - the re-organization of the non-political agencies into an arm of the Bush administrtion and the Republican Party.

[L. Coyote]

4. K & R & Impeach two too + "hacked" seems wrong. Overthrow fits better

and goes better with Junta.

[Peace Patriot]

5. "The article mentions tampering with vote counts only in passing..."

What's the mention?