Fixing the Game (The NYT is waking up!!)

[shraby]

The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government - even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.

There are sections of the Justice Department that are supposed to be dedicated to enforcing the laws that protect the rights of all Americans, not just Republican officeholders and the people who give them money. The Civil Rights Division, for example, has enforced anti-discrimination laws, including the sacred Voting Rights Act, since the 1960's, under more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.

But The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group's chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state's Congressional delegation. That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.

The Post said the lawyers charged with analyzing voting rights violations were overruled by political appointees, and ordered not to discuss the case. The Justice Department then approved the Texas plan, which had been under review because the voting law requires states with a history of discriminatory election practices to get electoral map changes approved in advance.

(more and WOW)

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05mon1.html>

[rman]

1. Let's see if they keep this up,

or if it's a one-off.

Just mentioning it once or twice isn't going to make a difference.

[Time for change]

2. Yeah, they seem to have a knack for getting away with just about anything

:(

[converted_democrat]

3. Holy crap---snip

snip-
Mr. Bush and his team don't understand that they merely hold the current majority in a system designed to bring periodic changes in the governing party and to protect the rights and values of the minority party. The idea that the winners should trash the system to make sure the democratic process ended with them was discredited back around the time of the Bolsheviks.

[WhiteTara]

4. now let's see if page one above

the fold mirrors the editorial page. I'm skeptical, but always hopeful.

[shraby]

5. If you click on the next op-ed at the bottom of the page

you'll find another one just as nice.

[WhiteTara]

10. thanks for the tip

:)

[mod mom]

6. Wake me up when they discuss the non partisan GAO Report on Electronic

Voting Machines and truly investigate what really happened in the past couple elections. The research is there they just have to print it:

The GAO recently released a 107 page scathing report on Electronic Voting Machines in our country. The report states that Electronic Voting Machines in the U.S. are NOT SECURE, NOT ACCOUNTABLE, NOT TRANSPARENT, NOT ACCURATE, AND ARE UNCERTIFIABLE. A bipartisan panel which included both Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Democratic Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) released a joint news release (a true rarity in these days of divisive politics) regarding his report, yet the main stream media has ignored it's important findings. Here is a link to the GAO Report:

http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05956high.pdf

[Gabi Hayes]

15. something along these lines?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5516027&mesg_id=5516027

[mod mom]

18. Yes, thank you. Bob and Harvey are my neighbors. Since the election

fraud was so apparent in our neck of the woods, we speak out against it. I would like to hear it in the MSM as well. The Freepress.org is great, where is the NYT or WaPo on this?

ps Fitrakis for OH Gov!

[tgnyc]

7. They are waking up. The same point was made on

this blog last week, but it's great to see the mainstream media connecting the dots and painting the larger picture.

[Peace Patriot]

8. We need front page headlines every day...

like they did for Bush's war, before I'll forgive them and grant them credibility once again:

Bushites Fix Elections

Bushites Fix More Elections

Bushites Fixed the 2000 Election

Bushites Fixed the 2002 Election

Bushites Fixed the 2004 Election!

Bushites control the two electronic voting firms that tabulate all votes with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIEATRY software

Tom Delay Bottled Up "Paper Trail" in Committee--no way to audit elections

What did Bob Ney have to do with compromising our election system? (Gambling tribe favor was set to go into the 'Help America Vote Act' as pork.)

Did Christopher Dodd get the e-voting scam idea from the Bilderberg Group?
(-and what did he tell John Kerry about the security of e-voting?)

The Electronic Voting Boondoggle: Both parties implicated in lavish lobbying, "revolving door" jobs, and other corruption

Who Counts Your Vote? How do they count it?

Ohio '05 election reform initiatives: 60/40 win flipped to 60/40 loss by the machines!
(Are machines--and their masters--now dictating election policy and preventing reform?)

Who decided to privatize U.S. elections?

Insecure, hackable, shoddy voting systems get top dollar from the states

Why did corporate news monopolies like us falsify their exit poll numbers in 2004 to match the results of the secret, proprietary vote tabulation?

Etc. Etc. Day after day after day, until we get our democracy back!

Come on, NYT! I know you've got it in you! Deep down there somewhere. Bad karma guilt for what you've done, and the need for recompense. We'll forgive you! Just DO YOUR JOB NOW!

[Rebelry]

9. So glad to see this hitting MSM

[Catherine Vincent]

11. Tom Delay

And remember when he sent homeland security airplanes to Oklahoma after the Democrats from Texas walked out?

[Trish1168]

12. In Mass, they accused the state (Boston) of discrimination. Motive?

We tend to have republican governors, and by extension, republican SoS's.

In any case, this sentence from the article is interesting...

<snip>
The Justice Department then approved the Texas plan, which had been under review because the voting law requires states with a history of discriminatory election practices to get electoral map changes approved in advance.
<snip>

Maybe they wanted to give the republicans the edge for gerrymandering in Massachusetts.

I wonder if there's been an increase in accusations of discrimination in the more liberal states.

[ananda]

13. Implicit in BushInc's policies ..

.. is the notion that citizenship does not apply to many people... and the really scary thing is that those people either don't realize it or don't protest.

[AX10]

14. Waking up, yes. But they are still guilty for pushing....

the lies of this administration into the public.

[cassiepriam]

16. They were supposed to be working for us, not themselves.

[rucky]

17. They're following, not leading.

this story's been out for a couple of days now.