The Republican voter fraud hoax

The Republican voter fraud hoax


Donald Duck and the Dallas Cowboys won't steal the election for Obama. Acorn's only crime is registering Democratic voters

Barack Obama and the Democrats are stealing the election. Massive voter fraud is being carried out, even as we speak, by their henchmen, known by the innocuous sounding Association for Community Organisations for Reform Now, or Acorn. Clever bastards.

The only problem? Despite the screaming wall-to-wall coverage of "Democratic voter fraud in 11 swing states" as seen on Fox News and even the once-respectable CNN, none of it's true. None of it.

In just the last week, we've had a phoney stunt raid in swing state Nevada (where Acorn had been cooperating with officials for months, concerning problem canvassers they'd long ago fired); a Republican election official in swing state Missouri tell Fox News that she's being beseiged with fraudulent registration forms from Acorn (in a county where they've not done any registration work since August); a Republican sheriff in swing state Ohio, who, the very next day, suddenly requested the names and addresses of hundreds of early voters (with evidence of exactly zero wrong doing, but lots of Democratic-leaning college student in the particular county, and John McCain's state campaign chair as a partner in the investigation); and a screaming front page headline in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post about a guy who claims he was somehow tricked by Acorn into registering 72 times (but read the article closely to note he says he registered at the same address each time, which, even if true, would allow him - you guessed it - precisely one legal vote.)

It's an old Republican scam, but it's never been carried out with more zeal than this year. The Republicans have been putting so much time, money and resources into the propaganda leading up to this over the last four years, we should have expected no less.

As luck would have it, the Democrats have a man who, as an attorney years ago, actually had the temerity to join the US department of justice in representing Acorn in a successful lawsuit, forcing the state of Illinois to follow the law by allowing citizens to register to vote at the department of motor vehicles. What a scoundrel.

That, of course, was before the department of justice, under George Bush's corrupt command, would itself become politicised by the very Republicans so desperate to keep low-income voters from voting, that they were willing to fire their own US attorneys for failing to bring phoney charges of voter fraud in key swing states like Nevada and Missouri.

So what are the crimes that have caused all the Sturm und Drang on US television and talk radio, and in several otherwise respectable newspapers and even by the McCain campaign itself?

The only actual crime here is that Acorn managed to register some 1.3m low-income (read: Democratic-leaning) voters over the past two years. The rest is, pretty much, just made up.

But in the bloody and desperate trenches of the Republican war on democracy, that's more than enough to kick in a last minute surge of lies that may - with the help of a compliant and lazy corporate US media - wreak enough havoc, scare enough voters, confuse enough people and plant enough seeds to call an Obama victory into doubt on November 4.

If you can't win it, steal it. If you can't steal it, claim the other guy stole it. If you can't claim the other guy stole it (yet), say they're about to and then kick up smoke that maybe someone will believe you. (Heckuva job, CNN.)

Here are the facts. Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can't authenticate the registration, or it's incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic ("fraudulent", "incomplete", et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law. In almost every case where you've heard about fraud by Acorn, it's because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that's been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers. Most officials who run to the media screaming "Acorn is committing fraud" know all of the above but don't bother to share those facts with the media they've run to. None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it's voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.

You'll hear that Donald Duck, Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and (new this year) the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team have all had fraudulent registrations submitted in their names. That's true. And we know this, why? Because Acorn told officials about it when they followed the law and turned in those registrations, flagged as fraudulent.

What you won't hear is that federal law requires anybody who does not register to vote in person at the county office to show an ID when they go to vote the first time. So, unless Donald Duck shows up with his ID, he won't be voting this November. You needn't worry, no matter how much even John McCain himself cynically and dishonourably tries to mislead you.

If it quacks like a duck, in this case, it's likely another Republican Acorn voter fraud lie. They haul it out every two years.

Just days before the 2004 presidential election, rightwing whack job Michelle Malkin claimed that Acorn was registering terrorists to vote in swing state Ohio. Problem was, that was a lie.

In 2006, again just days before the election, the new US attorney in swing state Missouri (recently appointed, since the one before him refused to bring such charges), filed voter fraud indictments against Acorn workers in the state. Problem was, bringing election-related indictments that close to an election was a violation of the department of justice's own written policy. And Acorn had nothing to do with it, other than turning in the employees to officials.

Getting the picture? It's a hoax. All of it.

But it's been an effective one, as it's served to distract from very real concerns about tens of thousands of voters who have been illegally purged from the voting rolls in dozens of states, as the New York Times reported in a remarkable front page investigative story. That story followed a report the week before from CBS News detailing still more wholesale purges of voting rolls in some 20 states.

That will be the November surprise, when thousands, if not millions show up to vote only to find they are no longer welcome to do so and are forced to vote on a "provisional ballot" which may or may not be counted.

These real concerns of election fraud, such as voting roll purges, electronic voting machines that don't work and so much more that actually matters, have been obscured by the smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand of the Republican party's phoney Acorn voter fraud charade.

And where they can, they'll parlay it all into new photo ID restrictions at the polls (knowing full well that some 20m, largely Democratic-leaning voters don't own the type of ID they'd need to jump over that next Republican hurdle.)

Yet, with all of the unsubstantiated, wholly bogus claims of voter fraud being carried out by Democrats, there remains at least one case of absolutely ironclad, documented, yet still-unprosecuted case of voter fraud that, for some reason, Republicans don't much like to talk about.

We can only wonder why.

From Times Online

October 21, 2008

Iraqi MPs demand changes to US troop withdrawal agreement

Deborah Haynes in Baghdad

The Iraqi Cabinet dealt a blow today to a draft agreement to allow US forces to stay in Iraq beyond the end of the year, demanding changes to the document to make it more acceptable.

The nature of the amendments were not specified, but Iraqi MPs said there are concerns about the lack of a guaranteed date for US forces to withdraw. Another worry is whether Iraqi courts would in practice be able to try US soldiers who commit serious crimes. There are even gripes about differing interpretations in parts of the US and the Arabic versions of the draft accord.

The Cabinet's decision, following a five-and-a-half-hour meeting, is a major setback for the Bush administration, which wants to seal the accord before a United Nations Security Council mandate, authorising the presence of foreign forces in the country, expires on December 31.

It is also a problem for Britain, which aims to base its status of forces agreement with Baghdad on the US-Iraq pact.

Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi Government spokesman, said: "The Cabinet has agreed that necessary amendments to the pact could make it nationally accepted."

Ministers would continue to discuss the issue over the coming days, he said, adding that they "will give their opinions and consult and provide the amendments suggested. Then this will be given to the American negotiating team". No timeframe was offered on when this would happen.

The draft text, which sets out a conditions-based timeline for US troops to pull out of cities by next summer and leave Iraq by the end of 2011, had only last week been described as a "final draft" following months of tense negotiations.

The demand for changes further delays the approval process, throwing into question whether an agreement will be finalised by the year-end deadline. The deal should originally have been struck by the end of July. Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, was quoted saying that it would not be approved by Parliament, which has the final say, before the US election on November 4.

As a last resort, Iraq can go to the United Nations to request an emergency extension of the mandate to buy more time -- an option that the United States does not favour.

Revealing the extent of concern about the accord, Humam Hamoudi, a leading member of parliament from the majority Shia alliance, said Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, was among those voicing doubts in recent days.

"The Prime Minister said: what [the Americans] have given with the right hand they have taken away with the left hand," Mr Hamoudi told a news conference. "For example, they said the US forces will withdraw from towns by June 2009 if the security situation permits that. But who will decide that?"

Another problem was translation. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish MP, said there were different interpretations of certain sections written in Arabic and English. Demands have been made for the Arabic and US translations of the text to match more accurately, he added.

Kurdish MP Adil Barwari, a member of the defence and security committee in the Iraqi Parliament, said that MPs were also worried about the chance of Iraqi territory being used to threaten neighbouring countries, something that US officials stress would never be the case.

"In addition, there is some ambiguity about some of the articles and we want clarifications from the American side. For example how will a US soldier be held accountable by Iraqi courts when they commit a crime outside their bases," he told The Times.

The only way a US service member could face an Iraqi judge, according to the draft agreement, would be if he or she committed a grave offence while off-duty and off-base.

Mr Barwani, like most Kurdish MPs, however, supports the pact in its current form, noting that he wanted "to have it today better than tomorrow".

Admiral Michael Mullen, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iraq needed the accord because its military "will not be ready to provide for their security".

He added: "In that regard there is great potential for losses of significant consequence."

In a show of force against the pact at the weekend, tens of thousands of Iraqi followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shia cleric, marched through the streets of Baghdad , demanding that US forces leave the country now.

Iran, which has a close relationship with Iraq's Shia-led Government, is also opposed to the deal. General Ray Odierno, the new commander of US forces in Iraq, has accused Tehran of offering bribes to Iraqi politicians to vote against the accord. His comments to the Washington Post were later clarified to stress that he did not mean Iraqi MPs accepted the bribes.

All this after the following article days earlier:

Oct 16 Time Online.

US bows to Iraqi demands over troop withdrawal

(Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters)

If a deal is not reached by December 31, US troops will have no legal status

America appeared to bow to demands by Baghdad about the future status of its troops in Iraq yesterday, apparently agreeing that they must leave the country in three years’ time and could face prosecution in an Iraqi court if they broke the law.

According to US and Iraqi officials, negotiators from the two sides have agreed the wording of a draft document that will redefine radically the relationship between the 150,000 US forces and their Iraqi hosts.

The deal, yet to be approved by Iraqi leaders, the Cabinet and parliament, must be in place by December 31, when the existing UN Security Council mandate expires.

An agreement between the two sides would open the way for a separate arrangement to allow 4,000 British Forces and other smaller coalition members to remain in Iraq.

The US State Department confirmed that a “text” was being considered but that it was not finalized. “Nothing is done until everything is done. Everything isn’t done,” a spokesman said. “The Iraqis are still talking among themselves. We are still talking to the Iraqis. The process is not complete.”

The document stipulates that US forces must be out of Iraqi cities by mid-2009 and leave the country altogether by the end of 2011, unless the Iraqis ask them to stay. “The withdrawal will be achieved in three years,” Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said. “In 2011 the government at that time will determine whether it needs a new pact or not, and what type of pact will depend on the challenges it faces.”

By far the most contentious issue is the question of immunity, which American forces and Pentagon civilian contractors currently enjoy. Mr al-Dabbagh said that from January 1 Iraq would be able to prosecute US troops if they committed crimes outside their bases while off duty or on unauthorised missions. They could be held under US custody but would have to appear for questioning by Iraqi investigators and for trial in an Iraqi court.

Iraqis have been enraged by a series of atrocities committed by US forces, who in their eyes appeared to get away with murder. In the most notorious case a 14-year-old girl was raped and killed by US paratroopers and three members of her family murdered in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Four soldiers have pleaded guilty in a US court and a fifth, Steven Dale Green, is due to stand trial next year.

If a deal is not in place by the end of the year, US forces would have no legal status and would be confined to barracks until they could be withdrawn. The other alternative is simply to roll over the UN Security Council resolution, though Washington is concerned that a more assertive Russia could wield its veto to block the move.

While an agreement now seems more likely, it is by no means sure. Hardline Iraqi Sunni and Shia Muslim groups, who want all foreign forces out of the country immediately, are expected to vote against the agreement. Iran, which wields considerable influence in Iraq, is also lobbying hard for a “no” vote.

The new agreement reflects the increasingly prominent role played by the 600,000 Iraqi soldiers and police in securing their country. However, American firepower, particularly in the air, remains a decisive weapon in the battle against the insurgency.

Yesterday US forces claimed to have killed Abu Qaswarah, a Moroccan national and al-Qaeda’s second in command in Iraq, after a raid on a house in the northern city of Mosul.

Later the Swedish police said that a Swedish man of Moroccan origin, who had links to al-Qaeda’s leadership, was also killed in northern Iraq in a firefight with American forces.