Michael Tomasky on How the GOP Plans to Block the Black Vote

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/13/michael-tomasky-on-how-the-gop-plans-to-block-the-black-vote.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Fpolitics+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Politics%29


Michael Tomasky on How the GOP Plans to Block the Black Vote
by Michael Tomasky Aug 13, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

It happens every election: mysterious fliers, robocalls, malfunctioning machines that deny blacks the right to vote. Now the Republican Party has explicitly embraced the strategy.



I can’t identify too many threads that connect every single election I’ve ever covered. But one feature has been a constant through every election I’ve seen up close, from New York City Council elections to mayor to governor to senator to president: efforts to suppress the black vote, and, often enough, the Latino vote. I’ve seen the fliers, heard the robocalls, been at the polling places with the mysterious malfunctioning machines. No one ever knows exactly who does these things, and yet everyone generally knows Republicans. And now we may be getting some proof. Former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer said for the first time on national television Thursday—to Al Sharpton, no less!—that his party is up to its neck in denying citizens the right to vote.

Greer—and I should say up front he’s under indictment; more on that later—was deposed by lawyers for the state GOP in late May for a civil case that will likely be heard after his criminal trial. He was specific. At a December 2009 meeting, “the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting.” They also discussed—and this is lovely—how “minority-outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party.” But with Sharpton, he really cut loose: “There’s no doubt that what the Republican-led legislature in Florida and Governor Scott are trying to do is make sure the Republican Party has an advantage in this upcoming election by reducing early voting and putting roadblocks up for potential voters, Latinos, African-Americans to register and then to exercise their right to vote. There’s no doubt. I was in the room. It’s part of the strategy.”

He also shot down the rationale for the new Florida law, this ginned-up “voter fraud” business: “In three and a half years as chairman in Florida, I never had one meeting where voter fraud was discussed as a real issue effecting elections. Never one time...It’s a marketing tool. That’s clearly what it is. There’s no validity to it. We never had issues with it. The main purpose behind it is to make sure that what happened in 2008 never happens again.”

The party’s current leaders, whom for good measure he called “whack-a-doo, right-wing crazies,” say he’s lying, and naturally they note that his credibility is open to question. He’s accused of funneling party money to himself, about $125,000. He’ll stand trial sometime this fall. Obviously, we don’t know whether he’s guilty of that. But we do know that in every single election in this country where the black vote matters, these mysterious things happen in African-American neighborhoods in the run-up to the election and on Election Day itself. We never know exactly who does it, but it’s pretty self-evident that it isn’t Democrats.

snip//

It’s a sick and sickening situation, and it delegitimizes everything else about the Republican Party. I can understand how someone believes in limited government or low taxes. I can understand how someone could oppose affirmative action. I cannot understand how any individual can be anything other than abjectly ashamed to be associated with a political party so thuggish as to try to rig elections like this and then at its conventions have the gall to invoke Abraham Lincoln and hire lots of black people to sing and dance and smile, to make up for their absence among the attendees. A black mark indeed.

[BumRushDaShow]

1. It's sad that

Voting rights have been defined and enacted through 4 Constitutional Amendments reiterating that voting is a RIGHT (and Constitutional Amendments are definitely not an easy thing to obtain), along with multiple laws to try to enforce those rights, yet here we are once more.

Amendment XV
Section 1.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxv

Amendment XIX

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxix

Amendment XXIV
Section 1.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxiv

Amendment XXVI
Section 1.

The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.
Section 2.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxvi/

[Mr Dixon]

2. SMH

Madness but no surprise, crooks and liars, people need to stay informed and not get scammed out of their vote. Glad that the net is here making it easier to continue the flow of information, which I’m sure the GOP Clowns hate. This type of misinformation may have worked in the 60’s but they are going to have to work harder to fool the people in 2012.