McClatchy: White House sought investigations of voter fraud allegations before elections

[babylonsister]

:popcorn:

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17208198.htm

White House sought investigations of voter fraud allegations before elections
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Only weeks before last year's pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators.

In two instances in October 2006, President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, or his deputies passed the allegations on to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.

Sampson tapped Gonzales aide Matthew Friedrich, who'd just left his post as chief of staff of the criminal division. In the first case, Friedrich agreed to find out whether Justice officials knew of "rampant" voter fraud or "lax" enforcement in parts of New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and report back.

But Friedrich declined to pursue a related matter from Wisconsin, he told congressional investigators, because an inquiry so close to an election could inappropriately sway voting results. Friedrich decided not to pass the matter on to the criminal division for investigation, even though Sampson gave him a 30-page report prepared by Republican activists that made claims of voting fraud.

more...

[The Count]

1. All them fiends risking jail just so they could....vote?????Who does this?

I guess they must be related to the women who decide to have an abortion in the last trimester - just for laughs....
Their "social problems" are absurd prima faciae.

[spindrifter]

2. A heavily redacted copy

of 3 pages of Friedrich's testimony transcript is posted on the House Judiciary Committee website:
www.judiciary.house.gov.

I would like to see the entire transcript...

[Peace Patriot]

3. Boy, as I said in another thread, if McClatchy keeps this up, they'll have people reading

newspapers again!

These are some fired up reporters! Read the whole article!

---------------

Here's the other thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x865131

[babylonsister]

4. I know! They're doing a fine job! nt

[omega minimo]

5. "McClatchy" joined the national news blackout of voters election fraud concerns about 11-2-04

with a vicious, vitriolic editorial in the Sacramento Bee (flagship McClatchy paper) on Nov. 6, 2004 demonizing and attacking anyone who dared question that week's Bush Re-Selection results. Irresponsible and unforgiveable.

That nationwide effort put the muzzle on the American people, who were told to "get over it" and 'move on" and forget that Bush was not elected-- twice. Move along, nothing to see here.

The editorial was heavy-handed and threatening and played the "traitor" card.... don't ask any questions, don't even think about it, or YOU are suspect, unpatriotic, a traitor to your nation.

These attacks from editors against their communities and the blackout of any real stories on election fraud led the people by the nose to start talking about "next time" instead of raise a clamor about what had just happened.

"Next time" is coming. Are we ready? What has been done to provide free and fair and verifiable elections? (Thank you Deborah Bowen).

Democrats are running 2 years early for "next time." So they don't have to deal with RIGHT NOW. With what the Re-Selection of 2004 has brought. Impeachment is "off the table." Democrats are on the campaign trail. The Constitution is in the toilet.

Thank you, McClatchy. Not.

:thumbsdown:




edit:

Jan. 2005: THANK YOU BARBARA BOXER :yourock:


(if Barack was the Magic Anything, he would have stood up with BB) :hi:

[Peace Patriot]

6. Yeah, I remember that Sacto editorial. The Sacto Bee is a shit rag. Doesn't mean

I can't praise individual reporters on a McClatchey news item, or a trend I see there toward better journalism. I like to encourage it where I see it. I was very worried when Knight-Ridder got swallowed up, that we had lost the ONLY good news service in the country (not evenly good, but generally good, especially on the Iraq War). They were IT. And I've been heartened to see some of the Knight-Ridder investigative fire still survives. But I never included the Sacto Bee in my admiration of K/R. They are utterly unreliable and bad--disgustingly so. So, too, the Miami Herald, on Latin American issues. They did some pretty good reporting on the FTA protests (exposing police brutality, for instance). But on Latin America in general--and especially on the new leftist movement that is sweeping South America--they are just awful. (I read somewhere that they were directly threatened by the anti-Castro Cuban mafia, which now heavily influences their coverage.)

Please don't get me wrong. I think I'm fairly well-informed about the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and I realize that, even if they start doing some real journalism, on selective subjects, their motive (CEO motive) is more than likely a temporary effort to regain readership (and thus advertisers), to thus extend their monopolistic control, and to fuck is over in the future, or on other issues. But I still appreciate individual reporter efforts, and news on any subject that is worth reading. News that isn't just propaganda. And I DO think that something's going on with McClatchey--some kind of marketing decision to compete with other corporate news organizations by providing at least some news that isn't shit. Trying to appeal to US--the real American majority (the left)--as a market, since many of us have stopped reading newspapers, due to our profound distrust of them. So it's probably worth it, to give them feedback when they do right. Even if we're just a "market" to them, I'd rather have some real news, than not. And we also need to encourage any reporters or editors who may be fighting the good fight, within their news organizations, and may be trying to prove that real news sells newspapers.

What the Sacto Bee--and the entire war profiteering corporate news establishment--did, on 11/3/04, through today (lid is still on) will live in infamy. What the corporate news monopolies did on 11/2/04 may not be as well known, but will some day be understood--doctoring their consortium exit polls (Kerry won) to make them fit the results of Diebold/ES&S's "trade secret" vote counting formulae (Bush "won"). They were active participants in the election theft--not just cover-uppers of it.

And their "black-holing" of this story began way before 11/2/04, back in Oct. 2002, when Congress passed the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" (fast-tracking of voting machines, all over the country, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations). Not a peep out of the corporate media (nor the Democratic Party) on the end of transparent vote counting in the USA, and arguably the end of American democracy.

[omega minimo]

7. Understood. Well put. Agreed.

And where are we now, PP? What has been done since Nov. 2004 to guarantee that we will have an actual election in 2008 and not another national mass psychotic episode?

In California we have Sec. of State Deborah Bowen working to provide verifiable results -- what else has been done nationally?

Thanks for all your great posts on this topic.

:hi: