ACORN speaks in its own defense
I have not generally quoted extensively from the material of others, but I'm making an exception in this post because I believe it's important that this group should have an opportunity to answer the perennially misleading charges being leveled against it.
The following comes from a memo from the leaders of the the voter-registration group ACORN to its supporters:
Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.
Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.
Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.
Fact: No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes.
Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.
Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN's good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.
Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered and allowed to vote, so there is also NO incentive to "disrupt the system" with phony cards.
Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorneygate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.
You can find the full text at The Atlantic in a blog by Marc Ambinder dated 9 October 2008.
Given the likelihood that GOP operatives will use their wildly inaccurate accusations against ACORN to justify their (so far) seriously under-publicized voter suppression drives, I suggest the facts shown above be shared with anyone and everyone who is likely to be exposed to the libel.
For more and continuing coverage on the Republican voter suppression drive, see the Brad Blog. Brad Friedman is a multi-talented writer, actor, director who has taken a personal and on-going interest in preserving democracy.
Troopergate findings released. She did it.
The independent investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin's crusade against her ex-brother-in-law has found that the governor (and Republican candidate for vice president of the United States) "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."
Wooten is the governor's former brother-in-law, having separated from her sister in an acrimonious divorce in 2006.
The Anchorage Daily News reported the findings at 0419 11 October 2008. The findings were released 10 October "by a 12-0 vote of the Legislative Council (of the Alaska Legislature), with eight Republicans and four Democrats voting," according to ADN. The newspaper reported that some Republican members of the committee disagreed with the findings, but never-the-less voted for their release.
The investigation reported four findings, in all:
- The governor knowingly abused the powers and resources of her office "to advance a personal agenda."
- Her firing of the state's public saftey commissioner Walt Monegan was "a lawful exercise of her powers," according to ADN, but was clearly motivated at least in part by "Monegan's refusal to fire Wooten."
- Harbor Adjustment Service, a company handling insurace claims for the state, acted correctly in approving and providing Trooper Wooten's worker's compensation claim. (After Wooten injured his back on the job, the governor's husband sought to have the claim rejected.)
- And Alsaka's state attorney general's office had "failed to substantially comply" with the investigation's request to see e-mails related to the case.
The Palins have maintained that Wooten is a bad cop whom they regard as a dangerous person and that they have acted only to protect themselves from him.
Steve Branchflower, the lead investigator, concluded that "such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons."
In addition to unsuccessfully seeking Wooten's dismissal, one of her aides successfully sought to have removed from a volunteer duty assignment to dress as "Safety Bear" at the 2007 Alaska State Fair. (New York Times, 10 October 2008).
Who will rid them of this troublesome priest?
Governor Sarah Palin's attacks on Sen. Barack Obama over this past weekend (4-5 Oct) have been justly criticised by a writer for the Associated Press as "unsubstantiated and carr[ying] a racially tinged subtext." That's not surprising ... or, unfortunately, new. The McCain campaign has been playing the so-called race card for weeks, as has been previously noted in these posts.
What is surprising -- and new -- is that her rallies since then have featured press-taunting mobs shouting racist comments and chanting: "Kill Him" (Washington Post, 7 Oct).
One of these rallies was kicked off by a local sheriff who invoked Sen. Obama's middle name (Hussein) and was followed to the podium by a local talk show host who told the crowd the senator "hangs out with terrorists" (CBS 6 Oct).
Sen. John "That One" McCain and Palin may not be winning over independents, but they are certainly energizing their base -- in a style reminiscent of Henry the Young King of England.
That ended badly.
Someone please tell the McCain camp ...
We get it. We know John McCain was joking when he sang, "Bomb bomb bomb. Bomb bomb Iran."
That's what makes it so scary.
He was joking ... about bombing another country.
Circumstances
may sometimes require a commander in chief to send
our soldiers, sailors and Marines into battle. Our president may be
required to shed blood.
But circumstances always require that American leaders refrain from joking about the possibility.
