-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 7, 2007 9:41:19 AM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Fwd: Bush's New US Attorney a Criminal?
AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's
free from AOL at AOL.com.
From: Greg Palast <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: March 7, 2007 4:40:18 AM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Bush's New US Attorney a Criminal?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bush's New US Attorney a Criminal?
BBC Television had exposed 2004 voter attack scheme
by appointee Griffin, a Rove aide.
Black soldiers and the homeless targeted.
by Greg Palast
March 7, 2007.
There's only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor.
That's replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.
There was one big hoohah in Washington yesterday as House Judiciary
Chairman John Conyers pulled down the pants on George Bush's firing
of US Attorneys to expose a scheme to punish prosecutors who
wouldn't bend to political pressure.
But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove's
assistant, the President's pick as US Attorney for the Eastern
District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the
hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000
citizens prior to the 2004 election.
Key voters on Griffin's hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men
and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the
issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime
under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received
a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research
Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn't mean to
send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for
RNC honchos.
However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails
-- potential evidence of a crime -- to email addresses ending with
the domain name "@GeorgeWBush.com" he sent them to
"@GeorgeWBush.ORG." A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns
"GeorgeWBush.org." When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian
ravings, he sent them to us.
And we dug in, decoding, and mapping the voters on what Griffin
called, "Caging" lists, spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters
marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic
voters from Democratic precincts.
The Griffin scheme was sickly brilliant. We learned that the RNC
sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts
marked, "Do not forward." Several sheets contained nothing but
soldiers, other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the
Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city's State
Street Rescue Mission. Another target, Edward Waters College, a
school for African-Americans.
If these voters were not currently at their home voting address,
they were tagged as "suspect" and their registration wiped out or
their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these 'cages'
captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the
military though they are legitimate voters.
We telephoned those on the hit list, including one Randall Prausa.
His wife admitted he wasn't living at his voting address: Randall
was a soldier shipped overseas.
Randall and other soldiers like him who sent in absentee ballots,
when challenged, would lose their vote. And they wouldn't even know
it.
And by the way, it's not illegal for soldiers to vote from overseas
-- even if they're Black.
But it is illegal to challenge voters en masse where race is an
element in the targeting. So several lawyers told us, including
Ralph Neas, famed civil rights attorney with People for the
American Way.
Griffin himself ducked our cameras, but his RNC team tried to sell
us the notion that the caging sheets were, in fact, not illegal
voter hit lists, but a roster of donors to the Bush-Cheney
reelection campaign. Republican donors at homeless shelters?
Over the past weeks, Griffin has said he would step down if he had
to face Congressional confirmation. However, the President
appointed Griffin to the law enforcement post using an odd little
provision of the USA Patriot Act that could allow Griffin to skip
Congressional questioning altogether.
Therefore, I have a suggestion for Judiciary members. Voting law
expert Neas will be testifying today before Conyers' Committee on
the topic of illegal voter "disenfranchisement" -- the fancy word
for stealing elections by denying voters' civil rights.
Maybe Conyers should hold a line-up of suspected vote thieves and
let Neas identify the perpetrators. That should be easy in the case
of the Caging List Criminal. He'd only have to look for the guy
wearing a new shiny lawman's badge.
******
Read the full story, "Caging Lists: Great White Republicans Take
Voters Captive" in Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse: Sordid Secrets and
Strange Tales from a White House Gone Wild. The new edition, with a
new chapter on Theft of the Election, will be released April 24th
(by Penguin/Plume in paperback).
Catch our original BBC Television story here - on Palast's brand
new YouTube channel
You can comment on this story (scroll to bottom).
To Unsubscribe, please click here.
www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
<A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
