News and Politics | October 28, 2008 | 10 comments

Drinking the ACORN Kool-Aid: How cries of voter fraud cover up GOP elections theft

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-greg-palast/drinking-the-acorn-koolai_...

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Conniepae
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast - Drinking the ACORN Kool-Aid: How Cries of Voter Fraud Cover Up GOP Elections Theft

Virtually the entire mainstream electronic media drank ACORN Kool-Aid this month brewed up by the Republican National Committee. Almost no one seriously challenged John McCain's comical assertions that ACORN, a grassroots voter registration group, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

While the Republicans had the distracted media searching for links between Obama and ACORN, RNC operatives were busily completing one of the most massive voter suppression and purging efforts in American history, stealing hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes across the embattled swing states and striving to arrange chaos and endless lines at the voting booths next week.

First the facts about ACORN. Months ago, we obtained, as part of our investigation for Rolling Stone magazine, the Republican's list the GOP alleged were the very worst cases of vote and registration fraud by ACORN and similar groups. We went through the names the GOP asserted were "obviously, undeniably and clearly fraudulent" voter registrations.

First, there was Melissa Tais, a dubious ACORN registrant. Her two voter registration forms show, admittedly, suspiciously different signatures. Republicans suggested Melissa was part of a massive fraud to allow Democrats to vote twice.

They were wrong. Ms. Tais, a Cerrillos, New Mexico, waitress, told us she had signed one form on a table and one form holding the paper in her hand. Hence, a second, wobbly signature.

Then there was Patricia White, who Republicans claimed was a fictitious voter. When we filmed her at home in Albuquerque, she seemed real enough.

And so on, through the entire GOP list -- not one fraud. And these were their best cases out of the five million "illegal voters" who Republican leaders claim have infiltrated America's voting rolls.

The overblown histrionics about ACORN do not surprise those of us who have been watching the RNC's election manipulation antics. For eight years White House operatives have been trying to gin up press stories about voter fraud. David Iglesias of New Mexico was one of seven U.S. Attorneys fired by the White House for their refusal to bring voter fraud prosecutions. "We took over 100 complaints," from the GOP, he told us, "We investigated for almost 2 years, I didn't find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico."

Iglesias, a McCain supporter, has, for the first time, leveled a new and serious charge: Despite finding none of the 200 voters guilty, he says the White House nevertheless ordered him to illegally prosecute baseless cases against innocent citizens, just to gin up voter fraud publicity. His refusal, he says, cost him his job. "They were looking for politicized -- for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases."
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10 comments // Drinking the ACORN Kool-Aid: How cries of voter fraud cover up GOP elections theft

  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  

    • MSM are enablers, they control the spin! Its time to control the purse on MSM. We will not go quietly into the night again. George W. has put in place mechanisms to stop protest. He cant put in place mechanisms to protect MSM and their sponsors.

      MSM is no longer credible, they have spun us into the downword spiral we are experiencing right now. This didnt happen by accident, they knew what they were doing. We need to hold MSM to the fire and demand they stop spinning distorted Joe the Plumbers and other Republican "talking points".

      They keep Republican "talking points" front and center. That is manipulation of ordinary Americans. That is wrong! MSM should report, not distort!

    • 3 years ago
  • pokesmot
  • kadugen
  • plainjane
    • 0
      plainjane  

    • John McCain and his supporters are hammering Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama for saying in a 2001 interview on Chicago Public Radio that wealth redistribution is a necessary form of "economic justice."

      The McCain campaign and other critics of Barack Obama are seizing on newly uncovered audio from an interview Obama did with WBEZ in Chicago while he was an Illinois state senator and University of Chicago law professor. In the interview, Obama suggested that it was a "tragedy" the U.S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, did not pursue "redistribution of wealth" for black Americans.
      "Because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change," said the state senator. "And in some ways we still suffer from that."

      Gary BauerFormer Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer is the president of American Values and a supporter of John McCain. He says the 2001 audio tape "closes the circle" on Obama's "spread the wealth" philosophy he shared recently with an Ohio plumber.
      "He even goes so far as to criticize the Constitution of the United States because it doesn't guarantee equal outcomes," Bauer points out.
      "Barack Obama is saying both to Joe the plumber and [in] this earlier interview that he believes the power of government ought to be used to redistribute wealth in the United States," he continues -- "to take wealth from productive people and give it to people who have not been as successful. And that is socialism at best -- and I think you could even make a case that, in its own way, it's Marxism."
      Bauer warns that if Obama's economic policy is implemented, it will "guarantee the U.S. decades of sub-par economic growth and class warfare."

    • 3 years ago
  • bluestranger
    • 0
      bluestranger  

    • When the gops start yelling about election fraud you know a nerve has been touched. Funny how the party that gave us Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 can even shape their collective mouth to utter voter fraud.

    • 3 years ago
  • thenumbertoo
    • 0
      thenumbertoo  

    • the thing about ACORN is that GOP has worked with wholehearted on efforts to get people to vote just as much as the DEMs

      it makes sense that a community effort would be denounced for what a handful of stupid people did just to get paid.

      it doesn't make any sense when oil companies disenfranchise villagers in africa, where they need the land to survive and exxon mobil forcefully uses that land to make profit from oil, killing what little natural resources they have.

      yet THIS is something that people feel they need to cover in the news. GOP has no accountability at all.

      jeez

    • 3 years ago
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  

    • No one was held accountable after 2000. Hell, they didnt even work to ensure it would not happen again. Mainstream media isnt drinking the kool-aid, they are stirring it up.

      After watching mainstream media during the 2000 election and the lead up to war with Iraq, there is no doubt they are enablers of the right.

    • 3 years ago
  • jjmaster
  • Raven6
    • 0
      Raven6  

    • I do agree with you but I don't think there's enough Democrats to open testimony before congress. Hopefully that will change but only after the election.

      Republicans call this Dirty Tricks and their people will freely admit it. Apparently, they think it's funny. I do not. Screw with an American's right to vote = 20 years hard labor.

      After the election perhaps.

    • 3 years ago
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  

    • Where are our Democratic Leaders? Republicans came back in session for one sick American. Democrats should come back in session for a sick election process.

      Hearings with testimony under oath, before the election. After the wrongs are done is too late. Been there, done that! It's not over! Call your respresentatives and demand they investigate! TODAY!

      Yesterday is History
      Tomorrow is a Mystery
      Today is a Gift, that"s why we call it Present!

    • 3 years ago
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