Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Jesus Christ in Lycra, Part II
The AP picks up the story of destroyed voter registration forms in Oregon (where, in the post I made last night, the same company involved high-tailed it to after fucking around in Nevada):
What's really disturbing about this is that when you try and Google this story, there's NO NEWS. I don't know about you but I grew up learning that what made America great was the fact that our citizens made the decisions in this country (ultimately, please no "Federalist Fucking Republic" arguments here, I'm just making a generalization), that we weren't some backwater dictatorship under the thumb of some tin-pot meglomaniac with a bad moustache. The fact that criminals are crippling that promise of a free election should be big news; the fact that it's barely worth a mention is not just disturbing, it's an indictment of how profoundly sick our "news" media really is.
The more I search (and using my own resources, screw Google), the worse it gets; Bob Johnson at Daily Kos spells it out:
As soon as "PBS Kids" goes off and I set my two little ones up with crayons and chocolate milk, I'm hitting the nooze channels to see if they're on it; I'm not holding my breath.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and Attorney General Hardy Myers plan to investigate allegations that a paid canvasser might have destroyed voter registration forms.
"There have been allegations made that someone threw out some voter registration forms that had been submitted to them," Bradbury told The Associated Press late Tuesday. "This is a violation of the law and I will meet with the attorney general in the morning to talk about what we can do to pursue this, and to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Bradbury learned of the conduct from KGW-TV, which interviewed Mike Johnson, 20, a canvasser who said he was instructed to only accept Republican registration forms. He told the TV reporter that he "might" destroy forms turned in by Democrats.
What's really disturbing about this is that when you try and Google this story, there's NO NEWS. I don't know about you but I grew up learning that what made America great was the fact that our citizens made the decisions in this country (ultimately, please no "Federalist Fucking Republic" arguments here, I'm just making a generalization), that we weren't some backwater dictatorship under the thumb of some tin-pot meglomaniac with a bad moustache. The fact that criminals are crippling that promise of a free election should be big news; the fact that it's barely worth a mention is not just disturbing, it's an indictment of how profoundly sick our "news" media really is.
The more I search (and using my own resources, screw Google), the worse it gets; Bob Johnson at Daily Kos spells it out:
Searching for information on the voter registration fraud stories breaking tonight in Nevada and Oregon, I kept coming across the same name: Nathan Sproul of Sproul & Associates in Phoenix, Arizona.
Nathan Sproul is the former head of the Arizona Republican Party and of the Arizona Christian Coalition (ah, the irony... a Christian).
Sproul is connected with the Republican National Committee-funded voter registration organization, Voter Outreach, Inc., a group that used paid registrars to register voters in a number of states including Nevada, Oregon, Arizona and perhaps more, including Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maine and Missouri. (Others states pending, particularly swing states.) Sproul's organization also recruited registrars by fraudulently telling recruits that they would be working for America Votes, a legitimate nonpartisan GOTV operation!
As soon as "PBS Kids" goes off and I set my two little ones up with crayons and chocolate milk, I'm hitting the nooze channels to see if they're on it; I'm not holding my breath.
