Is your religious liberty at risk

We found what follows at Crooks and Liars.  Please check out their website for more interesting and stimulating articles written on an adult level.

We hear a lot these days from fundamentalist Christians and Roman Catholic prelates as to how their religious liberty is at risk.  It's hard to imagine how that can be the case if you don't have a Catholic or fundamentalist mindset.  If you do have such a mindset, then you might think because other people might have access to birth control and you disbelieve in birth control, your religious liberty is at risk.

Welcome to the wacky world of 2012, where Up is Down, East is West and North is South.

A Unitarian minister by name of the Rev. Emily Heath has put together a questionaire which is very helpful for those who are feeling put upon and think that the atheists and liberals, et. al., have put their religious liberty at risk.  The Rev. Heath says:

"I'm a religious person with a lifelong passion for civil rights, so this is of great interest to me.  So much so, that I believe we all need to determine whether our religious liberties are indeed at risk.  So, as a public service, I've come up with this little quiz.  I call it 'How to Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions.'  Just pick 'A' or 'B' for each question."

1.  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.

     B)  Others are allowed to go to a religious service of their own choosing.

2.  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.

     B)  Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.

3)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  I am being forced to use birth control.

     B)  I am unable to force others to use birth control.

4)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  I am not allowed to pray privately.

     B)  I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.

5)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.

     B)  I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.

6)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.

     B)  Others are allowed to have access [to] books, movies and websites that I do not like.

7)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.

     B)  My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever  purposes we might like.

8)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.

     B)  My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.

9)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

     A)  My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.

     B)  A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.

10)  My religious liberty is at risk because:

        A)  I am not allowed to reach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.

        B)  Public school science classes are teaching science.

Scoring key:

If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake.  You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law.  But just remember this one, little, constitutional concept:  this means you can  fight for your equality -- not your superiority.

If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others.  This is the point where I would invite you to refer back to the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.

Colonels in Mirrored Sunglasses by Greg Palast

Colonels in Mirrored Sunglasses

An Excerpt from Greg Palast's brand new book Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Elections in 9 Easy Steps Greg Palast with comics by Ted Rall, introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Chapter One: Colonels in Mirrored Sunglasses

Here are the facts, ma'am: In the 2008 election, no less than:

• 767,023 provisional ballots were cast and not counted;
• 1,451,116 ballots were "spoiled," not counted;
• 488,136 absentee ballots were mailed in, but not counted.

Add it up: in the last presidential election, no less than 2,706,275 ballots were cast—and never counted. I have not included a quarter million (251,936) provisional ballots counted only in part (that is, for some offices). That's the official number I've calculated from the records of the US Election Assistance Commission. Approximately three million votes flushed away are ugly enough. But it gets worse. In addition to the roughly three million ballots cast and not counted, no less than:

• 2,383,587 would-be voters had their registrations rejected;
• 491,952 voters already registered were wrongly purged from the rolls; and
• 320,000 properly registered voters were simply turned away from the polls when they tried to vote, mostly for not having IDs acceptable to a poll worker.

Add it up again and total grows to no less than 5,901,814 legitimate votes and voters tossed out of the count. Let’s call it the Missing Six Million. Karl Rove, when he was senior advisor to President George W. Bush, summed it up perfectly:

“We are beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses.”

Rove is not complaining, he’s boasting about his own accomplishments. But for strategist Rove, six million isn’t enough. Through several front organizations and affiliates, Rove and his comrades have launched a campaign making brilliant use of the tactics originating from the Red Scare and the War on Terror.

Now, instead of the communist lurking under your bed or the al-Qaeda sleeper cell next door, they’ve created a new monster to fear, to hunt, and to destroy: the Fraudulent Voter.

There aren’t any, of course. Or, to be accurate, so few you can literally count them on your fingers—about six in any year—not six million, half a dozen jerks convicted of voting illegally. In the whole country.

But in Rove’s echo chamber of fear, in the Voter-Fraud Hysteria Factory, these six become so threatening and dangerous that they will be used to take away the vote from six million. Tracking ballot-bending tricksters, figuring out how they game US elections and snatch the choice away from the electorate, that’s my job, my beat for more than a decade, for the Guardian newspaper and BBC television, and in 2008, for Rolling Stone.

I started covering the election games in November 2000 when I got my hands on two computer disks from the office of Secretary of State Katherine Harris of Florida. My team cracked the computer codes and found the names of ninety-one thousand criminals—felons—Harris listed to purge from voter rolls. We went through Harris’s list name by name. We didn't find felons. But most were guilty of VWB: Voting While Black. “Purging” is one way to get rid of legal voters. There are eight more tricks, and I’ll take you through each in turn. It was bad in 2000. It was worse in 2004 and 2008. But in 2012, it will be much worse. And in 2016, worse than in 2012.

Chapter Two:
"Why Obama is Likely to Lose in 2012"

"Why Obama Is Likely to Lose in 2012" is the title of a column Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal in June 2011. It’s not Rove’s prediction: this is his plan to make sure Obama will lose. That's fine with me—if Rove prefers vanilla to chocolate, hey, it's a free country. But how Rove plans to take Obama down is contained in the subhead, and it gives me the chills...


... Read the rest in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps

There it is!!! Republicans just don't get it!

Eric Cantor, a Republican, the Republican Majority Leader, just doesn't get it.  He can't be stupid, can he?  Not long ago I read an article that described how the brains of conservatives and liberals differ. There's something missing in the brains of conservatives.  Maybe that's Cantor's problem.  Maybe that's why he just doesn't get it!

The New Civil Rights Movement explains:

One hundred and eighteen years ago, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation which set aside the first Monday in September as a day to celebrate the laborers among us.  Labor Day was made a legal holiday "in all states, territories and the District of Columbia."

This from the U.S. Department of Labor (A department many of our Republican nogoodniks wish to delete from the government):

"Created by the nation's labor movement and dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers, Labor Day is an annual yearly tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."


One of the characteristics of the oligarchy that has ruled our country for so many years, is hostility toward the labor movement and our workers.  The Christian Republican Party carries on this tradition.  It's the wealthy who deserve praise on Labor Day, don't you know?

So, Eric Cantor, even though of the Jewish persuasion, remains a Very Important Representative of the Christian Republican Party.  Cantor, to commemorate this Labor Day, said:

"Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success."

The New Civil Rights Movement calls Cantor's statement "a shocking moment of tone-deafness and hostility to the accomplishments of unions and the working class. [...] a Labor Day message in support of corporations and management..."

Cantor, like most Republicans, just doesn't get it!  And there it is!!!

There it is!!! Republicans fear women!

There it is!!!

Musings on Labor Day - 2012

The man representing the privileged class, from which comes the oligarchy who run this country, claims to be able to empathize with the middle-class, the poor, the sick and the elderly.

How does he do that?  Well, here's one example.  A few days ago, while touring the areas damaged by Hurricane Isaac, he responded to one woman's plea for help by telling her to go home and call 211!

And here's another.  From an article in the Huffington Post:

"Romney took a midmorning boat ride, pulling up to a dock to fuel up his 29-foot Sea Ray and pick up a jet ski that had been in for repairs.

"In his Labor Day statement, Romney said, 'For far too many Americans, today is another day of worrying when their next paycheck will come.'"

He failed to say how he would address the problem.  As usual.

With Republicans, it's all smoke and mirrors!

The Republican Jesus

I'm sorry, but I can't remember the source of this photo.

What the hell could possibly go wrong

From a friend.

A Normal and Sane Republican Convention

This was stolen from Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors. Thanks, Tengrain!

Ryan, Rubio, et. al. If they can't be trusted in small things...

In a rational world where there is a difference between fact and fiction, between what is true and what is false, we would expect that those persons who wish to represent us in our government and make the laws under which we live would be heartily motivated to tell the truth, to lay before us the facts of their lives and their beliefs.

This is, of course, not a rational world, but a kind of surreal landscape which is covered in a foggy blend of superstition, corruption, desperation, and greed. It is a world in which just about anything goes if it serves one's purpose of getting what one wants.

In recent weeks, I have read several articles which tried to explain away the lies politicians tell with philosophical statements such as, "Well, every politician shades the truth," and "It's not so bad because it doesn't impact national security," or "He's just trying to make a point."

Such rationalizations are, of course, poppycock. And we, the people, wonder if a politico cannot be trusted in the small things, the easy things, how in the world can we trust him or her in matters that impact our nation and the world?

Paul Ryan we know to be an outright liar as he proved so dramatically in his speech at the Republican National Convention. When the corporate media get on his case for "shading the truth," or "not being entirely correct," we know Ryan's lies were obvious and easily falsifiable.

What bothers me even more than those lies, however, which he delivered in a blatant attempt to portray President Obama as a bumbling idiot, is the lie he told about his running marathons.

Just last week, when he sat for an interview, he was asked about running a marathon. When people who are basically trustworthy are asked such a question, they come out with the truth. And runners know exactly to the second the time in which they completed a race. I know because I'm married to a runner; she's run two marathons and many more races of different lengths. She would no more forget her marathon times than she would forget her birthday.

So Ryan lied. Maybe it's his nature. Maybe he is what they call a congenital liar. He said, "I had a two hour and fifty-something marathon. I hurt a disc in my back, so I don't run marathons anymore."

A runner would not have said "two hour and fifty-something." And it is inconceivable to me that Ryan forgot his actual time, that it was two hours and fifty two minutes and seven seconds, or whatever!

Note also the implication that he had run other marathons. "...so I don't run marathons anymore."

Why would he say that? Did he think nobody would check it out? Is he not only a congenital liar but kind of stupid?

Evidently Runner's World asked about his "marathons." And, as the Huffington Post reports, "the Ryan campaign confirmed to Runner's World that he has only run one marathon, the 1990 Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, which he finished in just over 4 hours"

But the Huffington Post is wrong to say this is merely "stretching the truth." This is out-and-out lying about not only his marathon time but the number of marathons he has run, which is one!


Ryan was chosen by Romney to be his vice-presidential running mate. Another man supposedly in contention for that spot is the Republican senator from south Florida, Marco Rubio.

Marco also has trouble with the truth. Maybe it's a disease of all vice-presidential contenders. Consider Sarah Palin. Liar is too good a name for her. She gave lying a bad name!

In Miami, the Cubans who think of themselves as real patriots, as tough people, as immigrants who came to this country under extremely difficult conditions and were able to make something of themselves, are those Cuban exiles who were tossed off or driven off or fled the island when Fidel Castro took over. Their lives were at stake. These people dare not go back to Cuba.

When Marco first came on the scene, he told a story which made it look like his family was part and parcel with the Cubans driven out of Cuba by Castro. This was a central part of Rubio's story. He wanted to identify himself with the political exiles; that has a poignant and dramatic ring to it.

But it was a lie. A big lie. Rubio's parents came to this country in 1956, two and half years before Castro came to power! They were not exiles, they were immigrants! The dictator, Batista (supported by the U.S.) was in power in Cuba.

There's more to the story that has to do with Rubio's grandfather who came to this country legally in 1956 but he didn't find the American dream so he went back to Cuba after Castro took over but wasn't happy there, either. Grandpa came back to Florida but was caught at the airport and ended up being deported. He did not "deport." For five years he lived as an "illegal alien" in the U.S. until he was able to stay here legally.

It's a fascinating tale. But the point is Rubio embellished the tale to make himself look good in the eyes of those who might vote for him and it worked for he was elected Senator.


So maybe that's the key. These politicians lie because they know it works. Until it doesn't. Then they tell more lies. Nobody checks and they go on their merry way tearing our country apart.

Ultimately, though, the question must be answered relative to any politician, Republican or Democrat (but I do believe that in the course of this campaign the Republicans have the longer noses): If they can't be trusted in the small things, can we trust them with our lives?


[Note:  The information regarding Rubio came from democracynow.org; an interview with Amy Goodman and Manuel Roig-Franzia.  Roig-Franzia is the author of The Rise of Rubio.]

Mitt Romney - A Human Being Who Built That

This is wonderful! Thanks to Crooks & Liars!

Gore Vidal and the State of the Union

Some years back, the late Gore Vidal, in concert with David Susskind (a New York TV producer), began his own "State of the Union" following the "State of the Union" of the then sitting president.

It is fascinating to read his words.  Certain phrases come to mind, and though they may be desperately trite, they still resonate:  "What goes around, comes around."  Or "those who forget history are destined to repeat it."

In his book, Imperial America, [2004] Vidal recalls his "State of the Union" from 1972.  "Looking back at past states of the union," he writes, "it is remarkable how things tend to stay the same.  Race-gender wars are always on our overcrowded back burners.  There is also--always--a horrendous foreign enemy at hand ready to blow us up in the night out of hatred for our Goodness and rosy plumpness. ...

"In the decades since this state of the union, the United States has more people, per capita, locked away in prisons than any other country while the sick economy of '72 is long forgotten as worse problems--and deficits--beset us.  For one thing, we no longer live in a nation, but in a Homeland.  In 1972:  roughly 80 percent of police work in the United States has to do with the regulation of our private morals.'"

Private morals, Vidal says, has to do with "what we smoke, eat, put in our veins--not to mention trying to regulate with whom and how we have sex, with whom and how we gamble.  As a result our police are among the most corrupt in the Western world."

Vidal says "All drugs should be legalized and sold at cost to anyone with a prescription."

Prohibition didn't work with alcohol and it doesn't work with drugs.  Because of "the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia.  We learn nothing because we remember nothing."

But even worse, "From the Drug Enforcement Agency to the FBI, we are afflicted with all sorts of secret police, busily spying on us."  [The amount of spying on U.S. citizens by the government has grown exponentially since Vidal wrote this in 2004!].

"Now (2004) that we have ceased to be a nation under law, but a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo Roman columns,  Homeland Security appears to be uniting our secret police into a single sort of Gestapo with dossiers on everyone to prevent us, somehow or other, from being terrorized by various implacable Second and Third World enemies.  Where is no known Al Qaeda sort of threat, we create one, as in Iraq, whose leader, Saddam Hussein, had no connection with 9-11 or any other proven terrorism against the United States, making it necessary for a president to invent the lawless as well as evil (to use his Bible-based language) doctrine of preemptive war based on a sort of hunch that maybe one day some country might attack us so, meanwhile, as he and his business associates covet their oil, we go to war, leveling their cities to be rebuilt by other business associates. ..."

Vidal, in his 1972 state of the union, explains that he strikes "a few mildly optimistic notes. 'We should', he says, 'have a national health service, something every civilized country in the world has.  Also, improved public transportation (trains!).  Also, schools which do more than teach conformity.  Also, a cleaning of the air, of the water, of the earth before we all die of poisons set looses by a society based on greed.'" ...

Mr. Vidal goes on to mention something I believe to be of utmost importance.  The question  may be moot as the Supremes have let the horse out of the barn and it may be impossible to catch it and put it back in the stall where it belongs.  I'm talking about campaign finance.

Vidal asked and answered an important question:  "What to do?  I proposed that no candidate for any office be allowed to buy space on television or in any newspaper or other medium:  'This will stop cold the present system, where presidents and congressmen are bought by corporations and even by foreign countries."

Oh, if he could see us now!

Furthermore, said Vidal, "'I would also propose a four-week election period as opposed to the current four-year marathon.  Four weeks is more than enough time to present the issues."

In 1972, Mr.Vidal noted that the people who listened to his state of the union had generally a strong hatred for the government.  Not much has changed since then.  From one end of the country to the other, people told him "We hate this system that we are trapped in, but we don't know who trapped us or how.  We don't even know what our cage looks like because we have never seen it from the outside.  Now, thirty-one years later, audiences still want to know who will let them out of the Enron-Pentagon prison with its socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor."

Just change a few words.  Make it the "Wall Street-Pentagon prison" or the "Corporate-Pentagon prison."  Remember the Citizens United decision by the so-called "conservatives" on the U.S. Supreme Court and Romney's words to the folks working in the trenches:  "Corporations are people, too."

Most everything Vidal wrote in 1972 remains valid today!  Which is damn frightening because it means we're spinning our wheels.  Actually, when you consider the Republicans who want to be in charge of the world, we've somehow slipped back into the 16th century, economically, religiously, sexually, politically.  It's not a pretty sight.

[Gore Vidal died a few weeks ago at the age of 86.  We will miss him in many ways, but perhaps most for his razor-sharp wit and political insight.  May he RIP!]

Obama to Eastwood - This chair's taken!

What a great sense of humor has our president.  This photo was tweeted by the Obama campaign after Eastwood's incoherent speech.

Ten Commandments of Republican Party

This was sent to me by a friend.  I do not know the name of the author.


The Ten Commandments - Republican Style

I.  Thou shalt talk about Christian principles, but not live by them.

II.  Thou shalt attack opponents personally when you can't win on policies.

III.  Thou shalt call yourself pro-life, but support the death penalty.

IV.  Thou shalt call yourself pro-life, but put guns in the hands of school children.

V.  Thou shalt give lip-service to democracy while taking away civil liberties.

VI.  Profit is the Lord Thy God; thou shalt not put the people's interest above those of
your corporate contributors.

VII.  Thou shalt make sure fetuses have health coverage, but leave children and babies behind.

VIII.  Thou shalt bear false witness against your opponents and liberals and demonize them.

IX.  Thou shalt run on a moderate platform and then enact right-wing policies as soon as possible after being elected.

X.  Thou shalt call the media liberal so that people forget the media are owned by corporations with a conservative fiscal agenda.

Notes on the RNC - A rat's nest of lies!

The RNC was a rat's nest of lies.  The Republican National Convention was built on these lies, and the Republicans did it all themselves with no help from the feds!  Even the building in which they met was built with government money, and if buildings could laugh, it would have laughed so hard tears would have run down it's glass cheeks as the Republicans proudly praised self-reliance and hard work and thanked God for unfettered capitalism.

It gets even more surreal.  The Repubs brought in two small business folks to speak about how they built their businesses from the ground up with no help from the government, thank you very much.  This, thought the Repubs, would show those damn socialistic Democrats what this country is all about!

Not really.  One of them was Sher Valenzuela who owns an upholstery business.  She did not build it herself!  She built it with the help of the government.  Her business has received at least $17 million in government contracts and loans.

The other, Phil Archuletta, spoke in some kind of 1984 speak.  Words and concepts were turned on their respective heads.  He was supposed to tell the assembled wingnuts that he had put together his business all by his little self.  But that's not what he said.  It turns out that Archuletta has received all kinds of government aid to built his sign business.  Not only so, but he went on to bitch that he hadn't received enough moolah from the government!

And then last evening we saw an empty head talking to an empty chair which actually turned out to be wonderfully symbolic of the Republican leadership and the Republican faithful, especially the teapot crackpots!

Clint Eastwood, an actor of some note, spoke about how Obama had failed to live up to his promises or maybe he was pissed because the empty chair in which he thought Obama sat had someone failed his elderly, failing body and mind.  It was bizarre.  An empty head talking to an empty chair!  But the audience clapped anyway.  "Make my day," they sang.  At that point, they'd take anything they could.  Even ol' Clint.

We've all read and re-read Ryan's speech.  Lies.  More lies.  And yet more lies.  All debunked, and Ryan knows it.  Which makes him an even worse person.  He's a lying hypocrite of the highest order.  Or lowest.  He told the same old stories as to how Obama "raided" Medicare of $716 billion (a lie) and how Obama did not care to keep open a GM plant in Janesville (a lie - it closed under the Bush administration), and how the stimulus failed (a big lie).  Ryan also complained that Obama had created our huge deficit, but the deficit was pretty much the result of programs for which Ryan voted:  Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which Bush didn't even have in the budget!), tax cuts for the rich, drug benefits which benefitted mostly the drug companies...

And we can't forget that champion of the cause of Jesus, the Baptist preacher, Mike Huckabee.  We can't forget him because he gives Jesus a bad name.  He's one of the biggest liars in the Republican tent.

Huckabee prides himself on his "evangelical" righteousness - believing all the right things.  He made a statement almost as bizarre as Eastwood's rant:  "Of the four people on the two tickets," he said, "the only self-professed evangelical is Barack Obama, and he supports changing the definition of marriage, believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb or even beyond the womb, and tells people of faith that they must bow their knees to the god of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he calls health care."

Well, frankly, Huckabee is full of unadulterated doo-doo!  Obama has never, so far as I know, identified himself as an "evangelical."  He's just a Christian without a need for further labels and he tries to live his faith which is far more than can be said for Huckabee!  Obama does not, by any stretch of the imagination, believe that "human life is disposable and expendable," nor does he believe people must "bow their knees to the god of government."

This is the kind of crap that is preached from evangelical pulpits and Republican camp meetings in Alaska and Arizona and in most southern states every Sunday morning and it's all lies.  So much for loving Jesus!

And finally Romney.  He complained about Obama's failures, too, and how Obama had not created enough jobs.  But Romney, he said, knows how to create jobs.  Do you think it is possible that the group assembled was unaware of the fact that Romney is a job-killer?  Do you think even the teapot crackpots are unaware that Romney's so-called business experience will run this country to ruin; that if you think things are bad now, you should remember where George Bush left us and multiply by a factor of eight!

Bain Capital was not about creating jobs.  Bain Capital could have cared less about creating jobs.  Bain Capital was about making money - for Bain Capital and for its investors.  What happened most often was that Bain Capital took over failing companies, ran up the debt, bankrupted the companies and then fired everyone.  Bain and Romney made hundreds of millions of dollar destroying jobs!

I've saved the worst for last because Paul Ryan is perhaps the most despicable of Republican liars.  Joan Walsh, in an article for Salon, noted that Ryan, even though reprimanded by come Catholic bishops for his budget which tries to "save" the rich on the backs of the poor, said this:

"The greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.  The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves."

But, as Ms. Walsh points out, "Ryans budget decimates programs for 'those who cannot defend or care for themselves.'"

The RNC - a rat's nest of lies!  The GOP - a rat's nest of lies.  The Republican Party, in its current incarnation, is probably one of the greatest arguments for the non-existence of a just god.  

Rush Limbaugh - How to get rid of poor Democrats in New Orleans

Rush Limbaugh is a very sick puppy!



Thanks for this to Media Matters for America.

The Man from Bloomfield Hills - The Mitt Romney Story

Thanks to MoveOn!

h/t to David Neuman

Ann and Mitt Romney Lies (courtesy of Dave Letterman

The Daily Show/RNC 2012

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Greg Palast discusses Republican Crooks at the Republican Convention

RNC Opens with Pol who "Should be in Jail"

by Greg Palast | For Truthout
Monday, August 27, 2012

"Tim Griffin should be in jail." That's the conclusion of civil rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after going through the evidence I asked him to review.

But Griffin's not in jail: he's in Congress. And Tuesday, he'll be the first Congressman the Republicans have chosen to bring to their convention podium.

Predictably, I haven't seen one US press report noting that in 2007, Griffin resigned from the Justice Department in disgrace, ahead of what could have been (should have been), his indictment.

Kennedy thought a couple of other characters should join Griffin in the lock-up: first, Griffin's boss, the man whom George W. Bush gave the nickname, "Turdblossom": Karl Rove.

And there's yet another odiferous blossom, Griffin's assistant at the time of the crime: Matt Rhoades. Rhoades isn't in jail either. He's the campaign director of presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

---

This story is based on the investigations in Palast's new book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps - with a forward by Kennedy and comics by Ted Rall.

---

Kennedy had gone over the highly confidential emails we'd gotten from inside Republican National Committee headquarters i Washington. (How we got our hands on private emails from the top dogs in the Republican campaign, well, that's another story. I can say, they were sent directly from the computer of Tim Griffin. Rove, a computer expert, is careful not to have his own).

“What they did was absolutely illegal—and they knew it and they did it anyway," Kennedy told me.

What they did was called voter "caging." The RNC sent letters by the thousands to soldiers, first class, marked, "DO NOT FORWARD." When the letters were returned undelivered, the Republicans planned to use these "caged" envelopes as evidence the voters were "fraudulent"--then challenge their ballot.

A soldier mailing in his or her vote from Iraq would have that ballot disqualified -- and the soldier wouldn't even know it.

That's not just sick, it's a crime, a violation of the Voting Rights Act drafted by Kennedy's late father. And it was a crime because of whom the RNC caging crew attacked: not just any soldiers, but soldiers of color.

Running a vote-challenge operation based on racial profiling is a go-to-jail felony.

And after the soldiers, the "Turdblossom" gang targeted students at traditionally Black schools (away on summer break), homeless men and a few precincts of Jewish voters. In other words, anyone whose politics was Blue-ish.

Look for yourself. Here is one Griffin 'caging' list, targeting the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.

The emails were dated August 2004, just before the presidential election. "Caging" would cost Bush's opponent John Kerry more than one state. At the time, Rove was Senior Counselor to the President, Griffin head of "Research" at the RNC and his go-fer Rhoades director of Opposition [read "Smear"] Research.

But they did more. Rove and Griffin were up to their necks in the firing of federal prosecutors. One, the US Attorney for New Mexico, David Iglesias, told me the two illegal acts were tied together: Captain Iglesias (he's a Naval JAG), himself a Republican, said he was fired because he refused to go along with RNC demands that he arrest innocent citizens on fake charges of fraudulent registration. Iglesias was horrified at this Soviet-style tactic. "I thought I was a Jedi warrior, but it turns out I was with the Seth Lords."

So Rove had Bush fired him and seven other prosecutors, including Bud Cummins, US Attorney for Arkansas. In his place, Bush appointed ...Tim Griffin.

Things Go Better with Kochs

Griffin won't talk to me, nor will Rove nor Romney's man Rhoades about the racial caging game and the related firing of federal prosecutors.

But never mind: I have his personal emails and the testimony of Captain Iglesias. And that was enough, in 2007, for BBC to put the "caging" evidence and the real story of the prosecutor firing on the air.

By the next morning, Tim Griffin resigned his post at US Attorney for Arkansas. He was in tears.

But Tim's tears were soon wiped away -- by the Koch Brothers. In 2010, Koch interests dumped $167,183 into Tim Griffin's campaign for Congress. For $167,183, your average congressman will wash your car -- with their tongue.

Tim won the Little Rock seat, and here he is in Tampa. Despite the fact that he's an unknown freshman from an un-swing state, he's been given the extraordinary honor of speaking for the entire Republican Congressional delegation.

And now you know why: In Congress, he's Rove-bot Number One, owned and operated by Koch Industries.

Why would the Kochs do this for the disgraced Griffin? Answer: It's what Griffin does for them.

Among other favors, Griffin is the top cheerleader in the House for the XL Pipeline--whose approval is vital to the billionaire Kochs making more billions.

But wait! The Kochs don't own the XL Pipe nor the Canadian tar sands from which it comes. So why do they care?

Well, that's another story, in another chapter, "XXXL Pipeline" in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal the Election in 9 Easy Steps, out September 18. The Author's proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and Vultures' Picnic.

Palast's brand new book Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, will be out on September 18. You can pre-order Billionaires & Ballot Bandits from Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Indie Bound. Author's proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.

Or donate and can get a signed copy of the book.

Go to Greg's website for additional information on the crooks in our government.

 

Romney - Liar, Liar!

This picture was stolen without shame from Dependable Renegade.