Voter Fraud

Justice Department Lawyer Resigns Due to Politicization of Justice Department; Obama Administration Defies Civil Rights Commission

by Hans Bader on May 20, 2010 · 1 comment

in Culture, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

A career Justice Department lawyer has resigned after the Obama administration defied a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  The Commission is investigating the Administration’s politically-motivated dismissal of a voter intimidation lawsuit against members of the racist, anti-semitic New Black Panther Party.  Career justice department lawyers brought and won the lawsuit, which was then dismissed by political appointees in the Justice Department, so that they could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Members of the New Black Panther Party, one of whom was an Obama campaign poll watcher and local Democratic official, used nightsticks and racial epithets to drive white voters away from the polls in a Philadelphia precinct. But the Obama administration killed a successful lawsuit against them, dismissing it after career Justice Department lawyers had already obtained a default judgment against the defendants  (As a result of the dismissal, the only consequence for the defendants was a temporary injunction telling just one of the three defendants not to repeat his crimes in Philadelphia for a short period of time.)  The New Black Panther Party, which attacks what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is recognized as a racist, anti-semitic hate group even by liberal civil-rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

After the case was dismissed, the Civil Rights Commission began investigating the Obama administration’s actions.  The administration ordered the career attorneys who had worked on the lawsuit to remain silent and not comply with the Commission’s investigation (contrary to federal law, which mandates that “all Federal agencies shall cooperate fully with the Commission“), and refused either to comply with the Commission’s subpoenas, or to bring a motion to quash the subpoena (which is the appropriate step to take if a subpoena is somehow invalid).  This left the subpoena and one of the career lawyers “in limbo” and in apparent violation of the law, forcing him to run up thousands of dollars in legal bills.  (The other lawyer was transferred to the civil-service equivalent of Siberia to take him “out of reach of the subpoena power of the Civil Rights Commission.”)

Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams, who helped bring the lawsuit, “resigned in obvious disgust” at its dismissal and the administration’s stonewalling.  The other career lawyer most responsible for bringing the voter intimidation case, former Voting Rights Section Chief Christopher Coates, has a liberal pedigree: he was formerly with the “Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.”  Yet both Coates and Adams have been depicted as “right-wing activists“ by “liberal media outlets“ and unnamed Obama administration officials–apparently because those officials “don’t believe the voting rights laws should ever be enforced against blacks and other minorities.”

(The idea that the civil rights laws do not protect whites or apply to minorities was rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in 1976, in an opinion authored by the black justice and civil-rights icon Thurgood Marshall.  See McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. There are limited to exceptions to bans on race discrimination for affirmative action, but they do not apply to voting, as the Supreme Court made clear in its 7-to-2 ruling in Rice v. Cayetano (2000).  In his 2008 campaign, Obama promised “change,” and apparently that change includes a departure from basic legal norms that even liberal judges like Thurgood Marshall, and liberal lawyers like Christian Adams and Christopher Coates took for granted.  If you want to work in the Obama Justice Department, you had better disagree with the Supreme Court.)

“Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Thanks to that outrageous decision, the only result of the case was a meaningless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again (and telling him not to commit such crimes only until 2012, and not barring him from committing such crimes in his home city, but rather barring such crimes only in Philadelphia).

As the Washington Times notes,

The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any ‘attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce’ any voter or those aiding voters. The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: ‘These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right … to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants.’ In other words, because the defendants haven’t tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won’t punish them. By that logic, if a murderer doesn’t respond to the charges, he should be let free. That’s crazy. The Obama Justice Department did take one action against one of the four defendants: It forbade him from again ‘displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location’ in Philadelphia. Given that it already was illegal to display a weapon at a polling place and that he was not even enjoined from carrying a weapon at polling places outside of Philadelphia, it is hard to see what this order accomplished. We asked the Justice Department if it was unable to provide any explanation for dropping the case. Justice press aide Alejandro Miyar merely said: ‘That is correct.’ Multiple times we asked both the department and the White House to comment on charges that the dismissals represented political bias. We received no substantive response. Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, tells us, ‘In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment… . If a Republican administration had done this, it would be front-page news and every civil rights group in the country would be screaming about it.’ Consider that the behavior of the defendants was so bad that witness Bartle Bull, a former Robert F. Kennedy organizer who did extensive legal work on behalf of black voters in Mississippi, testified it was “the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life.’ Eric Eversole, a former litigation attorney with the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told us: ‘It is truly unprecedented for the Voting Section to voluntarily dismiss a case of such blatant intimidation. The video speaks for itself.’ We couldn’t agree more. After the 2000 Presidential election, Democrats complained about voter intimidation in Florida by pointing to a police car that had been two miles away from a polling place. The police didn’t do anything to anyone, but their presence was deemed sufficient to vaguely intimidate people en route to the polls. In this case, the New Black Panther Party actually blocked access to a poll. Unlike the Florida incident, this case involving the New Black Panthers screams out for tough justice. Instead, the Obama administration looks the other way. This all but invites racial violence at future elections.

In 2008, Obama disingenuously complained about the supposed “politicization” of the Justice Department under Bush. But Obama has politicized the Justice Department far more than Bush was accused of doing. Obama’s Justice Department has given a green light to unconstitutional bills pushed by liberal congressmen that even liberal Justice Department attorneys have conceded are unconstitutional. It has been deafeningly silent about blatant voter fraud and voter intimidation committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And it did little to prevent violations of the voting rights of overseas soldiers and sailors that may have tipped election results in the Minnesota Senate race (which provided the deciding vote in the Senate for passage of the costly new health care law) and the New York special Congressional election.

“How ACORN Destroyed the Housing Market”

by Hans Bader on November 16, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Sanctimony

Federal affordable-housing mandates were a major factor in the mortgage crisis, fueling the housing bubble and the subsequent collapse of the housing and financial markets, which helped bring down the economy.  Even the liberal Village Voice has admitted that.  Who drafted those awful mandates?  ACORN, reports the Washington Examiner, in “How ACORN Destroyed the Housing Market.”

How did ACORN cause the “housing bubble” and “financial collapse”?  ACORN lobbyists drafted “affordable-housing” mandates to pressure the mortgage giants to buy up more risky loans and mortgages from low-income communities, loans that banks in turn were pressured to make by the Community Reinvestment Act, explains The Wall Street Journal.

ACORN also helped spawn the mortgage crisis by promoting “liar loans.”   It has a long history of  financial fraud, vote fraud, tax evasion, waste, and mismanagement.

Lawmakers and the Obama administration have studiously ignored ACORN’s role in spawning the financial crisis, because many liberal lawmakers have long had close ties to ACORN.  ACORN is a left-wing group that launched Obama’s career as a community organizer.  (ACORN stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.)  Obama has long-standing ties to ACORN, and an ACORN affiliate received received $800,000 from Obama’s campaign.

In recent months, lawmakers distanced themselves from ACORN, and cut off its federal housing funds, after it was caught on videotape in a child prostitution promotion scandal.  (ACORN is now suing the federal government in court, to force it to resume funding ACORN.  Earlier, it sued the private citizens who exposed its role in the scandal for $2 million).

However, in the long run, ACORN is likely to continue to benefit from its close ties to liberal lawmakers and the administration.  Entities related to ACORN stand to reap millions from Obama’s financial regulation proposals and health-care reform proposals.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is busy promoting the junky, risky mortgages that fueled the housing bubble, showing that it has learned nothing from history.  One result is that the Federal Housing Administration, which is making many such loans, has gone into a “nose dive” and may need a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout, reports the Washington Post.

Obama wants to create a bureaucracy called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. “The agency would be in charge of enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that prods banks to make loans in low-income communities.” The Community Reinvestment Act was a key contributor to the financial crisis.  Yet Obama’s plan would empower the CFPA to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act without regard for banks’ financial safety and soundness.

The mortgage crisis was also caused by the reckless government-sponsored mortgage giants (”GSEs”) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by federal affordable-housing mandates.

But Obama’s proposed financial rules overhaul does absolutely nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, admits Obama’s Treasury Secretary, tax cheat Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.”

Worse, Obama’s plan is “largely the product of extensive conversations” with two lawmakers responsible for the corrupt status quo, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, and it expands the reach of regulations that have been used by left-wing groups to extort pay-offs from banks.

Recently, the administration got rid of the inspector general for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, after making Freddie Mac run up $30 billion in losses from the Obama administration’s mortgage bailouts, which bailed out even high-income borrowers who irresponsibly mismanaged their finances.  Earlier, Obama fired an inspector general, Gerald Walpin, who uncovered misuse of funds by a prominent Obama backer, smearing the inspector general with allegations that turned out to be false.

Supreme Court Limits Voting Rights Act, But Declines to Strike Down Key Section of the Act

by Hans Bader on June 22, 2009 · 2 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

The Supreme Court expanded the ability of local governments to “bail out” of a draconian provision of the Voting Rights Act, which requires them to get “preclearance” from the Justice Department, or a special court in Washington, D.C., for even trivial decisions like whether to move voting booths across the street. A three-judge district court said even local governments with an undisputed history of non-discrimination could “bail out” of Section 5 of the Act only if they themselves register voters, which most local governments don’t. The Supreme Court just overturned that ruling, which had effectively rendered the bail-out provision meaningless.

(The Justice Department has recently used preclearance requirements to block Georgia’s attempt to keep illegal aliens from voting, saying that voter ID requirements exclude more Hispanics than whites (perhaps true, but only because Hispanics in Georgia are more likely to be non-citizens not entitled to vote than are the state’s white residents). The Supreme Court earlier rejected a constitutional challenge to voter ID in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008)).

By an 8-to-1 vote, the Justices refused to strike down the pre-clearance requirements of the Act as unconstitutional, in the case decided today, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying that Section 5 of the Act violated federalism provisions of the Constitution, since the extraordinary remedy of requiring pre-clearance could only be imposed if state and local governments were engaging in discrimination that was too pervasive to be checked on a case-by-case basis in lawsuits.

In 1966, the Supreme Court, in an 8-to-1 vote, upheld an earlier, less burdensome preclearance requirement, based on rampant, systematic discrimination against black voters, reasoning that its “strong medicine” was a temporary abrogation of constitutional federalism principles necessary for black people to be able to vote. Justice Black partially dissented in that case, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, arguing that Section 5′s “requirement that States come to Washington to have their laws judged is reminiscent of the deeply resented practices used by the English crown in dealing with the American colonies,” which Americans protested in the Declaration of Independence.

But Congress dramatically broadened the Voting Rights Act in 2006, making it more burdensome, even as the discrimination that once justified the Act has become rare.

In cases like Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board (2000), the Justice Department had attempted to use its pre-clearance veto power to force local governments to engage in unnecessary race-based districting. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Bossier Parish School Board, with Justice Thomas noting that black people had fared quite well there without any racial gerrymandering (winning 3 of 12 seats on the Board), liberal newspapers and self-proclaimed civil-rights groups attacked the decision, and got Congress to overrule portions of that decision by dramatically expanding the pre-clearance requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

Ironically, even as the Justice Department uses Section 5 to force race-based restricting and thwart efforts to combat voter fraud and illegal alien voting, it has turned a blind eye to voter intimidation aimed at white voters, and done little to remedy violations of the voting rights of American soldiers.

I haven’t linked to press coverage of today’s ruling, since most of it is tendentious and ideologically biased. John Rosenberg, an expert on discrimination (and former expert witness in a landmark discrimination case), shows just how biased press coverage was of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in an age-discrimination case was (the case was Gross v. FBL Financial Services (2008)).

Earlier, I discussed how Obama misstated the facts of a landmark Supreme Court ruling, and distorted what the court’s ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear meant for people bringing pay discrimination lawsuits, and how the press (with a few exceptions) let him get away with it.

Obama Justice Department Winks at Racist Voter Intimidation

by Hans Bader on May 29, 2009

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Black Panthers in Philadelphia used nightsticks and racial epithets to drive white voters away from a polling place. “Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Because of that bizarre decision, the only result of the case was a toothless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama complained about the “politicization” of the Justice Department. But he is guilty of it far more than Bush ever was. Obama’s Justice Department has rubberstamped unconstitutional legislation sought by Democratic lawmakers that even liberal Justice Department attorneys admit is unconstitutional. It has downplayed even egregious voter fraud and denials of the right to vote committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by a federal appeals court. And it has deliberately done little or nothing to remedy clear-cut violations of the voting rights of American soldiers overseas.

Minnesota Vote Manipulation Likely Overturns Key Senate Election

by Hans Bader on December 18, 2008 · 2 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

The Minnesota Senate election was very close:  GOP incumbent Norm Coleman led liberal ex-comedian Al Franken by just 725 votes.  As a result, Franken demanded a recount.   The Minnesota Canvassing Board is mischievously changing the result of the election by treating clear votes for Coleman as non-votes, or even as votes for Franken.   Liberal blogs like Daily Kos are already celebrating the anticipated result of the shenanigans: a Franken win.  The Minnesota Secretary of State, who oversees voting, is backed by the left-wing groups MoveOn.Org and ACORN.  ACORN has a long history of voter fraud and financial fraud.  Local election officials have also contrived to inflate Franken’s vote totals, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Seizing the Minnesota Senate seat will give Democrats a commanding majority of 59 seats in the Senate, allowing them to defeat almost all filibusters.  If the Democrats get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, they’ll pass so-called “card-check” legislation, abolishing the secret ballot in elections over whether to unionize a workplace. Congressional leaders and Obama have backed card-check legislation, which could lead to intimidation and bullying aimed at employees who do not want to work in a union shop.   Clayton Cramer, who grew up in a union household, explains why the “card-check” bill favored by liberal lawmakers and Obama may lead to physical intimidation of workers, and recounts how workers in the past were subjected to beatings and worse for criticizing union conduct or declining to join a union.

The Powerline blog features continued coverage of the Minnesota Senate election shenanigans. A Bloomberg News commentary also discusses the shenanigans in Minnesota.

No to Union Auto Bailouts and Voter Fraud

by Hans Bader on November 13, 2008 · 2 comments

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Legal, Politics as Usual

USA Today has an editorial opposing a massive proposed bailout for the automakers. The automakers would be leaner, more efficient, and more able to survive in the long run if they filed for bankruptcy in order to abrogate their absurdly generous union contracts, rather than being bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Airlines keep operating all the time after filing for bankruptcy. By contrast, when England bailed out its automakers in the 1970s, at great cost, the results were disastrous and unsuccessful. But the unions want Obama to support a costly taxpayer bailout of the automakers, and so he is pushing for it. Given the union-backed incoming Democratic Congress, he’ll likely get it. But Declan McCullagh explains why bailing out Detroit is a dumb idea.

The Democrats are approaching a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, having apparently picked up the Alaska Senate seat they seemed to have lost on election day. They already have 57 Senate seats, but will pick up at least one, and perhaps as many as three, additional seats. They may pick up an additional seat in Minnesota, as a result of voter fraud, as the Wall Street Journal explained yesterday. (We previously chronicled suspicious occurrences in the vote-counting process, which is overseen by an official with ties to MoveOn.Org and the left-wing group ACORN, which has a history of voter fraud and financial fraud).

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Votes Magically Appear for Liberal Ex-Comedian

by Hans Bader on November 8, 2008 · 65 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

In Minnesota, votes are appearing, seemingly out of thin air, for the liberal Senate candidate (and onetime comedian) Al Franken. Attorney Scott Johnson says that “the election appears to be in the process of being stolen.”

Incumbent Senator Norm Coleman led in election-day results, but his lead keeps shrinking and shrinking, and is now down to an infinitesmal 200 votes out of more than 2 million votes cast.

For example, a bunch of new votes suddenly appeared in Minnesota’s Mountain Iron precinct. But as Attorney John Hinderaker notes, “Mountain Iron uses optical scanning, so the Coleman campaign asked for a copy of the tape documenting the ballots cast on election night. St. Louis County responded by providing a tape that includes the newly-added 100 votes, and is dated November 2–the Sunday before the election. St. Louis County reportedly denies being able to produce the genuine tape from election night, even though Minnesota law, as I understand it, requires that tape to be signed by the election judges and publicly displayed.”

(As John Lott notes, it’s doubtful that the new votes are valid, but previously overlooked, ballots. If they were, one would expect the vote totals for other candidates, not just Franken, to rise as well. But even as new votes for Franken suddenly appear, other vote totals remain almost the same. Franken is getting nearly 3 times as many “newly-discovered” votes as Obama, for example.)

Minnesota’s Secretary of State, who oversees the election process, was backed by the left-wing groups MoveOn.Org and ACORN. (ACORN has a long history of voter fraud and financial fraud).

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More on Voter Fraud

by Hans Bader on November 3, 2008 · 1 comment

in Legal, Personal Liberty

Law professor Glenn Reynolds writes about widespread voter fraud in the New York Post. Earlier, we wrote about voter fraud in Virginia, and voter fraud by the radical group ACORN.  ACORN has received taxpayer subsidies courtesy of liberal lawmakers, despite a history of financial and voting fraud.

Voter Fraud: An Epidemic of Repeat Voters

by Hans Bader on October 30, 2008 · 6 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty

Thousands of out-of-state college students have illegally registered to vote in swing states like Virginia, even while registering, and applying for absentee ballots, in their home state as well.  Forty such names have already been forwarded to Virginia State Police. 

This process has been abetted by Virginia’s liberal governor, Tim Kaine, and his chief of staff, who did so in response to complaints by the Obama campaign, over protests by local voting officials across the political spectrum.

Kaine appointees attempted to illegally block the counting of military absentee ballots, based on a technicality preempted by federal law, even as they ordered local voting officials to disregard state law by allowing out-of-state college students to vote in Virginia elections. 

Virginia’s attorney general, Bob McDonnell, has now issued an opinion concluding that those military votes must in fact be counted.

Virginia Officials Illegally Discard Military Votes, Allow Out-of-State Votes

by Hans Bader on October 23, 2008 · 7 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

In Virginia’s liberal Fairfax County, officials are illegally discarding absentee ballots cast by members of the military based on a technical requirement that is preempted by federal law.  Meanwhile, people who live out-of-state are being allowed to vote (some people have boasted of being registered to vote, and voting, both in Virginia and another state) in Virginia elections, contrary to state law, based on instructions from liberal state voting officials and false claims by liberal advocacy groups.

The Washington Examiner reports on October 24 that “Fairfax County elections officials are rejecting about 200 overseas ballots, many of them from members of the military, saying the voters failed to observe a minor technicality in filling out their absentee forms.”  As retiring Congressman Tom Davis notes, that technicality “violates federal law” through its “disparate treatment of overseas voters.” 

“The State Board of Elections last week instructed county officials to adhere to the letter of the [state] law,” even though it is preempted by contrary federal law.  Officials at the State Board of elections are appointed by liberal Governor Tim Kaine.

Meanwhile, that same Board of Elections ordered Norfolk registrar Elisa J. Long to ignore state law by allowing college students not domiciled in Virginia to register and vote in Virginia elections.

The military votes in Fairfax County are being discarded by long-time Democratic operative Rokey Suleman, who became the Fairfax County registrar (a supposedly non-partisan position) after long being “active in Ohio Democratic politics.”   Suleman earlier sent staffers into the Fairfax County jail to register criminals to vote.

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