I’d suspect that by now you’re no longer willing to let Bu$hCo. determine the future of global warming issues — and that’s not a cerebral decision. We see signs all around us of what isn’t “normal” … our neighbors in the UK are wondering what they’re looking at as butterflies not due for weeks arrive in their gardens.
In the US, birds not caught up in oil slicks or devastated by West Nile Virus have arrived weeks ahead of schedule and nested early, without the vegetation they depend on, here, due to ice storms in the Pea Patch, to keep them busy. And of course, ALL of us are spun up about the bee’s — if we aren’t, we should be.
Go to the National Wildlife Federation to see how climate change is impacting the critters and winged things — then go to their home page to see how to make your backyard a Certified Wildlife Habitat.
You and I can’t change China’s growing carbon footprint or make our own wicked government act responsibly for future generations, but we can do what WE can do. And we can be activists in our democratic process, using our voice to define the values of our nation. We are all connected — all living things belong to one another, to be cared for. We are the Stewards of the earth. Will we allow a greedy, negligent government to take that role away from us?
Below, Willie Nelson asks for our help with farm activism — a critical need, given the corruptions and hazards regarding our food supply. The second article gives us a look at the ramifications of politicizing immigration. The last piece is by John Deere, Jesuit and long-standing peace advocate — he tells us about the stewardship that is the responsibility of the non-violent heart.
Jude
Take Action: Support a Better Farm Bill
Willie Nelson, Mother Earth News
Monday, May 21, 2007
I believe nothing is as central to our well-being as food — who grows it and how. When produced with the interests of the eater in mind, food makes our bodies strong. When produced with the dream of passing the land on to the next generation, food strengthens local communities. And when produced with a long view of the planet’s health, food keeps our environment intact, even thriving.
Family farmers have always understood the direct connection between healthy soil, healthy food and healthy people — that’s why they take great measures to improve and protect their soil. The key to strengthening this fabric that holds our country together is to keep family farmers on this land, from coast to coast. It’s a solution to many of today’s most important concerns — climate change, fossil fuel dependence, childhood obesity and dwindling biodiversity.
In the coming months, Congress will seal the next farm bill, legislation so broad in scope that it touches each of us in many ways. When you hear “farm bill,” think beyond the farm. Think food bill, renewable energy bill, nutrition bill, environmental stewardship bill, anti-hunger bill.
Over the past several decades, the farm bill has served the interests of large-scale industrial agriculture with policies designed to produce cheap food and lots of it. This cheap food policy, however, comes with incredibly high external costs: a depleted countryside with fewer farmers, degraded soils and waterways, and public health disasters. A new farm bill — one that serves the interests of all Americans — with a vision toward sustainability, can help reverse these trends.
Instead of countless dying small towns across rural America, imagine the countryside dotted with thriving communities, all of them contributing to strong local economies.
Imagine clean waterways, protected for generations to come. Imagine farmers markets in every community with fresh, locally grown food, free of chemicals and additives. Imagine powering your home and automobile with energy from renewable sources produced close to your home. Imagine your child’s school serving fresh, wholesome food from your neighbors’ farms. Imagine young people returning to the land to carry on the great tradition of farming. These dreams aren’t futile. They are possible with a farm bill that serves your interests over those of giant corporations.
If you want your grandchildren to inherit a nation with healthy soil, clean water and nutritious food, pick up the phone today and call your representatives in Congress. Tell them you want a farm bill that assists young people who want to start farming; one that restores fairness in the marketplace so family farmers can compete with giant food companies and factory farms; one that puts better food in our schools and rewards farmers who transition to sustainable methods. Let them know you want a farm bill for all, because the farm bill belongs to all of us.
For Congressional contact information, visit www.congress.org.
You’ll find helpful tips and talking points at www.capwiz.com/bread/home
and
www.ucsaction.org/campaign/2007_farm_bill.
To keep up with farm policy news, visit www.farmpolicy.com.
You can sign up for e-mail updates from Farm Aid at www.farmaid.org.
The Day Without Farm Workers
David Mas Masumoto, CommonDreams
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Last year for one day, no one came to work in my peach orchard. A row of ladders stood empty. This was my day without immigrant labor.Without workers, I cannot farm. If I cannot farm, my organic heirloom peaches and raisins won’t reach people’s dinner tables.
Without passage of immigration reform, I can’t get enough help to harvest my fruits. This work is transient and something most Americans won’t do, even with higher wages. Under the current system, which gives so many immigrants illegal status, good workers from south of the border are forced to hide in the shadows, constantly fearful of deportation.
As the debate over undocumented workers unfolds, the growing of food seems to be left out. This debate isn’t just about citizenship. It’s also about who works the fields and how crops are grown. And it’s about working conditions and treating workers fairly — something that I and other small farmers try to do as we labor side by side with our workers.
Immigration reform needs to grant some form of legal status to the nearly 2 million illegal workers on farms and acknowledge their contribution to the farm economy and rural communities. At the very least, we should grant undocumented workers a guest worker status, ensuring fair treatment for their hard work.
Specialty fruits and vegetables depend on these hands. Now more than ever, a labor shortage threatens these crops.
I almost lost my raisin crop two years ago. Last year, pear farmers in Northern California were forced to let fruit rot on trees because there were not enough workers. I try to ripen my peaches to perfection, but lose many when I can’t get pickers; some of my best fruits fall from my trees.
Without labor, agriculture will mechanize the process as much as possible, substituting technology and capital for people on the land. This shift is not simply about the invention of a machine, but rather a dramatic change in how things are grown. It means rewarding plant breeders not for great flavor, but instead for fruit that works with machines.
I can imagine the ideal machined peaches of the future. Design them so they will simultaneously ripen. (My crews revisit a single tree four to five times, picking only what is ripe at the moment.) Breed a peach with a stem that snaps easily, so a tree can be shaken by a machine. Manufacture fruit that won’t bruise when harvested, picked rock hard to survive a handless system.
But there is no technology that can replace the human touch without sacrificing good taste.
Sustainable and organic fruit farming demands constant attention and response to nature each season: Our systems are labor intensive. I need the human element on my farm.
Farming is an inexact science. There’s an art to pruning and growing a perfect peach that requires years of practice and many hands. Without workers, I’ll have no choice but to farm differently: The politics of undocumented immigrants can change the flavor on my farm.
But agriculture is morally wrong if the sole goal is to create a new pipeline of cheap labor. Farmers must acknowledge the value of the people in their fields.
Undocumented workers have labored like ghosts — invisible, hidden, secluded. Immigration reform would shed light on them, revealing their worth.
As these new Americans are recognized, wages, working conditions and health benefits must be addressed. This will challenge farmers and the old ways of doing business.
Agriculture has openly acknowledged the need for labor: We also must accept responsibility for these workers.
I farm with a social contract — a network of honorable, mutually supporting relationships that contribute to the quality I seek. My work can’t be done by machines. I want to grow “face food,” produce with faces and their stories, keeping alive the legacy of good, authentic food.
Undocumented workers are part of this food system. We all have a stake in immigration reform, and the need to recognize the important role of all food workers. We need to support farming that contributes true flavors to life.
Farmer David Mas Masumoto of Fresno, Calif., is a Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow.
The Earth Means the World to Me
John Dear S.J., On the Road to Peace, National Catholic Reporter
May 22, 2007
A few years ago when I moved into a handmade house, off the utility grid, powered by solar panels, no potable water in the taps, atop a mesa, in the high desert of New Mexico, I took a deliberate step toward reconnecting with the earth.
Now and then, like a desert father, I walk the austere mesa and look out on the effects of a ravaging drought. And the connections turn in my mind — between global warming and war, poverty and nuclear weapons. An ancient truth comes to mind ever more vividly: “Blessed are the meek, the gentle, the nonviolent. They shall inherit the earth.”
More and more, people are making the same connections, and from that I take heart. , On the other hand, I’m disheartened for the destruction of the earth proceeds at a rate that alarms me; reports from across the world chill my heart.
Take for example the report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a 1,572-page tome. “From the poles to the tropics,” soberly said the authors, “the earth’s climate and ecosystems are already being shaped by the atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases and face inevitable, possibly profound, alternation.”
The panel predicts widespread droughts in southern Europe and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, and flooding that could imperil low-lying islands and the crowded river deltas of southern Asia.
The report stressed that many of the regions facing the greatest risks were among the world’s poorest. While limits on smokestack and tailpipe emissions could lower risks, vulnerable regions must make immediate changes to deal with shifting weather patterns, climatic and coastal hazards and rising seas, the report concluded.
The report concurs with scientists around the world. A temperature rise of 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century will likely lead to the submersion of coasts and islands. The heating will bring about massive droughts that will kill crops and cause untold famine. Ice caps will melt further, hurricanes and typhoons will pack much stronger forces. And in the end the crisis could cause the death of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people.
Shortly put: We are ears deep in a planetary emergency.
What to do? Everything must change. We need a culture that does not rely on fossil fuels, that does not hurt the environment, that does not poison the land, that does not use depeleted uranium or dump radioactive waste, that does not test or build nuclear weapons, that seeks to feed everyone and protect the planet itself with new nonviolent institutions.
Some reports say we could easily manufacture electric cars with battery stations (where you stop into at your local car shop to get a new recharged battery in the same time it now takes to fill up a tank). We surely need a new mass transportation system, much less airplane travel, massive new solar and wind energy systems, and so much more.
But most of all, we need the political will to demand change. The current administration, indeed the entire U.S. system, serves the corporate giants. These powers unto themselves look covetously upon the world’s resources and wreak havoc on the earth. They urge war on Iraq and bring in millions building nuclear weapons at Los Alamos and elsewhere. They remain numb to the starving masses. Corporate principalities and powers and their acolytes in government, they’re hastening the planetary emergency.
People of faith and conscience need to demand new policies and laws that would protect the earth and the earth’s children and creatures. Our country should work cooperatively with all the world’s nations to cut all greenhouse gases by at least 60 percent in 30 years.
But that means making the connections. If we care for the earth, we must abolish nuclear weapons once and for all. If we care for the earth, we must stop the war on Iraq and all wars. If we care for the earth, we must end both corporate greed and extreme poverty.
As we make these connections, we will deepen our spiritual understanding of reality and see everything as a spiritual issue, a life-and-death issue. We are not allowed to destroy the Creator’s creation; we are not allowed to wreak such havoc on the earth or on God’s children. We are called to practice nonviolence in every aspect of life.
Jesus says if we go deep enough into nonviolence, we will protect the earth, love the earth, and in the process inherit the earth as a blessing. It seems an anachronism to say it, but Jesus was surely an environmentalist. His observations from contemplative reflection on creation run throughout the Gospels: “Consider the lilies of the field … learn a lesson from the fig tree … Notice the ravens …” This was someone who spent time in the mountains, who strolled the land, understood the basics of farming — and could walk on water.
St. Francis understood these connections better than any disciple. He gave away his possessions, served lepers and the poor, created a community of peace, practiced nonviolence, loved his enemies, journeyed into enemy territory to meet the sultan at a time of war — and all the while slept outdoors, studied the stars, learned the name of every tree and bird, celebrated creation, and praised the Creator for creation. He was meek, gentle and nonviolent, and he inherited the earth. He died in its embrace.
We too can make those connections, like our Native American sisters and brothers, who have long respected “Mother Earth.” Like the Buddhists, with their philosophy of compassion toward all sentient beings and creation itself.
My friends at the Jesuit Center near Guelph, Canada, have begun a serious project to protect the earth and reflect on its spiritual teachings. My friend and fellow Jesuit Jim Profit runs a 600-acre plot of land, home to a retreat center, an organic farm, and a wetlands-and-bush project. He studies the connection between Christian spirituality and ecology. Quite a creative Gospel endeavor, in my view.
Back home, as I walk the desert, ponder the night sky, feel the ground giving back the day’s heat, I see the effects of global warming at my front door. And I long to make the link between Gospel nonviolence and creation. It will mean, I think, my entering ever more deeply the unity of creation. It will mean my becoming yet more in tune with nature, all of humanity, and the Holy. An ever widening nonviolence, as it were. This is our common way forward, if we desire that promised blessing.
Fr. John Dear is featured in a new 90 min. documentary film, “The Narrow Path: John Dear and the Way of Nonviolence,” with music by Jackson Browne and Joan Baez. It’s the latest San Damiano Film, open the link above for the trailer.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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May 22nd, 2007
Singing and dancing attorneys and death-bed scenes — that IS theatre … and I suggest they borrow the score from The Godfather to punctuate the good parts … like Comey racing up the stairs to get there before Fredo.
Tomorrow, Monica Goodling will testify to Congress, so things should heat up. Rove’s been warned it’s his last chance to cooperate before the subpoena — I’m sure he just forwarded the letter [scanned onto Yahoo or Hotmail or some other generic carrier] to the Dubby, who has his back. The Dub still has Fredo’s back, as well … and he thinks all this Congressional stuff is just “political theatre” … he likes that phrase, evidently, since he used it several times yesterday to describe the Ninegate issue — I think mebbe he thunk it up hisself. If he didn’t, then his advisers have lost all sense of reality — the majority of American’s think GW’s the Waiting for Godot president, lost in theatre of the absurd. Digby has some lovely photo’s to illustrate his comments — ’nuff said.
We’ve got a bit of everything in this post — a fun Youtube to start it off — then Newsweek and a New York Times editorial and Mother Jones — MSM of the Dubby’s response — a McClatchy exposé gives us a villainous character named Hans von Spakovsky [Digby has info on that, follow the links.]
The last piece is an excellent op/ed — prescribing impeachment. I hear this is an option that’s getting harder and harder for Nancy to duck — we need to keep the pressure on. There IS NO OTHER ANSWER, is there.
Jude
Don’t go fishin’ wit’ da boss, Fredo
Godfather IV, Youtube
Monday, May 21, 2007
Bad Blood Among the President’s Men
Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, Newsweek
May 15
May 28, 2007 issue - Former deputy attorney general James Comey gave a riveting account of a hospital-room confrontation over President George W. Bush’s warrantless-wiretapping program. But Comey’s testimony last week told only part of the story of the clash sparked when Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel, and the then White House chief of staff Andrew Card tried to get an ailing John Ashcroft to recertify Bush’s supersecret surveillance activities. The dispute began in early March 2004, when Attorney General Ashcroft-after being briefed by Comey-agreed the classified program was unlawful and should no longer be approved. Right after that, Ashcroft became ill with pancreatitis, was rushed to the hospital and had his gallbladder removed on March 9. (Ashcroft’s powers had been temporarily transferred to Comey.) The next evening, when he learned that Card and Gonzales were headed to see a sedated Ashcroft to get him to recertify the program, Comey rushed to the hospital to intercept them. When Gonzales tried to get Ashcroft to sign a document, Ashcroft said he wouldn’t do that, according to Comey. “But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general,” Ashcroft allegedly added, pointing to Comey. “There’s the attorney general.” (NEWSWEEK first reported the visit in its issue of Jan. 9, 2006.)
After the incident, there were recriminations over what Comey portrayed as an attempt by Bush’s top lawyer and chief of staff to “take advantage” of a very ill man. Comey didn’t tell the Senate panel that the bad feelings were stoked even more the next morning when White House officials explained the hospital visit by saying Gonzales and Card were unaware that Comey was acting A.G. (and therefore the only person authorized to sign off on the surveillance program), according to a former senior DOJ official who requested anonymity talking about internal matters. Top DOJ officials were furious, the source said. Just days earlier, Justice’s chief spokesman had publicly said Comey would serve as “head of the Justice Department” while Ashcroft was ill.
Justice officials had also faxed over a document to the White House informing officials of this. When a Gonzales aide claimed the counsel’s office could find no record of it, DOJ officials dug out a receipt showing the fax had been received. “People were disgusted as much as livid,” said the DOJ official. “It was just the dishonesty of it.” A Gonzales aide at the time (who asked not to be ID’d talking about internal matters) said there was a “miscommunication” and “genuine confusion” over who was in charge. Democratic senators plan a no-confidence vote in Gonzales. They also want him to explain his testimony last year that “there has not been any serious disagreement” about the terrorist-surveillance program. ++
Why This Scandal Matters
New York Times Editorial
May 21, 2007
As Monica Goodling, a key player in the United States attorney scandal, prepares to testify before Congress on Wednesday, the administration’s strategy is clear. It has offered up implausible excuses, hidden the most damaging evidence and feigned memory lapses, while hoping that the public’s attention moves on. But this scandal is too important for the public or Congress to move on. This story should not end until Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is gone, and the serious damage that has been done to the Justice Department is repaired.
The Justice Department is no ordinary agency. Its 93 United States attorney offices, scattered across the country, prosecute federal crimes ranging from public corruption to terrorism. These prosecutors have enormous power: they can wiretap people’s homes, seize property and put people in jail for life. They can destroy businesses, and affect the outcomes of elections. It has always been understood that although they are appointed by a president, usually from his own party, once in office they must operate in a nonpartisan way, and be insulated from outside pressures.
This understanding has badly broken down. It is now clear that United States attorneys were pressured to act in the interests of the Republican Party, and lost their job if they failed to do so. The firing offenses of the nine prosecutors who were purged last year were that they would not indict Democrats, they investigated important Republicans, or they would not try to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups with baseless election fraud cases.
The degree of partisanship in the department is shocking. A study by two professors, Donald Shields of the University of Missouri at St. Louis and John Cragan of Illinois State University, found that the Bush Justice Department has investigated Democratic officeholders and office seekers about four times as often as Republican ones.
It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove. A disproportionate number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing states. The main reason for the purge — apart from hobbling a California investigation that has already put one Republican congressman in jail — appears to have been an attempt to tip states like Missouri and Washington to Republican candidates for House, Senate, governor and president.
Justice Department headquarters has become deeply partisan. Young operatives like Ms. Goodling were apparently allowed to hire and promote based on party membership. Political appointees cleared the way for laws designed to disenfranchise minority voters, and brought litigation to remove Democratic-leaning voters from the rolls.
The department’s integrity lies in tatters. As a result of the purge, Tim Griffin, a Republican operative and Karl Rove protégé, was installed as the top federal prosecutor in eastern Arkansas. Rachel Paulose, a 33-year-old Republican activist with thin prosecutorial experience, was assigned to Minnesota. If either indicted a prominent Democrat tomorrow, everyone would believe it was a political hit.
Congress has to save the Justice Department, something President Bush shows no interest in doing. It should pass a resolution of “no confidence” in Mr. Gonzales, and push for his removal. But it also needs to insist on new leadership that will restore the department’s traditions of professionalism and impartiality, and re-establish that in the United States, the legal system does not work to advance the interests of a political party. ++
The Numbers Add Up on U.S. Attorneys Firing Scandal
Jonathan Stein, Mother Jones
05/18/07
Let’s review the numbers on the U.S. Attorneys scandal.
26 - The number of U.S. Attorneys that the DOJ targeted for dismissal, according to yesterday’s reports. (That’s roughly one in every four USA nationwide.)
9 - The number of U.S. Attorneys we previously knew had been targeted, and were either fired or resigned under pressure.
8 - The number of USAs Alberto Gonzales claimed in testimony to Congress composed the whole of the scandal.
6 - The number of Senate Republicans who have called for Gonzo’s resignation.
And today you can add a new number to the list:
4 - The number of additional USAs the Washington Post reports this morning were also on the DOJ’s hit list, bringing the total number of USAs targeted for firing to 30, roughly one-third of the entire U.S. Attorney team across the country.
Oh, and might as well add these, too:
1 - The number of no-confidence votes Senate Democrats will offer against Gonzales as early as next week.
0 - The amount of shame/credibility/integrity/respectability Alberto Gonzales has left. ++
Bush denounces Senate charges against top aide
Raw Story
Monday May 21, 2007
US President George W. Bush on Monday denounced Senate plans for a no-confidence vote in his embattled attorney general, saying that Alberto Gonzales “has done nothing wrong.”
“He has got my confidence. He has done nothing wrong,” said Bush, who has come under mounting pressure even from his fellow Republicans to dump Gonzales. “There has been no wrongdoing on his part.”
“I, frankly, view what’s taking place in Washington today as pure political theater. And it is this kind of political theater that has caused the American people to lose confidence in how Washington operates,” said Bush.
The extremely rare, symbolic vote pushed by Democratic senators could come this week, and may land another heavy blow on a White House already reeling from the unpopular war in Iraq.
Gonzales, the country’s top law enforcement officer, faces calls to resign over allegations he fired federal prosecutors last year for purely political reasons to benefit Bush’s Republican party. He has denied the charges.
“I stand by Al Gonzales, and I would hope that people would be more sober in how they address these important issues. And they ought to get the job done of passing legislation, as opposed to figuring how to be actors on the political theater stage,” Bush said.
The US Justice Department, which Gonzales helms, has offered several explanations for the mass firings, and the attorney general himself angered lawmakers by repeatedly insisting in testimony that he “can’t recall” key aspects of the purge and his role in it.
While carrying no legal weight, the Senate measure has the possible backing of several Republicans and one key lawmaker spoke Sunday of “the likelihood of a very substantial vote of no-confidence” against Gonzales.
“You already have six Republicans calling for his resignation,” Republican Senator Arlen Specter said on CBS television. ++
Bush Blames Democrats for AttorneyGate, Demands they be “More Sober”
BuzzFlash
Mon, 05/21/2007
“It is this kind of political theater that has caused the American people to lose confidence in how Washington operates,” President Bush said on Monday about Democratic plans for a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Gonzales.
Well gee, isn’t that the point of a vote of no-confidence? It is amazing how effortlessly Bush can blame Democrats for why folks are upset about the AttorneyGate scandal. Talk about shooting the messenger.
“I stand by Al Gonzales, and I would hope that people would be more sober in how they address these important issues,” Bush added. “And they ought to get the job done of passing legislation, as opposed to figuring out how to be actors on the political theater stage.”
With all due respect, we won’t be taking any lessons from George W. Bush on being “more sober.” Besides, what’s the point of passing news laws if the Attorney General and the rest of the Justice Department have become so corrupt?
“I frankly view what’s taking place in Washington today as pure political theater,” Bush continued, dragging out his stupid analogy even further. But votes of no-confidence are hardly entertaining; the Bush Administration has constructed enough dramatic tragedies to rival Shakespeare.
It is the Bush Administration that’s been making a killing off a disastrous war, secretly installed a whole bureaucracy of loyal followers, and accosted a heavily medicated, non-acting Attorney General to approve spying on the populace during a clandestine hospital meeting.
Oh, and if anyone wants to make this a musical, we’ve got the vocals of MC Rove and John Ashcroft at our disposal.
Perhaps President Bush should actually watch a play before he starts blabbering about “political theater.” Has anyone dramatized The Pet Goat yet? ++
Efforts to Stop `Voter Fraud’ May Have Curbed Legitimate Voting
Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers
5/21/07
WASHINGTON - During four years as a Justice Department civil rights lawyer, Hans von Spakovsky went so far in a crusade against voter fraud as to warn of its dangers under a pseudonym in a law journal article.
Writing as “Publius,” von Spakovsky contended that every voter should be required to produce a photo-identification card and that there was “no evidence” that such restrictions burden minority voters disproportionately.
Now, amid a scandal over politicization of the Justice Department, Congress is beginning to examine allegations that von Spakovsky was a key player in a Republican campaign to hang onto power in Washington by suppressing the votes of minority voters.
“Mr. von Spakovsky was central to the administration’s pursuit of strategies that had the effect of suppressing the minority vote,” charged Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief who worked under him.
He and other former career department lawyers say that von Spakovsky steered the agency toward voting rights policies not seen before, pushing to curb minor instances of election fraud by imposing sweeping restrictions that would make it harder, not easier, for Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters to cast ballots.
In interviews, current and former federal officials and civil rights leaders told McClatchy Newspapers that von Spakovsky:
-Sped approval of tougher voter ID laws in Georgia and Arizona in 2005, joining decisions to override career lawyers who believed that Georgia’s law would restrict voting by poor blacks and who felt that more analysis was needed on the Arizona law’s impact on Native Americans and Latinos.
-Tried to influence the federal Election Assistance Commission’s research into the dimensions of voter fraud nationally and the impact of restrictive voter ID laws - research that could undermine a vote-suppression agenda.
-Allegedly engineered the ouster of the commission’s chairman, Paul DiGregorio, whom von Spakovsky considered insufficiently partisan.
Von Spakovsky, who declined to comment on these allegations, is among more than a dozen present and former Justice Department officials drawing congressional scrutiny over the administration’s alleged use of the nation’s chief law enforcement agency for partisan purposes.
Congressional committees investigating the firing last year of nine U.S. attorneys are looking into allegations that prosecutors nationwide were urged to pursue voter fraud to build a basis for tougher ID laws.
Von Spakovsky, who had been a longtime voting rights activist and elections official in Georgia before serving at Justice, accepted a presidential recess appointment to a Republican slot on the Federal Election Commission in December 2005. He is scheduled to appear at a June 13 confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
The House Administration Committee is also inquiring into von Spakovsky’s communications with the Election Assistance Commission, a tiny agency that implemented a 2002 election reform law and serves as a national election information clearinghouse.
The bipartisan, four-member commission stirred a political tempest last year when it delayed the release of voter fraud and voter ID law studies, saying that more research was needed. A House panel revealed last month that the fraud study’s central finding - that there was little evidence of widespread voter fraud - had been toned down to say that “a great deal of debate” surrounded the subject.
Commissioners rejected as flawed the second study’s finding that voter ID laws tend to suppress turnout, especially among Latinos, and ordered more research.
Rich said that von Spakovsky usurped his seat on a commission advisory panel in 2004, although the law creating the panel allocated that spot for the Voting Rights Section chief “or his designee.” Rich said he was not consulted.
After the commission hired both liberal and conservative consultants to work on the studies in 2005, e-mails show that von Spakovsky tried to persuade panel members that the research was flawed.
In an Aug. 18, 2005, e-mail to Chairman DiGregorio, he objected strenuously to a contract award for the ID study to researchers at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, who were teaming with a group at Rutgers University.
Von Spakovsky wrote that Daniel Tokaji, the associate director of Moritz’ election program, was “an outspoken opponent of voter identification requirements” and that those “pre-existing notions” should disqualify him from federal funding for impartial research.
The criticism was ironic coming from von Spakovsky, who a few months earlier had written the anonymous article for the Texas Review of Law and Politics, in which he called voter fraud a problem of importance equal to racial discrimination at the polls. Von Spakovsky acknowledged writing the article after joining the FEC.
Months after its publication, he participated in the department’s review of Georgia’s photo ID law, as required under the 1965 Voting Rights Act for election laws passed in 16 Southern states. After the department approved it, a federal judge struck it down as akin to a Jim Crow-era poll tax on minority voters.
Rich called von Spakovsky’s failure to withdraw from the case “especially disturbing, given the clear ethical concerns” over his prior work as a Georgia elections official and the bias in his article.
Von Spakovsky’s tone toward DiGregorio grew increasingly harsh in 2005 as the chairman refused to take partisan stands, said two people close to the commission who declined to be identified because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Their differences seemed to come to a head last year over two issues raised by Arizona’s Republican secretary of state, Janice Brewer, who was implementing the toughest state voter identification law in the nation. In April 2005, the Justice Department erroneously advised her that Arizona did not need to offer a provisional ballot to those lacking proof of citizenship.
E-mails suggest that von Spakovsky contacted an aide to Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond, who inquired of DiGregorio whether the commission was “seriously considering taking a position against” the department on the provisional ballot question.
DiGregorio sent a testy message asking von Spakovsky if the note from Capitol Hill was “an attempt by you to put pressure on me.”
“If so, I do not appreciate it,” he wrote.
The next day, von Spakovsky wrote DiGregorio that he thought they “had a deal” under which the department would reconsider its position on provisional ballots if the commission would allow Arizona to modify the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship.
“I do not agree to `deals,’ especially when it comes to interpretation of the law,” DiGregorio replied.
Last September, the White House replaced DiGregorio with Caroline Hunter, a former deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee. DiGregorio confided to associates that he was told that von Spakovsky influenced the White House’s decision not to reappoint him, said the two people close to the panel.
Asked about his ouster, DiGregorio said only that he “was aware that Mr. von Spakovsky was not pleased with the bipartisan approaches that I took.” ++
What Do These Crimes Have in Common?
David Swanson, Op Ed News
May 18, 2007
Another day, another impeachable offense. If this one were on a television show we’d all flip it off in disgust as too unlikely. The President phones up a hospital to demand that the ailing Attorney General (who has turned over his duties and is disoriented) admit the President’s legal counsel and chief of staff so that they can ask him to sign off on an illegal spying program. The AG refuses to sign off. The acting AG, who is fully conscious but considers the program illegal, also refuses to sign off. The White House goes ahead and launches the program anyway, a program that involves the FBI, a program so dramatically illegal or offensive that the serial criminals running the Justice Department refuse to go along with it.
There is a theme that may unite this particular crime with a significant subset of the crimes of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. The entire voter fraud fraud [sic] is part of an effort to harass, block, discourage, and disenfranchise Democratic voters. The U.S. attorney firings and hirings, and the demands made of them, have been aimed at hurting Democratic electoral candidates and protecting Republicans. The mathematically impossible results produced by paperless election machines have hurt Democrats and benefited Republicans. It is quite likely that the illegal spying programs authorized by Bush have been used to spy on political opponents.
Now, an illegal spying program (or two, or three) is illegal whether or not it is used to spy on political opponents. A war of aggression is a crime whether or not the nation you attack possesses weapons. Misleading and defrauding Congress is a crime whether or not you have a high IQ. Torture is illegal regardless of what any “signing statement” says. It’s important not to lose the forest for the trees in all of these things, because the debate is so frequently diverted from the central question. I don’t want to distract from the need for immediate accountability for known crimes by focusing on the mystery of who exactly has been spied on.
But there appears to be a pattern in several Bush-Cheney crimes of aiming to cheat at elections. This is what Watergate was about. This is what Karl Rove’s career has been about. This is what has made every national election since 2000 so different from those before. We ought to expect this by looking at history, by looking at discrepancies between exit polls and official results, and by comparing the policy positions of the Republican Party to those of the American public. Elections that cannot be won must be stolen. And yet, we generally avoid the topic.
If we did talk more about certain Bush-Cheney crimes as constituting electoral politics by other means, we would come around sooner or later to the question of which of these crimes have succeeded. Just as Bush and Cheney’s wars have dramatically enriched oil corporations and other war profiteers, many of their other crimes have succeeded on their own terms. Their voter harassment efforts have prevented votes from being cast. Their hirings and firings at the Department of Justice have impacted elections to their benefit. Their vote counting alone has stolen a presidential election and numerous Congressional races.
But what about the spying? Have they obtained information they are holding over the heads of political opponents? Would that explain any of the Democrats’ incredible timidity? Or have they obtained information on opponents’ plans that has allowed them to react preemptively? It would be worth looking for instances where that appears to be the case. A leap would be required to assume that the illegal spying programs have been the one area in which Bush and Cheney have not met with any success.
But even if the spying is aimed at political opponents, and even if it has been successful, the White House cannot possibly have dirt on every Democrat in Congress. If Bush had that kind of information, would he allow so many scandals and indictments of Republicans in Congress to go unmatched by Democratic downfalls? I think we can be confident of these three things:
–Bush and Cheney do not have any secret pull on most Democrats in Congress.
–Most Democrats in Congress know that Bush and Cheney are using a wide array of illegal methods to cheat and steal elections, with a great degree of success, without which the Democratic win in 2006 would have been significantly larger than it was.
–Most Democrats in Congress are acquiescing in attacks on their power and hoping that future elections (or at least their own individual election) can be won by a wide enough margin to defeat any chicanery.
The main reason we need impeachment is, of course, to restore limits to the offices of the presidency and vice presidency for the future. But Democrats who put electoral concerns ahead of such long-term and selfless thinking may well be mistaken on their own terms if they fail to press for impeachment. If we do not impeach, remove from office, and try these criminals in court, we will have to abandon the idea of free and fair elections from here on out. And we know where this road leads. ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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May 22nd, 2007