A lawless Federal government

Voting Section Told Not To Enforce Purging the Dead or Ineligible from Voting Rolls -- an open invitation to voting corruption, long a Democrat specialty

by J. Christian Adams

I was at the Voting Section of the Justice Department for over five years. This office is responsible for enforcing most federal election laws which do not involve criminal matters. My previous articles at Pajamas Media have spoken of the DOJ’s lawless abandonment of race-neutral enforcement of voting laws, and other outrageous conduct. I will continue to publish here at Pajamas Media more instances of failure to enforce the law equally by the Department.

One such instance relates to the Motor Voter law, and will shock Americans who care about integrity in the electoral process.

The “Motor Voter” law was passed in 1993 to promote greater voter registration in the United States. It did this — most Americans now know from visits to the DMV — by requiring states to offer voter registration materials whenever someone had contact with a variety of state offices. These included welfare offices, social service agencies, and motor vehicle departments.

A lesser-known provision also obliged the states to ensure that no ineligible voters were on the rolls — including dead people, felons, and people who had moved. Our current Department of Justice is anxious to encourage the obligations to get everyone registered, but explicitly unwilling to enforce federal law requiring states to remove the dead or ineligible from the rolls.

In November 2009, the entire Voting Section was invited to a meeting with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, a political employee serving at the pleasure of the attorney general. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Motor Voter enforcement decisions.

The room was packed with dozens of Voting Section employees when she made her announcement regarding the provisions related to voter list integrity: "We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it."

Jaws dropped around the room. It is one thing to silently adopt a lawless policy of refusing to enforce a provision of federal law designed to bring integrity to elections. It is quite another to announce the lawlessness to a room full of people who have sworn an oath to fairly enforce the law.

Worse yet, it is a broken campaign promise by Barack Obama, and I’m sure he would not be happy to have heard the announcement. After all, his Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez has been traveling around the country bashing the Bush-era Department of Justice. Perez says as often as he can: "Those who had been entrusted with the keys to the division treated it like a buffet line at the cafeteria, cherry-picking which laws to enforce."

Yet at this meeting, Ms. Fernandes openly relished her time at the buffet line in the Voting Section cafeteria.

The problem with this sort of lawlessness, apart from the fact that it is becoming a trend in this administration, is that it nullifies the important compromise that Congress reached in 1993. Greater access to registration came by turning welfare agencies into voter registration offices, but the law also included provisions to ensure greater integrity. It is a dangerous development for our electoral system when one part of that compromise is tossed overboard by a bureaucrat.

It will be impossible for this purportedly transparent administration to deny this direction was given. There were dozens of good people in the room that I know care more about the truth than about saving Ms. Fernandes’ career.

Plus, the cases the Justice Department has brought — or not brought — corroborate the account: the Department has not filed a single case under the Motor Voter provision where there are problems.

Are there problems with list integrity? Yes, but that’s a story for another article. Even worse than not bringing cases, the Holder Justice Department has dismissed a case against Missouri that the previous administration had started. In many places in Missouri, there are more voters than humans with a heartbeat old enough to vote. Instead of fully litigating the case to a favorable outcome, the DOJ made it go away, nicely, quietly, completely. Sound familiar?

SOURCE

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Republicans could win control of Congress, White House admits for first time

The White House has admitted for the first time that Republicans could win control of the House of Representatives in crucial elections in November. Robert Gibbs, the president's spokesman, acknowledged that deep frustration with the economy could see the Democrats' 75-seat majority in the lower chamber wiped out.

"There is no doubt there are enough seats at play that could cause Republicans to gain control, there is no doubt about that," Mr Gibbs told NBC's "Meet the Press".

All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs in the Nov 2 election as well as 36 of the 100 seats in the Senate, which the Democrats expect to hold.

The party is considered particularly vulnerable in southern and midwestern states, districts that turned Democratic in the latter years of the Bush administration. A consensus has emerged among Washington observers that the House would be lost or the ruling party's majority reduced to a handful of seats.

Such outcomes would make it difficult for President Barack Obama to push through his agenda, which is likely to include major reform of energy and immigration. It would not augur well for his re-election bid in 2012.

In the past week Mr Obama has set out his policy for the midterm vote, trying to convince impatient Americans that his economic policies are working and that improvements will take time.

"We understand people are frustrated, everybody is frustrated," Mr Gibbs said. "The president is frustrated that we haven't seen greater recovery efforts, but that doesn't stop us from doing what we know is right."

Rehearsing a line of attack that Democrats are likely to use ad infinitum, he said Americans should beware of "handing back the keys" to Republicans who had "driven the car into the ditch" when the economy crashed in late 2008.

He followed the president's lead in mocking Republican House of Representatives leader John Boehner, who criticised measures Mr Obama used to rescue the crisis-riddled economy as tantamount to using a nuclear weapon to kill an ant.

A recent Gallup poll released showed that 38 per cent of independent voters approve of the job Mr Obama is doing, compared with 81 per cent of Democratic voters and only 12 per cent of Republicans. Mr Obama's overall approval rating is 46 per cent. A year ago, his approval rating among independents was 56 per cent.

Democrats are trusting that Republicans are likely to come in for tougher scrutiny from voters in November, particularly over their record on the economy and almost total opposition to efforts by Mr Obama and the Democrats to improve it.

David Axelrod, a senior White House advisor, said: "On the other side of the ballot in November will be a party that has an economic theory, and it was tested, and it led to catastrophe.

"We lost three million jobs in the last six months of 2008. The financial market almost collapsed. They turned a $237 billion that Bill Clinton left into a $1.3 trillion dollar deficit. And they're running on the same policies."

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ELSEWHERE

The economy sure is getting Obama panicked: "President Obama, who vowed in his State of the Union address to double American exports over the next five years, said on Wednesday that he would renew his efforts to renegotiate long-stalled free trade agreements with Panama and Colombia and persuade Congress to adopt them. The two trade pacts, and a third one with South Korea, were negotiated by the administration of former President George W. Bush, but all three have languished in Congress because of deep opposition from Democrats. Mr. Obama said in Toronto last month that he intended to make a new push for the South Korean agreement, and on Wednesday he pledged to press ahead with the two Latin American pacts as well."

Obama Economy Sends Americans to Their Mattresses: "Government policies designed to stimulate the economy seem to be having the opposite effect. Consumers aren't buying, businesses aren't hiring, and those fortunate enough to have some cash on hand don't seem to be investing. I call it the mattress economy. People seem to be following this investment strategy. Step one: Go to Mattress Discounters and buy the biggest mattress you can find. Step two: Take it home, and stuff all your money in it. Step three: Lie down, and get some rest. This hurts the economy, but it's a rational response to the Obama Democrats' public policies.

Chinese credit firm says US worse risk than China: "A Chinese firm that aims to compete with Western rating agencies declared Washington a worse credit risk than Beijing in its first report on Government debt yesterday amid efforts by China to boost its influence in global markets. Dagong International Credit Rating Co's verdict was a break with Moody's, Standard & Poors and Fitch, which say US government debt is the world's safest. Dagong said it rated Washington below China and 11 other countries such as Switzerland and Australia due to high debt and slow growth. The report comes amid complaints by Beijing that Western rating agencies fail to give China full credit for its economic strength, boosting borrowing costs - a criticism echoed by some foreign analysts."

Outlawing pet sales or outlawing pets?: "The nanny statists not only want to to take care of you, they want to make sure every hamster in the world gets fair treatment. Supposedly, that’s why they proposed a ban on pet sales in San Francisco, which fortunately was voted down last night. Proponents say too many people make impulse decisions when they buy pets and, therefore, all pet sales should be illegal.”

One job forward, two jobs back: "The Great Obamanomic Job Creation Machine rumbled into action again over the Fourth of July weekend, promising to spend as much as $2 billion to support creation of 1,585 ‘permanent’ jobs by two solar energy companies. That comes to a potential cost of over $1.25 million per job. In his weekly radio address on July 3, President Obama chided the Republicans for failing to climb aboard his job-creation bandwagon, which he claims — against strong evidence to the contrary — has created or saved 2.8 million jobs over the past year. And he isn’t finished.”


Moratorium on offshore deepwater oil drilling wrong move: "Not only does the president’s moratorium on deepwater drilling fail to stop the oil leak, it costs jobs on the offshore rigs that he has shut down; reduces the amount of crude oil available for refining into gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil; and penalizes BP’s competitors, who have been pumping oil from offshore wells responsibly for decades. Until BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, no oil had been spilled as a result of offshore drilling in U.S. waters since an accident off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969. Without energy production from deepwater areas, a vital source of jobs and tax revenue will be lost. And if offshore rigs remain idle for long, the Gulf’s economy will wither.”

Bad news for Obama: Conservative Justice Kennedy tells pals he's in no rush to leave Supreme Court: "President Obama may get liberal Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, but conservative swing-voter Anthony Kennedy says he's not going anywhere anytime soon. Justice Kennedy, who turns 74 this month, has told relatives and friends he plans to stay on the high court for at least three more years - through the end of Obama's first term, sources said. That means Kennedy will be around to provide a fifth vote for the court's conservative bloc through the 2012 presidential election. If Obama loses, Kennedy could retire and expect a Republican President to choose a conservative justice. Kennedy, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has been on the court 22 years. He has become a bit of a political nemesis at the White House for his increasing tendency to side with the court's four rock-ribbed conservative justices.

Church of England rejects women bishop plan: "The Church of England was in turmoil after plans by its top leaders designed to avoid a split over allowing women bishops were voted down. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the world's Anglicans, and Archbishop of York John Sentamu, his number two in the Church of England, had put forward safeguards for objectors. They received the backing of a majority of the houses of bishops and laity of the General Synod. But the concessions did not win a majority of the House of Clergy, meaning that the proposals were lost. Anglo-Catholic objectors have warned that if their demands are not met, then "large numbers" of clergy and lay people could leave for the Roman Catholic Church under an offer for disaffected Anglicans made by Pope Benedict XVI." [This just shows how isolated from lay people the bishops are]

Why we should have a paid market in kidney transplants: "Less death, better health and all for less money, what could possibly be wrong with this idea? Well, other than the fact that the Great and the Good in our own dear Blighty seem infected with the idea that money, lucre, is just so icky and shouldn’t be used to solve some problems.”

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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