Blogged by Brad from St. Louis…
Slowly but surely, the issue of felonious Republican “Vote Caging” during the 2004 Presidential Election is making its way into the consciousness of media, federal, state, and local elected officials and — whether they like it or not — the Bush/Cheney campaign officials who were involved in the practice despite repeated consent decrees signed by the RNC that they would no longer use the tactic to target minority voters for removal from voting rolls.
Today, the Florida Times-Union is reporting that, “Internal city memos show the issue of Republican ‘vote caging’ efforts in Jacksonville’s African-American neighborhoods was discussed in the weeks before the 2004 election, contradicting recent claims by former Duval County Republican leader Mike Hightower – the Bush-Cheney campaign’s local chairman at the time.”
The report goes on to say that Hightower had previously denied any knowledge of the practice of vote caging, which includes sending registered letters, marked “Do Not Forward,” to targeted voters along with a request to return a postcard. When the postcards are not returned, officials might then take measures to challenge the voters at the polls, or remove them entirely from the voting rolls.
Last month, Hightower reportedly told that paper that the issue of caging never came up in county meetings prior to the elections, and that he had never heard “of that expression or that practice.”
The Internal memos show otherwise, according to the paper. In fact, the issue came up quite regularly at meetings. Nonetheless, Hightower — pulling a Bob Dole and referring to himself in the third person — is sticking by his denial…
“I’ve never heard the phrase or the practice. I don’t care what anybody says,” he said. “That’s their opinion. Mike Hightower doesn’t remember that. Call it a senior moment.”
The issue of vote caging lists from Duvall County, Florida, first came to light prior to the 2004 election as reported at the time by the BBC’s Greg Palast. It was subsequently ignored by the American media.
In late May of this year the issue took on a new life when DoJ White House liaison Monica Goodling testified in a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing (the Times-Union reports it incorrectly as having occurred in a Senate Judiciary Hearing) that Bush/Cheney ’04 oppo-research director turned Karl Rove protege turned interim Arkansas US Attorney Tim Griffin had been involved in vote caging in 2004. Palast followed up Goodling’s testimony with an exclusive report here at The BRAD BLOG, which included contemporaneous email from Griffin with the subject line “Re: caging” and his comments, “thank you, perfect,” in reply to the email, which included spread sheet attachments said to list minority voters being targeted in Florida.
Griffin would later leave Team Bush ’04 to go to work for Rove before being inserted into the U.S. Attorney job in Arkansas where the previous USA, Bud Cummins, had been pushed out as one of the first to go in the Bush U.S. Attorney Purge.
Griffin resigned his Arkansas USA post not long after the allegations again came to light last May during Congressional investigations into the purge. In a teary post-resignation speech, he, like Hightower, denied knowing anything about vote caging, or even what the word meant, claiming that he “had it looked up” recently.
“I’ll just say that it’s so untrue,” Griffin said about the allegations, raised during the Q&A session following his speech in Arkansas. “This is all made up and faux pas. I didn’t cage votes, I didn’t cage mail, I didn’t cage animals, I’m not a zookeeper,” the former US Attorney claimed in his unfortunate metaphorical denial.
The website ePluribusMedia, in their comprehensive review of the available email and caging lists, reported that subsequent to the BBC’s pre-election reporting of the issue, no voters where then challenged in Duvall County during the ’04 Election.
As The BRAD BLOG reported several weeks ago, Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) sent a letter to the DoJ, demanding a full investigation, finally, into the vote caging allegations. Their letter referenced consent decrees signed by the RNC from the 1980’s in which, after being caught attempting to cage thousands of minority voters, they had agreed to discontinue the practice.
The Times-Union reports that Hightower’s apparent contradiction of the public record “comes to light as the U.S. Justice Department continues to consider” the Senator’s request for an investigation into “potential illegal voter suppression tactics in Duval County three years ago.”
A DoJ spokeswoman told that the paper that the request is still being reviewed.
We’re sure it is.
Brick by brick, piece by piece, conviction by conviction, they are being ripped up — and America is all the better for it.
Think how many decades this kind of criminal activity has existed and how many elections have been stolen. We might yet get to live the dream of a Democracy if we keep at this.
BTW, what’s Bev Harris up to these days? It would seem she could be providing the Calif. SoS some valuable technical help.
Shit yes, america just keeps getting better and better. Can you imagine how green with envy the rest of the world must be?
I must be an odd fella to them, because when I look over the american landscape and focus on what it has become, I have to resist puking.
I think that the penalty for conviction in a court of law of vote caging should be death.
All we have to do is execute ONE of these slimeballs, and I think the practice would diminish greatly.
There’s a remedy for these continued violations of consent decrees: outlaw the Republican Party.
Precedents: Germany outlawing the National Socialist Party after WWII, and the break-up of ATT for anti-trust practices.
Why not? It is clear that the Republican Party will not respect the rule of law, so OUTLAW IT. There is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees the right of a political party to exist.
Folks, this is just a tip in the pond compared to what’s really happened to this country.
Cheney has completely changed this country into an arm of his treason operation, and as far as anyone sees what that is, it is plain frightening……and they all hope Sibel Edmonds will just go away.
http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com
But she’s not. Too many people everywhere know the truth and its time to convict it.
Those who see past the two party system knows its time for it to end.
These guys are lower than whale shit.
Well since most of us don’t listen to the crap in the first place, could someone who does provide us with a list of the sponsers (name,address,email/phone#)? Sure would help and save the rest of us and our sanity.
Let’s see, how about IMPEACHMENT!!!When will Congress wake up and smell the coffee, or stench!!!!
Yesterday, as I viewed Michael Moore’s movie ‘Sicko’, I remembered reading that Hightower works for BlueCross/Blue Shield In Jax. Someone on the radio said he made a boat load of dough from the Resolution Trust bailout (elder Bush’s welfare for Republican program). I believe Hightower was Ambassdor to some country a few years back after the Dubya crowd took over.
Meanwhile, over at NPR’s Talk of the Nation today, Monday July 9th, discussed the “Military Swing Vote”. While I could not call in to the show from work, they now have a Talk of the Nation Blog, where I posted the following (as of this exact moment, minutes after I posted, my comment does not show — they moderate much more tightly):
Update: NPR did not post my comment. I have written to the Blog of the Nation directly, pointing out the June 6th Morning Edition piece on the ACVR, featuring our favorite blogger (too briefly). I will update again if there is more to report.
Meanwhile, I did hear from Greg Palast, saying he’d like to post my Purging the Purgers piece about Brad and Greg’s reporting that’s coming to light in the Attorney Purge scandal.
Thatsa nice.