Kobach's Boondoggle Vote ID Law

Community Bridge opens this week with a look at the "Voter ID" legislation nativist extremist Kris Kobach wants to force on Kansas. Inspired by "race laws" of a by-gone era, Kobach has thrown the sound bite of "voter fraud" around to cover up his xenophobic fears of brown and black people. In ten years, there have been 80 incidents which could be labeled "voter fraud." Just to give some perspective, Kansas has 1.7 million registered voters. That means there is a .00004 percent chance of a register voter being fraudulent. More people are misdiagnosed in hospitals in a month (research reports 155 misdiagnosed cases per 1,000 hospitalized patients) than there are cases of voter fraud in Kansas in 10 years. Now it looks like Kobach's xenophobic fears are going to cost Kansas tax payers over a million dollars, when the state doesn't have money to take care of it current commitments. So why is the legislature even considering this law?

Representatives from the Kansas Voter Coalition will discuss the proposed law, the testimony that was delivered on Wednesday against it, what Kansans can do to oppose this effort to limit who can vote in our state, and a discussion of Kobach and his links to white supremacist groups. Connecting by phone are Ernestine Kriehbel, League of Women Voters of Kansas, and Kari Ann Rinker, Kansas National Organization of Women.

MP3 File

Special: What Every Kansan Needs to Know about Kris Kobach

Why Kris Kobach Is Wrong About The Arizona Law He Takes Credit For Drafting

David Leopold, President-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and immigration lawyer at David Wolfe Leopold and Associates writes for the Wronk Room at Think Progress: "In an Op-Ed piece published in today’s New York Times, Kris W. Kobach, who claims that he “helped draft” Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant S.B. 1070, sets out to “rebut the major criticisms” of the new law individually. However, Kobach offers little more than a recital of the fallacious propaganda espoused by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—a group which has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League as a hate group—and its legal arm the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), to which Kobach serves as counsel. Let’s look at Kobach’s central claims..."

Racial Profiling 101: Kris Kobach Teaches Reasonable Suspicion
Prerna Lal writes for Change.org: "The architect of SB 1070 is now training police officers in Arizona on how to conduct racial profiling, using the pretext of 'reasonable suspicion.' Unlike probable cause, "reasonable suspicion" is a legal term that permits police misconduct based on a "totality of circumstances." In the following video, Kris Kobach launches into some of the factors local law enforcement can use to identify undocumented immigrants, which he says are mostly common sense."

Meet Kris Kobach: Lawyer For The Anti-Immigrant Movement
Melinda Warner writes for Media Matters for America: "As the debate over immigration reform continues, anti-immigrant forces have offered some downright heinous solutions on how to deal with the issue and policymakers around the country are starting to dance to the nativist beat.  It's an old pattern, and it's not limited to Arizona's notorious show-me-your-papers law."

Hazleton, PA Anti-Immigrant Law Is Unconstitutional, Federal Appeals Court Rules
The American Civil Liberties Union reports: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today issued a sweeping decision striking down as unconstitutional the city of Hazleton's law that would punish landlords and employers who are accused of renting to or hiring anyone the city classifies as an "illegal alien." The case, Lozano v. Hazleton, has been closely watched across the country because the Hazleton ordinance has served as a model for similar laws nationwide and was challenged by civil rights groups in a lengthy trial. The suit has been underway for more than four years in the federal district and circuit courts. Today's unanimous appeals court decision is the latest legal victory against discriminatory state and local laws that target immigrants and invite racial profiling against Latinos and others who appear "foreign." Many cities like Fremont, Nebraska and Summerville, South Carolina have voluntarily tabled or blocked these laws under legal pressure and local opposition."

The Man Behind Arizona’s Immigration Law

Suzy Khimm reports for Mother Jones: "When Arizona passed a law that handed local police unprecedented authority to investigate and arrest suspected illegal immigrants, the state ignited a firestorm in a midterm election year. And for Kris Kobach, the former Bush administration lawyer who helped draft the legislation, the crackdown in Arizona is just the beginning."

Kris Kobach, Architect Of Arizona Immigration Law SB1070, Is Behind Other Controversial Laws
John Hanna reports for the Huffington Post: "When politicians and police across the country want to crack down on illegal immigration, they often reach out to the same man: a little-known Kansas attorney with an Ivy League education who is the architect behind many of the nation's most controversial immigration laws.  Kris Kobach could not attend West Point because of diabetes, but he regards his efforts on immigration as a substitute for military service."

Campaign Notebook: Kobach working on “birthright citizenship” issue
Scott Rothschild reports for the Lawrence Journal World: "Kris Kobach, the Republican candidate for Kansas secretary of state who helped Arizona legislators approve a controversial immigration law, said Wednesday he is working with those legislators on a proposal aimed at denying automatic citizenship to children born in the country to parents who are illegal immigrants."

Excess Is the Way to Oblivion
Mike Hendricks reports for the Kansas City Star: " Is Kris Kobach the reincarnation of Phill Kline? And if so, should Kansans be worried? KU political science professor Burdett Loomis thinks so as Kobach vies to become secretary of state. Like Kline, Loomis says, Kobach is an ambitious crusader bent on using his office to focus on wedge issues that are more important to his political career than to you and me. “Phill Kline grabbed one issue — late-term abortions — and turned it into witch hunts that threatened the privacy of many Kansas women,” Loomis wrote in a recent commentary."

Architect Of Arizona Immigration Law Kris Kobach Faces FEC Criticism

Andrea Nill reports for Think Progress: “Local Kansas newspapers are reporting that Kris Kobach, the architect of the Arizona immigration law and candidate for Kansas Secretary of State, is being criticized by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) for the financial management of the Kansas Republican Party during his tenure as chairman. According to reports, when Kobach left the group in 2009, it had less than $5,000 in its treasury. A recent audit reveals he and then executive director Christian Morgan spent $788,000 during their two years in charge, nearly $10,000 more than was contributed. The audit also shows that, under Kobach and Morgan’s watch, 'state and federal taxes weren’t paid, illegal contributions were accepted and questionable expenditures were made.'”

Audit Links to Past KS GOP Miscues
Tim Carpenter reports for the Topeka Capitol Journal: "Two former administrators of the Kansas Republican Party were implicated Monday in a case of financial mismanagement that ranged from failure to pay state and federal taxes, acceptance of illegal contributions and approval of questionable expenditures over a two-year period."

Kris Kobach Relies Heavily On Voter Fraud Scare Tactics For His Kansas Seat Bid
Media Matters for American has provided an extensive listing of Kobach's "voter fraud" arguments and checks his "facts."  MMA writes: "Known nationally as a key proponent of anti-illegal immigrant legislation, Kris Kobach has also set his sights on becoming the Kansas Secretary of State.  A large part of his push for the seat rests on his assertion that Kansas elections are rife with fraud.  In truth, instances of voter fraud are rare in Kansas.  That fact and Kobach's moves to enact laws that prevent the elderly and the poor from voting probably won't endear him to Kansans."

Chris Biggs on the Secretary of State Campaign

Following this week's Media Minutes, Secretary of State Chris Biggs joins us in the KSDB studio to discuss the Secretary's job, key issues in this year's election campaign - from voter fraud to immigration - and his criticism of candidates who want to use the office for their own political agendas. Visit Bigg's campaign webpage.

MP3 File

Clippings for 18 June 2009

Recommended Audio: Bill Moyers Journal with Robert Reich
The big decisions on health care reform are happening right now. Congress is "mixing the concrete" of the health care reform bill, as the economist Robert Reich puts it on his blog, "And after it's poured and hardens, universal health care will be with us for years to come in whatever form it now takes."

But who's doing the mixing? Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, tells Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL that the fight to shape health care reform is the biggest test to date for President Obama. Powerful lobbies have lined up to oppose what is being called "the public option," a key element of the president's plan.

The American Empire Is Bankrupt
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig: "This week marks the end of the dollar's reign as the world's reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That's over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful."

Where are the Now? Ex-Bush Loyalists Cash In
Nick Truse writes for Tomgram: "In May, the U.S. economy lost 345,000 nonfarm jobs, pushing the unemployment rate from 8.9% to 9.4%. According to official statistics, 14.5 million Americans are now looking for work and, as a recent headline at Time.com put it, 'The jobs aren't coming back anytime soon.' In fact, a team of economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that 'the level of labor market slack could be higher by the end of 2009 than at any other time in the post-World War Two period.'"

Congre$$, Heal Thyself
Amy Goodman writes for Truthdig.com: "As the Obama administration pushes for a vote on health care reform before Congress recesses in August, has health industry money too thoroughly polluted the process for anything good to come of it?"

Centrist Democrats Make Voices Heard on Health Care
Mike Soraghan writes for The Hill: "The House's two most conservative caucuses, the Blue Dogs and New Democrats, are banding together to come up with shared principles on healthcare and counter a process many see skewing to the left. The two groups, which combined have 131 members - more than half the House Democratic Caucus - have been holding meetings to see where they can agree on a healthcare plan."

The AMA's Unhealthy Obsession
Joe Conason reports for Truthdig: "Campaigning to build the widest possible consensus for reform of the nation's health care system, Barack Obama told the delegates of the American Medical Association that he wants their support, too. Persuasive and always polite, the president did not mention the embarrassing truth about his hosts - namely, that the AMA has undermined universal care with mindless zeal for more than 70 years."

The Isolationism of Health Reform
Timothy Noah writes for Slate: "The health care debate is, within mainstream political discourse, isolationism's last refuge. Every day Washington's leaders tell us that we live in an interdependent world with a globalized economy. A butterfly beats its wings in Guangdong province, and four Wal-Marts materialize in Duluth. The peso plunges, and 30 Honda workers get laid off in Marysville. A coal-fired power plant belches carbon dioxide in Prague, and Lohachara Island sinks into the Bay of Bengal."

Conversation With Henry Giroux (Part III): Let Us Make Haste While We Can
Tolu Olorunda writes for The Black Commentator: "For some, the first five months of Obama's presidency have marked the dawn of a new era; a time when governance is filtered through the channels of pragmatism and diplomacy. For others, these five months have confirmed a belief long held before candidate Obama overtook Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee - that he was not the change-agent he had so eloquently claimed to be. In between these two factions are those who believe that while President Obama has acted less progressively than candidate Obama spoke, there are immense democratic possibilities within his administration that cannot simply be disregarded. Henry Giroux is one of those believers."

Conservatives Aren't Being Persecuted
Leonard Pitts Jr. comments for The Miami Herald: "Modern conservatism is defined by an Alice-through-the-looking-glass incoherence: small government except when it is growing larger than ever, fiscal restraint except when we are spending like Michael Jackson in a Disney gift shop, foreign-policy pragmatism except when we are trying to transform the Middle East. Indeed, sometimes it feels as if it is no longer defined by principles at all, nor by energy and ideas, but rather, by a limitless ability to feel put upon and slighted."

Battle Lines in Iran
Robert Dreyfuss writes in The Nation: " ... the traditional balance of power has been upended. According to conventional wisdom, Iran's president is a figurehead with little or no power, while the Leader (often mistakenly called the 'Supreme Leader') is the all-powerful commander in chief and decision-maker. At the very least, that balance is tilting, and I'll leave it to closer watchers of Iranian politics than me to figure out how far it's moved. But it's clear that Ahmadinejad, his military and paramilitary allies, and the radical clerics that support him have at least surrounded if not neutralized Khamenei, the Leader."

Recommended Audio: New America Now for 12 June - Muslims on the Move
This week's show includes:

Odette Keeley talks to:

• Hossein Hedjazi, veteran radio anchor PARS TV in Los Angeles,on women being involved in the Iranian elections.
  and
  
• Pilar Marrero, political editor for La Opinion, on the familiar criticism of Judge Sotomayor
  
  Sandip Roy talks to:
  
• From Seoul, NAM's Peter Schurmann gives analysis and reaction to the long jail terms given the two American journalists charged with entering North Korea illegally.

• Director Brittany Huckabee on her movie The Mosque in Morgantown about increasing the access for women to a mosque in West Virginia.

• Asra Nomani
  has been agitating for Muslim women's rights which resulted in her book Standing Alone in Mecca.
  
  
• Michael Muhammad Knight's book Taqwacores about punk muslims is so evocative of of Muslim youth, many don't think it's a novel.

Report on Warming Offers New Details
David A. Fahrenthold reports for The Washington Post: "Man-made climate change is already lifting temperatures, increasing rainfall, and raising sea levels around the United States -- and its effects are on track to get much worse in the coming century, according to a report released this afternoon by federal scientists. The report, 'Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,' covers much of the same ground as previous analyses from US and United Nations science panels. It finds that greenhouse-gas emissions are 'primarily' responsible for global warming and that rapid action is needed to avert catastrophic shifts in water, heat and natural life."

Where's Griff Jenikins? CA GOP Voter Registration Honcho Pleads Guilty To Voter Registration Fraud
Ellen writes for News hound: "Brad Blog reported yesterday that the head of the voter registration firm hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud. Brad also noted that Jacoby's arrest occurred last October "smack dab during the media's orgasmic heights of last year's phony GOP ACORN 'Voter Fraud' hoax, even as Fox 'News' (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) were going wall-to-wall with their unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats and Obama." But it's funny how little coverage that arrest and now the guilty plea has gotten. "

DOJ Abortion Violence Suits Cratered Under Bush
Daphne Eviatar reports for The Washington Independent: "Just as federal law specifically penalizes hate crimes, the law also makes it a federal crime to threaten or commit violence against abortion providers, or to vandalize their clinics. Yet as TWI revealed last week, the criminal law was not being enforced ... But there's also a civil component to that federal law, known as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act. That part of the law allows the attorney general to seek an injunction and compensatory damages for anyone who's been harmed by any activity that violates the law. And it turns out that the Department of Justice over the last eight years didn't use that part of the law to protect abortion providers, either."

Planned Parenthood = Primary, Preventive Care
Jodi Jacobson reports for RH Reality Check: "As the Obama administration and Congress turn their full attention to reforming the nation's health care system, Planned Parenthood Action Fund today has launched a multimedia campaign focused on the central role played by Planned Parenthood affiliates in communities across the nation: Providing millions of Americans with essential primary and preventive health care every day. The campaign's web site will serve as a hub for online education and advocacy and provides links to television and web ads, and a range of interviews with providers, clients, and parents of students who have received care from Planned Parenthood."

Maternal Death, Illness Are Human Rights Violations
Jodi Jacobson reports for RH Reality Check: "In 1988, I stayed for a week with a married couple, both physicians, who ran what was then recognized as one of the best rural clinics in the state of Maharashtra, India. Even so, they could not work miracles in a setting in which reaching the clinic itself represented a problem. While there, one woman died of hemorrhage due to the combination of a complicated labor and delivery and her inability to get to the clinic in time to be saved. Another was dying of metastatic breast cancer, which had gone undiagnosed for months during her fourth pregnancy."

Obama Is Taken to Task for Defense of Marriage Act Stance
Instead of defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, the Obama administration should work to repeal it, HRC President Joe Solmonese writes in a letter to President Barack Obama. "As an American, a civil rights advocate, and a human being, I hold this administration to a higher standard than this [legal] brief [in support of the act]," Solmonese writes. The New York Times, in an editorial, calls on the administration to make good on its pledge to provide legal recognition for same-sex couples. For more information read the following opinion pieces:
Washington Blade
The Wall Street Journal
The New York Times

Fox Nation Embraces White Supremacists
Priscilla writes for News Hounds: "It’s not really surprising given the racism and intolerance shown by Fox Nation 'citizens;' but for them to actually support white supremacists, in the US Army, is a bit – ah – unsettling. When I read the article in Salon, about how the military’s admission’s standards have been loosened to accept white supremacists, I was appalled. Not so Fox Nation whose outrage about the Homeland Security Report, caused by their belief that the report targeted “conservatives,” seems to indicate that they either have no problem with white supremacists or that they are the white supremacists who do, sorry Fox Nation, bear monitoring. Anyway, here are some choice comments from the 'volk' in the Fox Nation Fatherland responding to the Fox Nation headline: 'Far-Left Media Accuse U.S. Army of Enlisting Neo-Nazis.'"

Clippings from the progressive press for 10 December - Human Rights Day

Click on titles to read complete articles.

Speak Up for Human Rights - The Price of Silence is Much Too High
Marcia G. Yerman writes for the Huffington Post: "With Barack Obama poised to take office in January 2009, one of the major lessons his candidacy has offered is that movements are built from individuals taking action. In an effort to rally attention to the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Amnesty International, working in cooperation with Link TV: Television Without Borders, is releasing the international song and video The Price of Silence. "

Spying on Pacifists, Environmentalists and Nuns
Bob Drogin writes for The Los Angeles Times: "'Lucy' was an undercover Maryland State Police trooper who between 2005 and 2007 infiltrated more than two dozen rallies and meetings of nonviolent groups. Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by 'Lucy' and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database - and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency. Among those labeled as terrorists: two Catholic nuns, a former Democratic congressional candidate, a lifelong pacifist and a registered lobbyist. One suspect's file warned that she was "involved in puppet making and allows anarchists to utilize her property for meetings."

The Secret Weapon: Religious Abuse in the War on Terror
Michael Peppard writes for Commonweal: "In Fünf Jahre meines Lebens (“Five Years of My Life”), the most powerful memoir yet published by a former Guantánamo detainee, the German Murat Kurnaz remembers an especially disturbing episode that took place while he was in a cage at Camp X-Ray: 'One time there was a long, tortured cry. I turned around. There was a second and then a third cry, but they sounded different from the cries of people being beaten. It was the long and frightening wail of death. Through the chain-link fencing I could see a guard in the cage of one of the Arab prisoners. I immediately knew what had happened.'"

Capitalist Fools
Joseph Stiglitz writes for Vanity Fair: "There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history—a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it’s crucial to get the history straight."

Stimulus is for Suckers
James Galbraith writes for Mother Jones: "The historical role of a stimulus is to kick things off, to grease the wheels of credit, to get things "moving again." But the effect ends when the stimulus does, when the sugar shock wears off. Compulsive budget balancers who prescribe a "targeted and temporary" policy followed by long-term cuts to entitlements don't understand the patient. This is a chronic illness. Swift action is definitely needed. But we also need recovery policies that will continue for years."

The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig.com: "The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, along with most other elite schools, do a poor job educating students to think. They focus instead, through the filter of standardized tests, enrichment activities, advanced placement classes, high-priced tutors, swanky private schools and blind deference to all authority, on creating hordes of competent systems managers. The collapse of the country runs in a direct line from the manicured quadrangles and halls in places like Cambridge, Princeton and New Haven to the financial and political centers of power. "

Republicans Bring Socialism to America
Robert Scheer writes for Truthdig.com: "Let the record show that it was George W. Bush, the rich Texas Republican, who brought socialism to America, so don’t blame it on that African-American Chicago Democrat community organizer who made it into the White House. The government takeover of the banking and automobile industries not only happened on President Bush’s watch, it was also the deregulatory mania of this president’s family, beginning with his father, which took this country into such starkly unfamiliar territory. "

A Whitewash for Blackwater
Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post: "The federal manslaughter indictment of five Blackwater Worldwide security guards in the horrific massacre of more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad may look like an exercise in accountability, but it's probably the exact opposite -- a whitewash that absolves the government and corporate officials who should bear ultimate responsibility."

The Silent Winter of Escalation
Norman Solomon comments for Truthout: "...the silence now enveloping the political nonresponse to plans for the Afghanistan war is a message of acquiescence that echoes what happened when the escalation of the Vietnam War gathered momentum. Right now, the basic ingredients of further Afghan disasters are in place - including, pivotally, a dire lack of wide-ranging debate over Washington's options."

The Imperial Transition: 44, the Prequel
Tom Engelhardt writes for TomDispatch: "Maybe if the imperial presidency and the national security state worked, none of this would matter. But how can they, given the superlatives that apply to them? They're oversized, over-muscled, overweight, overly expensive, overly powerful, and overly intrusive. Bottom line: they are problem creators, not problem solvers. To expect one genuine 'decider,' moving in at the top, to put them on a diet-and-exercise regimen is asking a lot. After all, at the end of the George Bush era, what we have is the GM of governments, and when things start to go wrong, who's going to bail it out?"

Recommended Audio: Counter Spin for 5 December
This week on CounterSpin: For years veterans claiming to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome were derided as cranky and hysterical by the department of defense and even by some journalists. Will that change now that a definitive report says the Gulf War illnesses are real, incurable, and caused by toxic materials used by the U.S. military during the 1991 Gulf War? We'll talk to Paul Sullivan, a veteran and the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense.

Also on the show: As the Obama White House takes shape, Americans are asking what the president-elect's cabinet choices suggest about the political direction his administration may take. Corporate media are making no effort to hide what they think are smart, responsible choices for Obama, but the reasons for those strong preferences are rarely explored. We'll talk with FAIR's Peter Hart about the press reception of the new cabinet picks.

Read FAIR's media advisory: Media Cheer for "Non-Ideological" Centrists.

Who is 'Senate Candidate 5'?
Ben Protess writes for ProPublica: "The FBI’s arrest today of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has brought a new figure into our political lexicon: 'Senate Candidate 5.' The FBI recorded Blagojevich last week saying to an adviser that “Candidate 5” might raise money for Blagojevich and even give him “some (money) up front, maybe” in exchange for being appointed to replace Obama, according to today’s criminal complaint (PDF) filed by the United States Attorney’s office in Chicago."

Environmentalists Say Big Three Blocking States from Imposing "Clear Car" Standards
Tiffany Gabbay reporting for Cybercast News Service says: "Environmental groups say consumers want to buy cars that get 50 miles per gallon and they want electric vehicles - but Big Three automakers don't want to have to produce them. When asked why the Big Three - Ford, GM and Chrysler LLC - should be forced to make cars that the automakers say there is no demand for, Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network claimed that the market actually wants environment-friendly vehicles."

'Yes We Can' Create a Sane Food Policy in the US
Bruce Friedrich writes for CommonDreams.org: "Two extensive reports released in April indicate that our current method of devising food policy is broken and that the current system is doing tremendous harm in many areas, including those that are of particular interest to President-elect Obama: human health, the environment, and global poverty. "

Who Started the War on Christmas?
'The War on Christmas' started in a white nationalist cabal and spread to conservative media.
Max Blumenthal writes for The Daily Beast: "What would Christmas be without warnings of the secular crusade to destroy it? Thanks to the fulminations of cable news cranks and evangelical moralists, the War on Christmas has become an annual outrage. The story typically goes as follows: secular elements have intimidated stores into replacing the phrase “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays;” nativity scenes have been removed from public spaces under threat of ACLU lawsuits; a decadent culture is moving ever closer to eradicating Christian morality; and America slouches towards Gomorrah."

Boxed Ballots
Ben Adler writes for The New Republic: "In the weeks leading up to Election Day, the hand-wringing over voting irregularities reached a fever pitch. Rolling Stone published a feature by Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., warning that Republicans may have already stolen the election. The McCain campaign highlighted accusations that the civil rights group ACORN was trying to commit voter fraud by fabricating voter registrations. Voting rights groups sent nearly daily e-mail blasts to reporters obsessing over every state and local incident of voter intimidation or suppression. And yet after Election Day, the stories seemed to have vanished. What happened?"

Fair Trade Magic: Women profit from news ways of doing business
Ann Hutchens writes for the New Internationalist: "Doing business in Vanuatu is a struggle at the best of times. But a group of illiterate women basket-weavers on one of its remote islands, with no market, no business skills and no money, have been showing that fair trade can offer previously unheard-of opportunities."

Take Action: Tell Congress to Pass the Matthew Shepard Act
A law protecting all of our citizens against senseless hate and violence is long overdue. Twenty-one year old Mathew Shepard died ten years ago on a lonely fence in Wyoming. It is now time for the Congress and President to act. Lawrence King was just 15 when he was shot dead by a classmate in February of 2008 because he was gay. Trans youth Simmie Williams Jr., was also killed in a hate-based drive-by shooting. Many others have shared their fate.

The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Hate Crimes Prevention Act/ Matthew Shepard Act would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability to existing hate crimes legislation. It would strengthen federal hate crime laws by allowing the Department of Justice to assist local authorities in the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes cases.

Send a message to Congress today. Remind them that America still needs the Matthew Shepard Act to help ensure safety and security for ALL Americans from senseless Hate Crimes, especially our youth.

Clippings for 28 September

A Better Bailout
Joseph E. Stiglitz writes in The Nation: "The champagne bottle corks were popping as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced his trillion-dollar bailout for the banks, buying up their toxic mortgages. To a skeptic, Paulson's proposal looks like another of those shell games that Wall Street has honed to a fine art. Wall Street has always made money by slicing, dicing and recombining risk. This 'cure' is another one of these rearrangements: somehow, by stripping out the bad assets from the banks and paying fair market value for them, the value of the banks will soar."

Is the Bailout Needed? Many Economists Say "No"
Kevin G. Hall reports for McClatchy Newspapers: "A funny thing happened in the drafting of the largest-ever US government intervention in the financial system. Lawmakers of all stripes mostly fell in line, but many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that the Wall Street bailout's a dangerous rush job. President Bush and his Treasury secretary, former Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry Paulson, have warned of imminent economic collapse and another Great Depression if their rescue plan isn't passed immediately. Is that true?"

AIDS Epidemic Reaches a "Chronic Stage"
Sarah Boseley reports in The Guardian UK: "After more than two decades and a truly epic struggle, the HIV/AIDS epidemic appears to be leveling off. The numbers of new infections are dropping. By now we have medicine we can give those infected to stop them from dying and we know how to prevent people becoming HIV positive. And yet every day, destitute women with children to feed sell their bodies for unsafe sex, babies are born with the virus and men die for lack of drugs. So much has been achieved in the fight against AIDS, and so much remains to do."

Ohio's Battle Over Early Voting
Amy Merrick writes in The Wall Street Journal: "In Ohio, where early voting will begin Tuesday, the fight in the courts is becoming as bruising as the one expected at the ballot box. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit in Cleveland late Wednesday, challenging a central Ohio county's decision to reject the secretary of state's instructions about same-day registration and voting."

The New Corporate Threat to Our Water Supplies
Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman write for TomDispatch.com: "In the last few years, the world's largest financial institutions and pension funds, from Goldman Sachs to Australia's Macquarie Bank, have figured out that old, trustworthy utilities and infrastructure could become reliable cash cows - supporting the financial system's speculative junk derivatives with the real concrete of highways, water utilities, airports, harbors and transit systems."

Bush "Conscientious Refusal" Puts Us All at Risk
Dr. Wendy Chavkin comments in RH Reality Check: "Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a set of regulations that claim to increase protection for healthcare workers' right to abstain from medical services to which they conscientiously object. These regulations represent another in a long line of cynical attempts by the Bush administration to distort science and medicine to fit its religious views and sabotage women's access to reproductive health care."

Ideology of Judges Determines Asylum Seekers' Fate
Matthew Blake reports in The Washington Independent: "In August 2006, then-Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales unveiled a 22-point plan to rescue the severely strained immigration court system. Gonzales vowed to better assist and police the more than 200 U.S. immigration judges, who are civil servants in the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the Justice Dept. Each year, these judges issue more than 300,000 rulings on whether an undocumented immigrant seeking asylum in the United States can stay or must be deported."

An Unfolding Crisis in the Wake of Mississippi ICE Raid
Kari Lydersen writes for In These Times: "On August 25, federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the Howard Industries electronics factory in Laurel, Miss., taking into custody 592 immigrant workers-the largest single workplace raid in US history. But as in Postville, Iowa, New Bedford, Mass. and other sites of recent massive workplace raids, local immigrants and advocates say the real story is only now unfolding, as the waves of fear unleashed by the raids ripple throughout the community."


Recommended Audio
Check out last week's Counter Spin. They open by looking at the Republicans attempts to bar people from voting in November who have lost their homes in the mortgage crisis—targeting a largely poor, African-American pool of voters who would likely lean heavily towards the Democratic Party. Michigan's Republican party denied the allegations just as soon as the story started making its way into the mainstream media. CounterSpin speaks with Michigan Messenger reporter Eartha Jane Melzer about what she uncovered, and what she makes of the pushback against her reporting. Also on the show: The proposed federal bailout of Wall Street financial giants is still a top story.

Unequal America
Elizabeth Gudrais reports for Harvard Magazine: "When Majid Ezzati thinks about declining life expectancy, he says, 'I think of an epidemic like HIV, or I think of the collapse of a social system, like in the former Soviet Union.' But such a decline is happening right now in some parts of the United States. Between 1983 and 1999, men's life expectancy decreased in more than 50 U.S. counties, according to a recent study by Ezzati, associate professor of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and colleagues.... The United States no longer boasts anywhere near the world's longest life expectancy. It doesn't even make the top 40. In this and many other ways, the richest nation on earth is not the healthiest. Ezzati's finding is unsettling on its face, but scholars find further cause for concern in the pattern of health disparities. Poor health is not distributed evenly across the population, but concentrated among the disadvantaged."

For the complete story, click here.

US Headed for "Heightened Alert" Stage
Pierre Thomas reports for ABC News: "Government officials have been quietly stepping up counterterror efforts out of a growing concern that al Qaeda or similar organizations might try to capitalize on the spate of extremely high-profile events in the coming months, sources tell ABC News. Security experts point to next month's Olympics as evidence that high-profile events attract threats of terrorism, like the one issued this past weekend by a Chinese Muslim minority group that warned of its intent to attack the Games. Anti-terror officials in the U.S. cite this summer and fall's lineup of two major political parties' conventions, November's general election and months of transition into a new presidential administration as cause for heightened awareness and action. This is what the Department of Homeland Security is quietly declaring a Period of Heightened Alert, or POHA, a time frame when terrorists may have more incentive to attack."

For complete story, click here.

The Military-Industrial Complex: It's Much Later Than You Think
For TomDispatch.com, Chalmers Johnson writes: "Most Americans have a rough idea what the term 'military-industrial complex' means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of January 17, 1961. 'Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime,' he said, 'or indeed by the fighting men of World War II and Korea ... We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions ... We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications ... We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.' Although Eisenhower's reference to the military-industrial complex is, by now, well-known, his warning against its 'unwarranted influence' has, I believe, largely been ignored."

For complete commentary, click here.

W-Fi Internet Radios will Bring World into Your Home.
Peter Svensson of the Associated Press writes: "What are you going to listen to? Norway's 24-hour folk music channel? The public hearings of the California Integrated Waste Management Board? Radio Banadir from Somalia? It's a big world out there, and Internet radios can bring it home."

For complete story, click here.

A Vote for Net Neutrality
Chellie Pingree writes for the Huffington Post: "It's easy for those of us intimately familiar with Net Neutrality to forget that this isn't even on the radar screen for much of the public. But it should be. Even with the FCC vote to sanction Comcast, we still need to make Net Neutrality the law."

For the complete story, click here.

Digital-Music Legislation Would Take Away Consumer Rights
Public Knowledge writes: "Legislation considered today by the Senate Judiciary Committee would nullify rights consumers already have to record digital music, Public Knowledge said in written testimony submitted to the Committee."

For the complete press release, click here.

Darwin on the Right: Why Christians and Conservative should Accept Evolution.
Michael Shermer writes in a 2006 column for Scientific American: "According to a 2005 Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of evangelical Christians believe that living beings have always existed in their present form, compared with 32 percent of Protestants and 31 percent of Catholics. Politically, 60 percent of Republicans are creationists, whereas only 11 percent accept evolution, compared with 29 percent of Democrats who are creationists and 44 percent who accept evolution. A 2005 Harris Poll found that 63 percent of liberals but only 37 percent of conservatives believe that humans and apes have a common ancestry. What these figures confirm for us is that there are religious and political reasons for rejecting evolution. Can one be a conservative Christian and a Darwinian? Yes. Here’s how."

For complete column, click here.

The Systematic Destruction of Voting Rights in America (Part 1)
Heidi Stevenson writes in Natural News: "You might think you have the right to vote. You might think your vote counts. You might think that there's a problem here or there, but that they're the exceptions. You might think that the 2000 presidential election was an aberration, in which the US Supreme Court violated ethical and court precedents to crown the election loser, countering the will of the people. You might think it can't possibly be an ongoing problem. You might be very sadly mistaken."

For complete story, click here.

New Torture Memo Shields Interrogators
Spencer Ackerman reports for The Washington Independent: "One of the most important building blocks in the Bush administration's apparatus of torture became public today. An Aug. 1, 2002 memorandum from the Justice Dept.'s Office of Legal Counsel to the Central Intelligence Agency instructed the agency's interrogators on specific interrogation techniques for use on Al Qaeda detainees in its custody. Most of the 17-page memo is blacked out and unreadable. But at least one of those techniques is waterboarding, the process of pouring water into the mouth and nostrils of a detainee under restraint until drowning occurs."
For the complete story, click here.

The Company We Keep
Michael Winship, writes for Truthout: "You will know us by the company we keep. The burners of witches and the medieval masters of thumbscrews and Iron Maidens, the interrogators of the Spanish Inquisition, the North Vietnamese soldiers who beat John McCain and his fellow American prisoners of war into false confessions. We have joined their ranks."
To read the complete commentary, click here.

Impeachment Hearings are the Appropriate and Necessary Next Step
John Nichols writes in The Nation about Friday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, "As it happened, impeachment was mentioned dozens of times during the hearing, often in significant detail and frequently as a necessary response to lawless actions of the president and vice president."
To read Nichols complete blog entry, click here.

Three States Accused of Illegally Purging Voter Lists
Steven Rosenfeld, writes for AlterNet: "Election officials in a handful of states appear to be ignoring the federal law dictating the way registered voters may be purged from voter rolls, civil rights attorneys say."
For the whole story, click here.

The Shock Jock Racket
Rory O'Connor writes about Shock Jock Michael Savage: "Angry citizen reaction to the latest cynical, cyclical outpouring of hateful speech over the public radio airwaves – top-rated talk show host Michael Savage’s despicable attack on autistic children as “brats, morons and idiots” – has once again injected America’s talk radio problem back into the mainstream news cycle."
To the complete commentary, click here.

The Media and McCain
Jamison Foser writes in the weekly Media Matters newsletter: "Even while carrying McCain's water, media worry they aren't doing enough for him. John McCain complaining about media coverage is a little like an oil company complaining about profit margins: hard to believe, and even harder to feel much sympathy. This is, after all, a politician who has referred to the press as his "base," and a politician about whom MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has said 'every last one of them [reporters] would move to Massachusetts and marry John McCain if they could.' As Eric Alterman and George Zornick recently explained in The Nation, 'no candidate since John F. Kennedy, and perhaps none since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has enjoyed such cozy relations with the press.'"
For Foser's complete commentary, click here.

Broadcasters Dole Out Political Access
Bill Mann of the San Jose Mercury News writes in his opinion column that broadcasters -- which are handed their licenses to control the public airwaves for free -- hold our electoral process captive, doling out airtime while sucking up most of the political money spent in each election cycle. But you won't see stories about it on their newscasts.
For the complete column, click here.

Republican Campaign Against Likely Democratic Voters Begins
Steven Rosenfeld writes for Alternet: "Across the country and on the Republican National Committee website, a handful of GOP office holders and party officers are trying to discredit recent voter registration drives and record-setting turnout by Democrats in 2008 primaries, saying efforts seen as benefiting Democrats are rife with "voter fraud.""

For complete story, click here.

What Patriotism Is, and Is Not
Michael Winship, for Truthout, writes about false accusations against Obama's patriotism, "Chances are, many of the perpetrators of this nonsense think they're being patriots, saving us from Obama and ourselves. And goodness knows, there's a long history of this kind of guttersnipery in American politics. As Obama pointed out in his Monday speech on the nature of patriotism, 'Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists of selling out to the French. The anti-Federalists were just as convinced that John Adams was in cahoots with the British and intent on restoring monarchal rule ... the use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the Republic.'"

For his complete commentary, click here.

On Black Patriotism
Eugene Robison writes for Truthdig.com: " Anyone who took U.S. history in high school ought to know that one of the five men killed in the Boston Massacre, the atrocity that helped ignite the American Revolution, was a runaway slave named Crispus Attucks. The question the history books rarely consider is: Why? Think about it for a moment. For well over a century, British colonists in North America had practiced a particularly cruel brand of slavery, a system of bondage intended not just to exploit the labor of Africans but to crush their spirit as well. Backs were whipped and broken, families systematically separated, traditions erased, ancient languages silenced. Yet a black man—to many, nothing more than a piece of property—chose to stand and die with the patriots of Boston.

For the complete commentary, click here.

Single Moms' Poverty Spikes After Welfare Overhaul
Allison Stevens of Women's eNews reports, "Some 15 million US women live in poverty, according to 2006 Census data collated by the Washington-based National Women's Law Center. Poverty rates are especially high among women of color, older women and single mothers. Black and Hispanic women are about twice as likely to be poor than white women. Roughly one in five elderly women are poor, as are one in three single mothers."

For the complete story, click here.

Vendor Misinformation in the E-Voting World
Dan Wallach, for VoteTrustUSA, writes: "At this point, the scientific evidence is in, it's overwhelming, and it's indisputable. The current generation of DRE voting systems has a wide variety of dangerous security flaws. There's simply no justification for the vendors to be making excuses or otherwise downplaying the clear scientific consensus on the quality of their products."

To read the complete article, click here.

Playing the Fear Card
Dan Kennedy for the Guardian writes: "Be afraid. It's not just a warning - it's a campaign slogan. For Republicans, fear is a cudgel with which they've bludgeoned their way to victory since the Reagan era, and it's acquired an extra emotional wallop since 9/11. Will it work again? Even though Barack Obama has a lead of as much as 15 points in the national polls, don't be too sure that it won't. After all, Michael Dukakis led the first George Bush by 17 points in the summer of 1988. That fall, Dukakis collapsed under a vicious assault on his patriotism, his toughness, even his mental stability."

FOr his complete commentary, click here.

On the June 19th Community Bridge we will discuss the topic of requiring photo identification or other proof of identity in order to be able to vote. Here are some background articles to help listeners participate in this week's discussion.

Voting Rights Lawyers Defeat Texas' Bogus Voter Fraud Prosecutions
Steven Rosenfeld for AlterNet writes: "A years-long, high-profile campaign by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, to prosecute elderly Democratic Party volunteers for voter fraud because they helped homebound seniors to vote by mailing their absentee ballots -- but not signing the backs of envelopes -- fell apart on federal court house steps in Texas on Wednesday. The Attorney General agreed to settle a federal lawsuit challenging the voter fraud prosecutions of the Democratic volunteers rather than go to trial, according to the Lone Star Campaign, which first characterized the AG's prosecutions as politically motivated voter suppression and funded the litigation. Gerald Hebert, an ex-Department of Justice Voting Section Chief and now executive director of the Washington-based Campaign legal Center, represented the Texas Democratic Party and volunteers in the suit.

For the complete story click here.

Voting Machine CEO Reportedly Lies About Foreign Ownership of Firm
Brad Friedman writes on Brad Blog: "The CEO and President of one of America's largest voting machine companies, Sequoia Voting Systems, gave both deceptive, and carefully selective answers in his reply to a letter sent earlier this year from two high-ranking officials in Chicago, according to documents recently obtained during an ongoing investigation by the Brad Blog. Sequoia's chief executive, Jack Blaine, repeated knowingly false answers, at least three different times, in his January 18 response to Chicago Alderman Edward M. Burke and the Chair of Chicago's Board of Election Commissioners Langdon D. Neal. The pair had written to the company on January 11, expressing concerns about the truth behind Sequoia's claims that they had completely divested from their purportedly "former" parent company, Smartmatic, the Venezuelan-run firm with direct ties to Hugo Chavez and his government."

For the complete story, click here.

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship
IAN URBINA in the New York Times wrote on May 12, 2008: "The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote."

For complete story click here.

Missouri Bill to Block Nuns, Eldery from Voting Defeated
Art Levine write in the Huffington Post: "A GOP-pushed effort, aided by Republican voter-fraud scam artist Thor Hearne, to pass the country's most draconian photo ID bill has been stopped today in the Missouri Senate. Republicans, despite proclaiming the menace of voter fraud, didn't have enough votes to bring it to the floor for a vote. An angry outpouring from senior citizens, nuns, the disabled and others who would be blocked from voting under the proposed constitutional amendment, led by a broad-based progressive coalition that included the AARP, swamped Republican legislators with over 4,000 phone calls and an outcry from local newspapers."

For complete story, click here.

The Fraudulence of Voter Fraud
Joel Bleifuss writes in In These Times: "On April 6, 2006, in Washington, D.C., Karl Rove gave a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association and issued this dire warning:

We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem, and I appreciate all that you're doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot - the integrity of the ballot - is protected, because it's important to our democracy.

When Rove talks about protecting "ballot integrity," that is shorthand for disenfranchising Democratic Party voters. Over the last several years, the Justice Department, with the help of White House operatives, has sought to boost GOP electoral fortunes by orchestrating a national campaign against voter fraud. But the administration overreached on Dec. 7, when President George W. Bush fired eight U.S. attorneys, a political scandal that some say could become this president's Watergate."

For complete story, click here.

Supreme Court's voter ID decision is a blow to democracy
David A. Love writes in the Progressive: "In its 6-3 decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the court ruled that the law, which requires Indiana voters to show photo identification at the polls, is constitutional. But the law was devised with partisan motives in mind. The Republican-dominated legislature enacted it in 2005 against the wishes of Democrats and civil rights advocates who were concerned that it would deny equal access to the voting booth. Why? Because the law places an unfair burden on the poor, minority groups, students, the disabled and the elderly, groups that are least likely to have proper ID."

For complere commentary, click here.

GOP cranking up suppression efforts

By MARTIN FROST

Politico.com

Voter suppression in the minority community has always been high on the Republican agenda. It’s done in the name of protecting the sanctity of the ballot. It’s really about keeping black, Hispanic and elderly voters away from the polls.

The Republicans are back at it again, and Democrats had better pay attention or they could lose elections on this basis alone.

Republicans got a big boost recently when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law requiring state- or federal-government-issued photo identification (such as a state driver’s license or a passport) for voting. Under the Indiana law, the document must be in the exact name that appears on the registration rolls and must have an expiration date that has not yet passed.

The fight now shifts to the states. The Supreme Court has opened the door to voter ID laws, but since each state determines its own rules for conducting elections, the rules could well vary from state to state, and fights in state legislatures on this subject will be epic. Civil rights groups will correctly view this as the single-greatest threat to the right to vote since the passage of the Voting Rights Act 43 years ago.

Seven states have variations of this type of law on the books, and it is possible that other states could pass similar laws in time to affect the 2008 elections. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature passed a new voter ID bill, but it was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. It is also possible that partisan Republican election administrators in some other states may attempt to use the Supreme Court decision to unilaterally impose a photo ID requirement, even if there is no law in their state authorizing one.

Missouri considered amending its constitution in time to affect this year’s election. A proposal moving through the GOP-controlled Legislature earlier in May would have required proof of citizenship (a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport) in order to register to vote. That’s even tougher than producing a government-issued photo ID at the time you vote. However, the legislature adjourned without acting. Other states may consider comparable proposals in the future.

It is estimated that at least 20 million people in the United States do not have a driver’s license. The vast majority of those potential voters are minorities or the elderly — groups who normally vote Democratic. If someone does not have a driver’s license, it is also unlikely that he or she will have a passport. An extreme example of this problem was seen during Indiana’s May 6 primary, when a group of elderly nuns was turned away because they didn’t have driver’s licenses.

Proponents of such laws argue that states can provide an option for voters to obtain free state identification cards which would permit them to vote. The problem with this is that in order to obtain a state ID card, voters would need original copies of their birth certificates. Piece of cake? Not exactly. It can take weeks to obtain a new birth certificate, and it can be expensive.

I recently needed an original copy of my birth certificate. Since I was born in Glendale, Calif., I had to write to Los Angeles County to get the document. It took several phone calls to determine the procedure to apply for a new birth certificate and then a month to actually receive the document.

Other people may face discrimination under voter ID laws, even if they have driver’s licenses. A recently married woman may not have obtained a driver’s license in her new name, and if she has done so, she may not have changed her name on the voter registration rolls. Additionally, Hispanic names on registration rolls may differ from Hispanic names on official documents because the family name often is placed in the middle rather than at the end, as it would be on registration rolls.

Requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote is likewise flawed. As discussed above, it is often time-consuming and expensive to obtain an original birth certificate. Some rural counties may not even have good birth records, particularly for elderly African-Americans from the South. It should be enough that voters are subject to prosecution if they falsely swear that they are citizens in order to register.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed poll taxes and literacy tests as ruses meant to prevent minorities from registering and voting. Let’s hope states will resist the temptation to bring them back in another form, even if it is approved by a Republican-dominated Supreme Court.

Martin Frost, a Democrat, represented the Dallas-Fort Worth area from 1979 to 2005. He rose to caucus chairman and head of the DCCC. He is now an attorney with Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus PC in Washington and serves as president of America Votes, a grass-roots voter mobilization and education effort.

The Myth of Voter Fraud

New York Times Editorial
May 13, 2008
To view original click here.

Missouri and at least 19 other states are considering passing laws that would force people to prove their citizenship before they can vote. These bills are not a sincere effort to prevent noncitizens from voting; that is a made-up problem. The real aim is to reduce turnout by eligible voters. Republicans seem to think that laws of this kind will help them win elections, but burdensome rules like these — and others cropping up around the country — pose a serious threat to democracy and should be stopped.

The Missouri legislature is, as Ian Urbina reported in The Times on Monday, on the verge of passing an amendment to the State Constitution that would require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote. In addition to the Missouri amendment, which would require voter approval, Florida, Kansas, South Carolina and other states are considering similar rules.

There is no evidence that voting by noncitizens is a significant problem. Illegal immigrants do their best to remain in the shadows, to avoid attracting government attention and risking deportation. It is hard to imagine that many would walk into a polling place, in the presence of challengers and police, and try to cast a ballot.

There is, however, ample evidence that a requirement of proof of citizenship will keep many eligible voters from voting. Many people do not have birth certificates or other acceptable proof of citizenship, and for some people, that proof is not available. One Missouri voter, Lillie Lewis, said at a news conference last week that officials in Mississippi, where she was born, told her they had no record of her birth.

Proof of citizenship is just one of an array of new barriers to voting that have been springing up across the country. Indiana adopted a tough new photo ID voting requirement, over objections from Democrats that it would prevent eligible voters from casting a ballot. The critics were right. In last week’s Indiana primary, a group of about 12 nuns in their 80s and 90s were prevented from voting because they lacked acceptable ID.

As with Missouri’s proposed amendment, the driving force behind strict voter ID requirements in general is not a genuine effort to prevent fraud, since there is virtually no evidence that in-person voter fraud is occurring. It is, rather, the Republican Party’s electoral calculations. Barriers at the polls drive down voter turnout, especially among the poor, racial minorities and students — groups that are less likely than average to have driver’s licenses, and that are more likely than average to vote Democratic.

The imposition of harsh new requirements to vote has become a partisan issue, but it should not be. These rules are an assault on democracy itself. The current conservative Supreme Court showed last month, in its ruling upholding the Indiana ID law, that it will not perform its historical role of protecting voters. That puts the burden on state legislators, governors, state courts and ordinary citizens to ensure that the right to vote is not taken away for partisan political gain.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company