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One Sorry Man

Often hysterical and always on target coverage by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post on John Tanner's pathetic performance in front of the House Judiciary subcommittee yesterday.

Brad has more

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NewsHour Extensively Covers Tanner Hearings

PBS' NewsHour ran an excellent five minute segment on the Tanner hearings yesterday, even showing the original video with Brad Blog attribution! View the transcript or view the entire NewsHour program here.

Tanner Slammed In House Hearings Spurred By HPM/Brad Blog Original Report

John Tanner, the voting section chief of the Justice Department Civil Rights Division was the star witness in House hearings yesterday spurred by my original video footage and blog post (with much heavy lifting and additional reporting from Brad Friedman). As the two short videos below illustrate, Tanner was smacked hard by Artur Davis (D-Alabama) and Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota,) leading to more calls for his resignation.

 
Rep. Artur Davis questions Tanner

Rep. Keith Ellison questions Tanner

Brad has much much more on yesterday's hearing including a post on the lack of attribution from the mainstream press for our original report and a post which includes the entire post hearing statement from John Conyers (D-Michigan), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Finally, be sure to check out Brad's live blogging post which covers the entire hearing.

“What Went Wrong In Ohio: The Conyers Report On The 2004 Presidential Election” (Congressman John Conyers)

“The Constitution in Crisis: The High Crimes of the Bush Administration and a Blueprint for Impeachment” (John C. Conyers)

Rep. Nadler Calls For Firing of DoJ Voting Rights Section Chief Tanner

Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called for the firing of John Tanner - the head of the Voting Rights section of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department - because of the prejudicial comments he made at the National Latino Congreso that I captured on video and posted at The BRAD BLOG. In the video Tanner acknowledges that Photo ID laws do disenfranchise elderly voters but do not disproportionately impact minority voters because they “don’t become elderly the way white people do; they die first.”

Appearing with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now on October 24, 2007, Nadler stated:

Well, he should certainly be fired, obviously. Obviously, someone who has such prejudices has no business heading the Voting Rights section or any other branch of the government and certainly not being on the Federal Voting Commission, which is supposed to enforce our election laws and our voting rights laws.

Now, Mr. Tanner, as head of the Voting Rights section, perverted the Justice Department -- or he and a few others perverted the Justice Department from seeking to protect people's civil rights and the right to vote to seeking deliberately, I believe -- and I think a number of reports have shown this -- to use the Justice Department to disenfranchise people likely to vote Democratic, specifically minorities and more elderly people. You know, here he’s admitting that procedures that he sought to put into place would discriminate against elderly people in voting, would cause valid elderly voters not to be able to vote. That’s against the law, and it obviously also should be against the policy of the United States government. But we know that the Bush administration has been using these voter ID cards, the fear of -- so far never demonstrated -- voter fraud, to put into place all sorts of new restrictions, voter ID cards, purge lists and so forth, which we know have the effect of disproportionately disenfranchising legal elderly and minority but likely-to-vote-Democratic voters.

For more on this see Brad Friedman's recent post at The BRAD BLOG.

VIDEO: Democracy Now Picks Up DoJ's Tanner Story

Yesterday, Amy Goodman picked up the story about the absurd comments made by the Department of Justice's John Tanner regarding Photo ID laws (designed to disenfranchise democratic leaning voters) which Brad Friedman and I originally broke last week at The BRAD BLOG. Democracy Now also aired part of my video taken at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles on Friday, October 5, 2007. Amy was also kind enough to credit The BRAD BLOG at the end. Thanks Amy!

VIDEO: The Cost Of War - A Soldier's Final Reunion With His Family

The Bush administration has worked tirelessly to depersonalize the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the American people. Instead of worrying about the troops, Bush has encouraged American's to shop more.  And despite a military bent to the breaking point, Bush has vehemently opposed all calls for a military draft. Perhaps the most insidious tactic, however, is the Pentagon's ban on images of dead soldiers' homecomings in flag-draped coffins. Throw in the mainstream media's ever dwindling coverage of all things Iraq and the ruling elite have successfully created an environment where most Americans do not ever hear about our multiple wars, never mind contemplate the high cost we continue to pay in lost lives. 

It is in this context that I bring you the remarkable clip above (5:06) of a soldier's final homecoming with his young family. In the video, Sergeant First Class William Zaffe, 35, who was killed by a roadside bomb during his 3rd Tour in Iraq returns home to his wife and young children. Kudos to the brave Zaffe family for allowing the filming of this extremely personal and moving reunion and thus providing video footage rarely, if ever, seen in more than five years of war.

DISCLOSURE: The producer of the NOW on PBS special on Iraq where this video originally appeared is a relative.

DoJ Voting Rights Chief Says Photo ID Laws Disenfranchise Elderly But Not Minority Voters Who 'Don't Become Elderly, They Die First'

Unbelievably, the Chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, John Tanner, contends that while it's “a shame” that elderly voters may be disenfranchised by new Photo ID restrictions at the polls because many don't have driver's licenses, minorities don't have to worry quite as much. Why? Because “minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first.”

Yes, that's what Tanner said last Friday at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles and The BRAD BLOG was in tow with video camera to prove it...

The NLC kicked off their 2nd Annual convention over the weekend, including an expert panel titled, “It's Not Over - Defending the Right to Vote Against Disenfranchising Tactics.” While many issues were covered over the course of the 2 1/2 hour panel, the most hotly debated subject was the current rash of GOP-pushed Photo ID laws sweeping the nation, just in time for the 2008 Presidential Election.

Tanner --- and we'll repeat it again, he's the Chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice --seems to believe that restrictive Photo ID laws are not only non-discriminatory but actually favor minorities (at least in Georgia). All of the other expert panelists, audience members, and even one particular vocal cameraman (that would be me), were incredulous, and found Tanner's comments absurd and objectionable.

Get the entire story and more videos from the panel at The BRAD BLOG.

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Professor Steve Freeman Presentation On Stolen US Elections

Elections can be stolen, have been stolen and will continue to be stolen! The presentation was given at the 2nd Annual National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles on Friday and runs 21:00.

“Was The 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count” (Steve Freeman, Joel Bleifuss)

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Interview With Professor Steve Freeman About The Stolen 2004 Election

Cross-posted at BRAD BLOG.

University of Pennsylvania professor Steve Freeman, author of the important book, “Was The 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count”, sat down with BRAD BLOG at the 2nd Annual National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles on Friday. Below is our interview broken down into five easy viewing segments.

Who won the 2004 presidential election?

The short answer is John Kerry. Professor Freeman explains that while the official vote count gave George W. Bush a narrow margin of victory in Ohio of 120,000 votes and a slim electoral win, exit poll data indicates that Kerry actually won Ohio by 500,000 votes and won the national vote by a 6 million vote margin.

What is the significance of the November 2004 Ukraine exit polls and the 1992 presidential election exit polls?

Professor Freeman: “The incredible irony is that at the same time members of the administration were saying the exit polls indicate fraud in the Ukraine -- undersecretary of state John Tefft was giving testimony saying that exit polls are one of the few reliable measures for showing mass scale election fraud. At the same time, Ed Gillespie, the head of the Republican National Committee, was speaking before the press conference saying that the press should abandon exit polls, they don't work anymore.”

As a professor of business management, did you have any interest in election integrity issues prior to 2004? And what can individuals do to learn about election integrity issues?

Professor Freeman: “It wasn't until 2004 when I really investigated the system and just, absolutely stunned. At first I thought I must not understand this. I looked at electronic voting and I said, well there has to be some safeguard, it can't be this easy to corrupt. But it is. Even worse. If you haven't looked into this it is worse than you can possibly imagine.”

Why do we have voting machines and is there a solution to our election problems?

Professor Freeman: “It is funny to hear myself speak like radical on this issue. I've spent my life starting businesses and teaching in such radical institutions as Harvard Business School system and Wharton. Running businesses, starting businesses and teaching business school students. But when you are talking about privatizing elections you are really giving up the security we have that elections are unfettered and free.”

What can individuals do to help ensure fair elections?

Professor Freeman: “The key fact is that this is not a hypothetical threat. It has happened. Elections have been stolen. Read my book, Read Fitrakis's book, read BRAD BLOG and learn what is happening.”

“Was The 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count” (Steve Freeman, Joel Bleifuss)