John Fund went on Glenn Beck's show last night to help Beck with his characterization of the Obama White House as a nest of fist-bumping terrorist radicals, mostly by underscoring its supposed connection to ACORN and the SEIU. (According to Beck, SEIU's Andy Stern is "really controlling our country.")

At the end of the segment, Fund began describing the ways ACORN's nefarious activists are supposedly engaged in voter fraud in the New Jersey election:

Fund: People are going door to door in parts of Camden with Hispanics that don't have very much knowledge of English, and they're saying, "We have a new way for you to vote, la nueva forma de votar; just fill out these papers."

But as Media Matters noticed, he's actually describing something that happened in 1993 in Philadelphia. Indeed, he accurately described it in his Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he tried to claim that fraud was occurring in New Jersey:

There are additional reports from Camden that Hispanic voters have been misled into voting absentee ballots. So-called bearers who are allowed to collect and carry absentee ballots are said to have encouraged voters to fill out applications for absentee ballots. A few days later, the bearers reportedly return with the actual ballots, which they offer "assistance" in filling out.

Authorities in nearby Philadelphia know about such scams. In one infamous case, a key 1993 race that determined which party would control the Pennsylvania state senate was thrown out by a federal judge after massive evidence that hundreds of voters had been pressured into casting improper absentee ballots. Voters were told by "bearers" that it was all part of "la nueva forma de votar" -- the new way to vote. Local politicos tell me Philly operatives associated in the past with Acorn may now be advising their Jersey cousins on how to perform such vote harvesting.

Notice that in this version of events, there's no mention of the "la nueva forma de votar" ruse being used in Camden -- just the use of absentee ballots. And despite Fund's claims, there is no evidence of actual fraud yet even in this absentee-ballot operation -- just the potential for it.

Conservatives like Fund have long pinned their electoral hopes on reducing voter turnout, because encouraging large numbers of voters is a certain recipe to right-wing defeat. The Right succeeds most when voter turnout is suppressed -- and absentee-ballot efforts are part of reversing that trend.

They also like having handy excuses when they lose. It's clear that Fund, Beck, and the rest of the Right is setting themselves up with a way to claim that an electoral loss in New Jersey was illegitimate. Because that's what they're best at -- tearing down liberals after they beat them at the polls.

Rachel Maddow talks to former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias about the pressure put on him to go after ACORN for voter fraud allegations and how Karl Rove wanted to use the issue of voter fraud as a wedge issue to win elections. As Rachel notes sadly, that plan is still paying dividends with the Democrats being all too happy to cave into political pressure by the Republicans instead of standing up for ACORN.

MADDOW: We have previously reported on this show how corporate interests opposed to ACORN`s really successful efforts to raise the minimum wage targeted the group using Republican-allied P.R. firms that proudly specialized in demonizing their opposition.

But ACORN has not just been targeted by corporations who worry that ACORN`s advocacy for living-wage ordinances and an increased minimum wage will hurt their corporate bottom line. ACORN has also been the subject for years of a purely political smear campaign, a campaign engineered by Republicans who are threatened by ACORN`s work to register young and poor and minority voters.

The American voter is typically older and more wealthy than the typical American, and that tends to give the Republicans an electoral edge among voters as compared to the preferences of the populations at large. But ACORN`s registration drives have gone some distance to changing that. Over the past five years, ACORN registered close to 2 million voters. And, yes, the groups of people that ACORN typically registers tend to vote for Democrats.

Over the last few election cycles, fear of a younger, less wealthy, and, frankly, less white electorate led Republicans, especially in swing states, to go after ACORN aggressively, and, in fact, to try to gin up charges against them, to try to make their voter registration efforts in general seem suspect and perhaps to bring down the group entirely. And when I say "ginned up," I`m not exaggerating.

Do you remember the U.S. attorney scandal, the alleged fire ring of U.S. attorneys because of U.S. political considerations? Recall what that scandal was really about. In 2006, nine U.S. attorneys were fired, surprisingly and suddenly, by the Department of Justice under George W. Bush.

Former U.S. attorney David Iglesias -- one of those U.S. attorneys who lost his job despite positive job reviews -- maintains that his pink slip came after he resisted pressure from Republicans to pursue bogus voter registration cases involving ACORN. The pressure began as early as 2002 when Mr. Iglesias says in his book "In Justice," he received an e-mail from the Department of Justice in Washington, quote, "suggesting, in no uncertain terms" that U.S. attorneys "offer whatever assistance we could in investigating and prosecuting voter fraud cases."

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(h/t CSPANjunkie)
The Afghan war is going very badly and support is shrinking. I heard Michael Ware say on CNN (above clip) that the big multimillion dollar Highway #1 which runs from Kabul to Kandahar that we repaved has been almost destroyed and the Taliban can attack at will. Drivers are left completely exposed to attacks, but what choice do Afghan truckers have?
More troop losses are mounting....

Eight soldiers have died on a bloody day for US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Three died in a roadside bombing in northern Iraq - the US military's deadliest single incident in five months - and one died in Baghdad.

Four soldiers died in what was described as a "complex attack" in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan.

Violence in Afghanistan is at a record high, while attacks have increased in Iraq since a US-led pull-back in July.
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In Afghanistan, violence has surged to a record high eight years after the US-led invasion which toppled the Taliban.

Some 820 US soldiers are thought to have died in Afghanistan in those eight years.

The Bush administration mishandled their other war so badly that violence has spiked almost eight years laterand accusations of voter fraud are flying around.

Afghanistan’s UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission ordered a recount and examination of some ballots in the Aug. 20 presidential election, saying it had found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” in the vote.

The order came as results released by the country’s election authority showed President Hamid Karzai nearing the majority of votes required -- 50 percent plus one vote -- to be elected. It was the first official confirmation of fraud that independent election monitors say risks undermining the credibility of the vote and the next Afghan government.

The media would like us to forget that this is another Bush/Cheney disaster, but it is and the troops have to pay the ultimate price for getting us into another quagmire. This is the next political battle after health care in DC, but we're hitting it on the net now. After eight years the war is in even worse condition no matter what Joe Lieberman has to say.

Remember how the Iranian elections results made the GOP assume voter fraud and start screaming about election integrity? The world is curiously silent now, isn't it?

In the southern Afghan district of Shorabak, the tribesmen gathered shortly before last month’s presidential election to discuss which candidate they would back. After a debate they chose to endorse Abdullah Abdullah, President Hamid Karzai’s leading opponent.

The tribal leaders prepared to deliver a landslide for Abdullah – but it never happened. They claim Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother and leader of the Kandahar provincial council, detained the local governor and closed all the district’s 46 polling sites on election day.

The ballot boxes were taken back to the district headquarters where, tribal leaders allege, they were stuffed with ballots by local policemen. A total of 23,900 ballots were finally sent off to Kabul, the capital – every one of them a vote for Karzai.

The alleged fraud, which Ahmed Wali Karzai denies, was the most blatant example among hundreds of incidents that have threatened to make a mockery of the election.

The sheer scale and audacity of the cheating, which includes supposedly “state-sponsored” ballot-stuffing, vote burning, intimidation and the closure of polling stations in antigovernment areas, has overwhelmed the country’s fledgling Electoral Complaints Commission.

Its staff are battling with more than 2,600 reports of vote-rigging, including at least 650 deemed serious enough “materially” to influence the result.

“This is a blatant violation of the procedure and I think it is stealing in daylight,” Abdullah said yesterday.

His aides say privately that if Karzai wins the 50.1% of votes needed for victory in the first round, they won’t accept the result. Abdullah said he intended to use all legal means to challenge any Karzai victory; his supporters talked menacingly of “Iran-style protests with Kalashnikovs”.

So this is the test: do we really care about bringing democracy to Afghanistan?

NOTE: "Ann Coulter's "ideas" and "philosophy" provide all of us with more than enough to talk about on this thread. It is so easy to attack what she is saying, and it is lazy, stupid, and frequently bigoted to use her personal appearance as a basis for attacking her. Anyone who goes the transgender route on this thread will be deleted and possibly banned. You know better. - Sitemonitor

Update: Is your stupid Coulter joke worth being banned from the site forever?

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Interesting that they're finally looking into this. From the NY Daily News, via Skippy:

...Following our Jan. 11 column, Connecticut’s Elections Enforcement Commission is making a “thorough investigation” of whether the conservative pundit broke the law by voting in the Nutmeg State while living in New York City, according to a commission spokeswoman.

Officials are responding to a formal complaint filed by Coulterwatch.com blogger Dan Borchers. “For over 10 years, Ann Coulter has gotten away with illegal, immoral and unethical behavior, ranging from plagiarism to defamation, perjury to voter fraud,” claims the conservative Borchers. Coulter declined to comment, but in the past has branded Borchers a stalker. He says the FBI has determined he poses no threat.

Ruh roh...another Coulter voter fraud issue...will she be able to weasel out of this one too? News Hounds:

Ann Coulter was cleared in a 2006 voter fraud investigation in Florida after an FBI agent/friend "intruded," but new questions have arisen about her previous voting record in Connecticut. The New York Daily News reports that Coulter voted there via absentee ballot in 2002 and 2004 while records show she actually lived in New York City. Given FOX News' obsession with voter fraud, can we expect an investigation from the "we report, you decide" network? A prime time discussion covering one of their most frequent guests on the "fair and balanced" network? Don't hold your breath. The Daily News reports that Connecticut will begin a formal investigation if they receive a complaint under oath.

News Hounds is asking for an action to Fox News to act as concerned about Coulter's voter fraud as they were about ACORN, but frankly, I'd been even happier if one of our Connecticut resident C&Lers would take up the challenge of filing the complaint.

(h/t Heather)

Rachel Maddow goes through some of the dirty tricks we've already seen happening in various locations across the country and empowers us all to not let anyone steal your vote.

After eight years of perhaps the most incompetent government in American history, we‘ve got one way to fix it now, one way to exchange a president who is more despised by his own people than any other president in the time that polls existed. Choose who you will, but do not give up the power to choose by letting anyone or anything stop you from voting.

Transcripts below the fold

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Sometimes you have to wonder what Republicans have against democracy.

Because that's what this whole "voter fraud" foofara is about. John McCain and Sarah Palin and Lou Dobbs and the rest of the right-wing torch brigade that have been after ACORN and the Ohio Secretary of State aren't concerned about protecting people's right to vote -- and in fact, their efforts largely go toward directly stripping citizens of their legitimate voting rights.

Or more precisely, this is all about building a post-election narrative aimed at delegitimizing a Barack Obama presidency by claiming he won fraudulently. It's not just a handy excuse for the ass-kicking they deserve -- it's a whole right-wing conspiracy-theory cottage industry in the making that will nurture their paranoia and rage for years down the road.

This weekend, Sarah Palin was out whipping up a fine froth among the McCainiacs about ACORN's activities:

Palin demanded answers to “unanswered questions about his connections with ACORN.”

The fans screamed “Booo!” at least 10 times when Palin mentioned Obama’s name.

“ACORN is under investigation for rampant voter fraud in 13 states. ACORN received over $800,000 from the Obama campaign,” Palin said. All 13 are swing states like Indiana.

“Booo!” Palin’s supporters shouted. Obama has said the $800,000 was for voter canvassing during the primary election, not for voter registration during the general election.

Palin, of course, is just following her the lead of her boss, who claimed in Wednesday's debate that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." And we're already seeing the violent results on the ground emanating from this kind of demagoguery.

And it's demagoguery on a massive scale. After all, everywhere that ACORN has been seriously examined -- from Indiana to Seattle, whenever issues have arisen they have been the result of individual canvassers trying to cheat ACORN, not with the organization itself.

And let's be clear: there is no evidence whatsoever that an actual voting fraud problem exists. Just in regards to ACORN, the bogus registrations have largely been flagged and caught. Moreover, there simply is no evidence that people actually register to vote illegally on anything more than an infinitesimal scale.

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I was on the conference call with the Obama campaign that addressed this issue:

The General Counsel of the Obama campaign is currently holding a media conference call to "Announce Major Action Taken Today To Address Illegal Conduct and Improprieties in the Sham "Anti-Fraud" Campaign Orchestrated By McCain-Palin and the RNC."

I have the letter they sent out. I'll post it soon. They are taking it very seriously. Digby has been asking to hear from David Iglesias about the phony election fraud charges that the McCain campaign has been pushing. They are trying to demand an FBI investigation of Voter Fraud against ACORN. This is actually all about registration and not actual voting. Digby says:

The US Attorney scandals and this ACORN nonsense are pieces of the same story.

If you remember the Attorney firing scandal revolved around the fact that people like David Iglesias would not go after phony voter fraud cases pushed by Republicans.

He spoke out on it.

David Iglesias says he's shocked by the news, leaked today to the Associated Press, that the FBI is pursuing a voter-fraud investigation into ACORN just weeks before the election.

"I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again," Iglesias told TPMmuckraker. "Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic." In 2006, Iglesias was fired as U.S. attorney thanks partly to his reluctance to pursue voter-fraud cases as aggressively as DOJ wanted -- one of several U.S. attorneys fired for inappropriate political reasons, according to a recently released report by DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

Iglesias, who has been the most outspoken of the fired U.S. attorneys, went on to say that the FBI's investigation seemed designed to inappropriately create a "boogeyman" out of voter fraud.

And he added that it "stands to reason" that the investigation was launched in response to GOP complaints. In recent weeks, national Republican figures -- including John McCain at last night's debate -- have sought to make an issue out of ACORN's voter-registration activities.

Whenever Republicans bring up anything about Voter fraud it's always targeted to disenfranchise voters and not protect our voting rights.

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I don't like some of this ACORN stuff either, but it's small potatoes compared to what Republicans have been doing for decades and to try and link it to Obama is nuts. Registering and voting are two different things. Republicans use the Ken Blackwell method of purging the voting rolls every chance they get. Sometimes they can count on the Supreme Court to do their bidding. Case in point The Indiana Voter ID law....You can hear my Rachel Maddow interview on it here. And what I find really insulting is the idea that Ken Blackwell himself is actually trying to make a case involving Voter fraud. Now that is laughable..

And yes, in case you were curious, that's the same Ken Blackwell who was Ohio's secretary of state in 2004. The same Ken Blackwell who worked himself into infamy by actually directing his office to reject voter registrations based on the weight of the paper used. And yes, the same Ken Blackwell who was embarrassed in 2006, when he lost the race to be his state's governor by 23 percentage points -- but only after his supporters challenged the eligibility of Blackwell's opponent

Steven Rosenfeld writes: California GOP had Same Voter Registration Problems as ACORN in 2006

Faked names on voter registration forms. Error rates as high as 60 percent. Firing the people responsible for these errors. Investigations launched by local and state police. Sound familiar? This is not ACORN in the 2008 election's final days.
This is the California Republican Party and its contractors in 2006, when the same problems that are now dogging ACORN and providing political fodder for GOP attacks plagued an effort by California Republicans to register 750,000 people.
The details were all spelled out in a series of Los Angeles Times stories, which quoted former California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres saying these kinds of errors are inevitable "when you use private vendors." Even the state's top election official in 2006, Republican Bruce McPherson, was forced to investigate his own party's actions...read on

And Editor & Publisher has a great piece about it and asks: why does it seem to be a greater sin to be suspected of voter registration mistakes than to publicly engage in voter suppression efforts?

Accusations of voter fraud by the pro-Obama progressive group ACORN. It's the subject all the rightwing bloggers are going nuts over and now they've been joined in their prosecutory zeal by the Wall Street Journal. But looking closely at the outrage, it becomes obvious very quickly that if there is a problem at all then, "the more accurate accusation may be voter-registration fraud -- for which there appears to be plenty of checks in place to guarantee it doesn't turn into some actual voter fraud."

The McCain-Palin campaign is being careful in its wording, limiting its direct accusations while hinting at far more. A current fundraising email under Sarah Palin's signature says:

The left-wing activist group, ACORN, is now under investigation for voter registration fraud in a number of battleground states. ACORN's political action committee has endorsed Barack Obama and Senator Obama himself has said, "I have been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career." The Obama Campaign even paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN affiliate for "get out the vote activity." And now we find out that ACORN is suspected of voter registration fraud.

... We've always known the Obama-Biden Democrats will do anything to win this November, but we didn't know how far their allies would go. The Obama-supported, far-left group, ACORN, has been accused of voter registration fraud in a number of battleground states.

The media, in the main, are only too happy to pile on - as this compilation of reports by a rightwing YouTuber illustrates:

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At a DC press conference this morning, the GOP trotted out two elder statesmen to do its dirty work – former senators John Danforth and Warren Rudman. Echoing accusations made by McCain and the RNC against the community organizing group ACORN, they falsely warned that voter fraud could throw the election into chaos.

With a straight face Danforth said that 2008 could be like 2000 if we don’t act now. But I’m sorry, wasn’t 2000 when his party strong-armed the recount and disenfranchised thousands of Floridians? But never mind that.

In fact, today’s press conference was just the latest effort by the GOP to justify voter suppression under the guise of so-called election integrity. As in the past, Republicans have latched onto a few colorful but insignificant examples – e.g. a man who was registered to vote 73 times and a 7-year-old child who was registered – to advocate for draconian enforcement measures that disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters, typically minority and low-income voters.

But there are already safeguards in place that prevent people who submit fraudulent voter registrations from actually voting. In fact, there is no evidence of significant voter fraud of any variety anywhere in the nation. At the urging of the GOP, the Justice Department sought evidence of fraud but came up empty-handed.

However, there is evidence for significant vote suppression and disenfranchisement. As the New York Times reported last week: “Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law.” This is what Danforth and Rudman would have talked about today if they really cared about election integrity.

They also would have talked about the various barriers to voting that members of their party have erected, like rejecting voter registration forms not printed on 80-pound bond paper or requiring names on voter registration forms to exactly match records in existing databases (e.g. Mike R. Neuman would be rejected if listed elsewhere as Michael R. Neuman). Or how about the strict voter ID laws put in place by Republicans? They seem reasonable enough, until you consider that millions of voting-age Americans (perhaps as high as 10%) do not have driver’s licenses.

The logic behind the GOP’s efforts is as simple as it is undemocratic: the fewer people who vote, the better off Republicans candidates will be. When you hear Republicans talk about vote fraud, here’s what they really mean:

Kathryn Kolbert is President of People For the American Way.