Steal this vote

The Republican National Committee is paying a company to destroy Democratic voter registration forms. Illegal. Dishonest. Fraudulent. Obscene. Wrong. In other words, here are those "values" the Republicans are fond of displaying. The level of despicable behaviour drops ever lower during this election. As many on the left have speculated, they really want a one party state.

Kos at DailyKos has all the info on this:

RNC funds voter supression efforts

From his reader identified as MK:

Found the following links which all seem to point to the same company that is suspected of tearing up Democratic voter registration forms in Las Vegas. It has set up registration drives in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida and Nevada and is accused of the same things in most if not all of these states. Sproul & Associates is a Republican consulting firm run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican party and Arizona Christian Coalition.

Nevada:
Voters Outreach of America AKA America Votes tears up Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada.

Oregon:
Company claiming affiliation with non-partisan 'America Votes' to register voters in Oregon is actually GOP consulting firm Sproul & Associates, Inc.

West Virginia and Pennsylvania:
Sproul & Associates AKA America Votes workers in WV and PA refuse to register Kerry voters.

Oregon
Democrats in Oregon have complained that canvassers for Arizona based Sproul & Associates have been pressuring residents to register as Republicans so that they can get paid.

Arizona
Arizona Nader campaign was assisted in its petition drive by an unlikely figure: the ultra-conservative former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, Nathan Sproul.

About Sproul:
Good background story on Sproul and his political track record, cached on Google.

The link:
Here is the direct link between Sproul and Voters Outreach of America.

According to several sources, two of the contractors Sproul hired to oversee petition gathering for No Taxpayer Money For Politicians -- Aaron "A.J." James, who directs Voters' Outreach of America, and Diane Burns -- were also paid by Sproul to get as many signatures as possible for Nader.

Good stuff, so far. But the reader then asks the key question -- who is paying for these efforts?

The answer?

KLAS-TV, Las Vegas:
"The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee."

CareerBuild.com listing:
Help wanted ad for Voters Outreach of America says "Paid for by the Republican National Committee".

The Republican Party is funding these efforts. The link is direct and unambiguous.

Meanwhile, Bob Johnson has got a diary with more information on this developing scandal. As he says,

[C]ritical is the fact that Sproul and his organization misrepresented themselves to voters as a legitimate, nonpartisan GOTV organization. That is fraud, my friends.

The Googlemonkeys are ferreting out all sort of great info. Might be time for a dKosopedia entry on this to consolidate all this info.

(Two great examples of participatory journalist at its finest.)

This is, again, what we're up against. Pat Buchanan still says we're in a culture war. This is clear evidence that he's correct, but pointed in the wrong direction. This is a war between tolerance, democracy, true family values of hard work and commensurate pay, and personal and civil liberty on the one side, and fear, lies, theft, fraud, greed, and amorality on the other.

The RIght can show GWBush with his tarnished halo still in place, and annoint him with blessings from Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed. But it's his party, their party, the party that works for him, that is doing these things.

There are many good people who believe in the Republican Party, But that party has abandoned them. Many Republicans consider themselves Christians. And often, when asked about political shenanigans, they quote the scripture that says "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" as if to distance themselves from "dirty" politics. Many probably don't realize, or have forgotten that the quote refers to taxes, and nothing else.

But, to quote the great philospher GWBush, "you can run but you can't hide." You Republicans now stand in the painful glare of EVERYTHING done in the name of the party, by and for GWBush.

You can run, but you can't hide from:

• 1000+ Americans dead in Iraq.
• More people unemployed in America today than in 2000.
• More children in poverty in AMerica today than in 2000.
• A deficit that will bankrupt your children.
• Tax breaks for companies that take American jobs to other countries.
• Tax breaks for companies that do business in other countries.
• Tax breaks for multimillionaires, but not for low income families.
  
• The highest health care costs in the civilized world, with the lowest customer satisfaction.
• "No Child Left Behind" not funded fully.
  

I could go on, but why pile on at this point. Good Republicans, and Christians, need to really ask themselves why they should support these actions. And don't even start criticizing stem cell research. Anyone who has ever approved or participated in in-vitro fertilization has been party to destroying embryos. The only issue that you might have to stand on is the Pro-Life / Pro-Choice debate. But keep in mind that your guy has NEVER said publicly that he would outlaw abortion.

And for me, while that's a real topic of concern & debate, it's only one of many issues upon which to base a country's whole direction. And while you're concerned with the life in small clumps of 5 day old cells, I am concerned with the life in over 1000 American soldiers and over 10,000 Iraqi civilians that has drained away into the hot sands of Mesopotamia.