On Tuesday night, I spoke in Austin, Texas, at a rally organized by True the Vote. It took place on the grounds of the LBJ Library on the campus of the University of Texas. The rally was in response to Eric Holder’s announcement at the same place two hours later of a concerted Justice Department effort to oppose virtually every electoral integrity measure promoted by Constitutional conservatives and Republicans.
Holder’s announcement will have profound partisan results in the 2012 election because of his professed unwillingness to enforce laws to prevent voter fraud. Indeed, tonight he made clear his opposition to these laws, such as voter ID and even the requirement to register to vote in advance of an election.
Holder announced broad opposition to voter identification requirements and a ramped up effort to enforce voting registration laws in welfare agencies. He didn’t make any announcements about enforcing Section 8 of Motor Voter to ensure dead people don’t populate the roles. He also said that voter fraud “isn’t a huge problem,” perhaps marking the first time the nation’s chief law enforcement downplayed criminal behavior. Of course that is in vogue in this administration, starting with the New Black Panther dismissal and now with Fast and Furious.
In opposition to Holder, I spoke, as did a group of inspiring patriots starting with Catherine Englebrecht of True the Vote. Anita Moncrief, Reverend C. L. Bryan, George Rodriguez (head of the San Antonio Tea Party) and Adryana Boyne, national director of VOCES Action followed. Boyne’s speech defending Texas voter ID may be the first time I heard the policy defended in Spanish. Moncrief, though, had the line of the night — that “Al Sharpton has a platinum race card.”
Holder laid down markers which will excite his base and disturb law abiding citizens. He supported restrictions on political speech which will criminalize campaign falsehoods. He vowed hyper-scrutiny of voter integrity laws such as voter ID and vowed to run states like Texas through a nasty gauntlet on redistricting. If this doesn’t send a signal to Texas and South Carolina to pull their voter ID laws out of Justice and go to court, nothing else will. Also in attendance was Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, a starring character in my book Injustice.
Holder brought along his puppy, Charlie Savage of the New York Times, from whom we can expect glowing sycophantic coverage of Holder’s announcement at any minute at the New York Times website. Savage is the same reporter who covered purported politicization at the Bush Justice Department. For this he won a Pulitzer Prize.
PJ Media’s Every Single One series reported on the same story Savage did, except this time on the 113 attorney hires by the Obama Civil Rights Division. Savage only covered a handful of Bush hires — he had to, otherwise his story wouldn’t work because the Bush DOJ hired scores of liberal activist lawyers. But the Obama Justice Department gives no quarter to the enemy in hiring, and hired 113 leftists out of 113 openings. I described in my book Injustice how PJ Media had to sue Eric Holder to extract this information:
During the Bush era, DOJ leaders quickly fulfilled FOIA requests. For instance, in 2006 Charlie Savage, then at the Boston Globe, requested all the resumes of the recently hired attorneys in the Bush Civil Rights Division. The DOJ leadership produced the materials within days, well ahead of the legal deadline—they acted so fast, in fact, that some colleagues and I complained they were rushing. Suspecting we were being set up for a leftwing smear campaign, we urged DOJ officials to protect our privacy while fully complying with the requests. But our concerns were ignored and the information was rushed out anyway, resulting in a slew of slanderous media stories, some attacking us in extremely personal ways, followed by curious questions from our family members about why we were in the news. There was a particularly merciless leftist blogosphere attack on a pair of attorneys who happened to be two of the hardest working and most dedicated lawyers in the entire Voting Section.
After PJ Media obtained the Obama hiring information, Savage, ever the cuddly puppy, wrote a puff piece about the Obama hiring practices. Gone was his outrage over politicized hiring that he exhibited at the Boston Globe for the Bush DOJ. That’s what PJ Media is for – reporting on stories the dying dead trees media won’t. Given the scope of the Every Single One series, perhaps PJ Media deserves a Pulitzer too. If Charlie got one, PJ Media certainly should. Stay tuned.
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