Voting Foreclosure
What is the deal with rich Republicans and their houses?
John McCain has at least 8 houses, too many for him to keep count. Sarah Palin likes to quietly charge the State of Alaska per diem for sleeping in her own house at night. George W. Bush built a fake "ranch" in Crawford, a place he had never lived before, just because Karl Rove told him he'd need a scenic backdrop when he went on his frequent, extended vacations. Dick Cheney had to pretend his home was in Wyoming, when he was really living in Texas raking in the big bucks from the big energy boys, in order to avoid the ban in the U.S. Constitution against electors voting for two candidates from their same state. And George H. W. Bush used to claim he "lived" in a hotel room in Houston, instead of on the family estate in Maine, partly to avoid state income taxes.
Meanwhile the Republican Party, led by this crew of rich, out-of-touch "homies" is preparing to deny the right to vote to Midwesterners who have already suffered from home foreclosures.
I'm not kidding. Republican Party officials in states like Michigan and Ohio have admitted that they are preparing to challenge voters at the polls, using home foreclosure data--the idea being that if your home has been foreclosed upon, of course you had to move, which means your address has changed and you are vulnerable to being challenged at the polls!
According to the Michigan Messenger (with a tip of the hat to lefarkins blog), Michigan's Macomb County GOP Chair, James Carabelli, was very clear: "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses." And according to David Rosenfeld at Miller-McCune, "Franklin County Election Director and County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse told reporters he didn't rule out challenges before November, particularly because of increased home foreclosures..."
Fortunately, the Obama Campaign is on the ball, as usual, and has already filed suit to block the Republicans from illegally and shamefully using home foreclosure lists to deny voting rights.
But think about what the Republicans are attempting. John McCain can't even count his wife's houses. Sarah Palin can't live without her per diems. But their party wants to deny Americans the right to vote because their addresses have changed, even when it's due to the tragedy of home foreclosures.
This is sick. It's just not right. Haven't people who have lost their homes--many of them due to sub-prime schemes and scams--suffered enough without the Republican Party piling on and trying to deny them the right to vote? John McCain should be ashamed of his party. Oh wait, that's the old John McCain I was thinking of.
This is the sad reality, that the party of Abe Lincoln has devolved into trying to take away the right to vote from people because they've lost their houses. And guess what? They won't be targeting all voters, or even all home foreclosures. They'll be targeting mainly urban areas for their "voter caging" schemes. That's code for focusing on African-American voters, and Latinos, plus other urban Democrats. For shame.
In July of 2005, the then-Republican National Chair, Ken Mehlman, made a big show of apologizing to the NAACP for the GOP's race-baiting history. The Concord Monitor quotes him as saying: "Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong." Ironically given the current circumstances, he even pledged that Republicans would help African-Americans own their own homes.
The Republican Party promised they would reach out to African-American and Latino voters, rather than try to use racial wedge issues to suppress their votes as had been done so often in the recent past.
This was before the Justice Department voter suppression scandals broke, so I guess that promise is "inoperative" now, just like the promises the GOP made after caging scandals targeting minority voters in New Jersey and Louisiana 2 decades ago . We're back to the old voter suppression playbook, a despicable Republican Party tradition that goes back to Strom Thurmond and Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, up through Jesse Helms and Lee Atwater racial wedge issues, right on up to the voter suppression schemes of Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000 and Ken Blackwell in Ohio in 2004.
Like so much of the GOP agenda, the more that party claims to change, the more it acts just the same. Three years ago, they acted like they were sorry. Now their mantra is clear: foreclose on your house, foreclose on your vote.
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So verifying residencey, combatting voter fraud is aginst the progressive culture of corruption? Of course it is in Chicago , but Barack has to get votes throughout the country in a seemingly honest way
Where is their shame??? Oh, wait, forgot who I was referring to for a moment (sorry)!
Recklessly approve mortgages, push the industry to the failure we see today, and then blame the people who have lost their homes, just to insure that they'll be able to do more of the same for the next 4 years.
Sounds right up the Republican alley and why in the world should anyone be surprised? There's got to be a way to make this, along with everything else wrong in this country Obama's fault. Give them another day or two.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote..." ~ Ben Franklin
James Carville once said about Republicans and their policies that they "comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted".
It seems more appropriate every day.
The Republicans will do anything to win.
"According to the Michigan Messenger (with a tip of the hat to lefarkins blog), Michigan's Macomb County GOP Chair, James Carabelli, was very clear: 'We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses.
- Does this mean that the NEW owners of the foreclosed homes will be disenfranchised, too?
Interesting the Dems try to link money to Republicans. The Uber wealthy are Democrats. Soros et al. It seems the Dems are the party run by billionaires.
Neither party any longer represents the people. Both are run by special interests and lobbyist.
You are detached from reality.
What does this have to do with the repubs dirty tricks of trying to surpress votes. You sound like McCain/Pal
As we have now witnessed BOTH PARTIES banding together to act as one to save the futures of financiers, and not the American people, I sadly conclude the poster is wrong in the first graf, but right in his second. It's a sad sad day for America, and we'll never be the same.
Rep Jackson I would strongly urge that you get an army of lawyers to start checking voters rights in other states. The Democrats have got to start to learn to push back twice as hard as the Republicans. If this is another lackluster hand wringing episode when everyone bitches after the election it will just be a sad repeat of earlier elections. Hit back hard, and start to throw a scare in to the bullies that do this crap. Nothing scares a bully like someone standing up to them.
Let me get this straight: The GOP Chair of Macomb County, Michigan (has anyone outside of Michigan even heard of Macomb County?) comes up with an abhorrent plan (at least so it appears based upon the brief description in this article) and Rep. Jackson turns that news into an opportunity to condemn the entire Republican party and imply that Republicans are racist.
Apparently Republicans are not the only dishonest ones who engage in over-reaching smear attacks against the other side?
Rep. Jackson's passion and indignation against this plan are commendable. His attempt to indict the entire Republican Party with it is both ignorant and shameful.
And how exactly does Rep. Jackson get from "voters may be prevented from using a foreclosed home as their address for voting purposes" to "Republicans are trying to prevent Democrats and minorities from voting"? Are only Democrats and minorities losing their homes to foreclosure? Macomb County is apparently 91% Caucasian and only 2.7% African American. Caucasians would be affected by this measure in much greater numbers than African Americans.
Truly an ignorant and shameful article by Rep. Jackson.
Gee, maybe because it happened in the last two elections GBGB. Lots of voter misinformation, snafus and election machines that didn't work. How convenient that it benefited the repubs.
Carabelli denies making the statement. Others deny that there is or was such a plan. It wouldn't work anyway.
http://www
The more they stay the same? I don't think so. They are getting worse and their candidates are too. McCain/Palin (or is it Palin/McCain now?) would be even worse than Bush and just as dishonest as Bush/Cheney. I'm glad you're on it. But there are also a million or more mailers sent in a dozen states by the McCain campaign many of which contain misleading information. Some of those are absentee ballot applications with the wrong return address and some are other confusing information regarding voting status. I hope the word is getting out to those people that they need to properly check their registration status and also that they are aware of the nefarious tactics.
I saw Mr. Jackson mention this on MSNBC's "Morning Joe"....an
Whenever you hear a Republican talk about how they want to "make sure there's no voter fraud",LOOK OUT! We know they really always mean the opposite of what they say!
So many people should vote for Obama that it nullifies the Republicans' attempts to steal votes!
Don't worry, Iraqi troops will soon come to spread freedom and democracy in the US. *sarcasm end*
I'm in the midst of foreclosure as I type this. We were victims of "mortgage servicing fraud" and now that Wall Street is, or I guess was, melting down I hope the MSM or at least a good number of my fellow citizens will hear more about this crime that's been behind the mortgage meltdown. It all goes together - connect the dots.
See www.msfrau
As for the foreclosure listings keeping people from voting, it shouldn't be hard to correct before Election Day if you are prepared. I've already moved to a new home and will have my registration updated before I go to vote. This is really a sick attempt at keeping people from voting though. Talk about an effective means to disenfranchise people who are already feeling in the toilet!
aprilinheaven, please elaborate what you mean by "we were victims of 'mortgage servicing fraud'. What was your role the situation? Did you buy a house you could not afford? Please explain since you brought it up.
Mortgage Servicing Fraud is a **securitization** issue. MSF is charging borrowers with bogus/illegal fees to increase a servicer's profits. MSF can happen to literally ANYONE with a mortgage - especially if the note has been securitized. Much of the "economic crisis" has been caused by mortgages that were turned into CDOs, etc. and sold to investors worldwide.
Boilerplate in many prospectuses gives servicers things like modification fees, assumption fees, monthly late fees "additional servicing compensation". That puts the fox in charge of the hen house because it removes any incentive from a servicer to keep a borrower current in their mortgage.
Mortgage Servicing Fraud has nothing to do with how much "house" a borrower can afford. It has to do with servicers generating income from illegally assessed fees. I'm one of more than 280,000 FTC-certified victims of Fairbanks Capital Corp. n/k/a Select portfolio Servicing Inc. I have a $13 million racketeering action filed against them, LaSalle Bank, Merrill Lynch and their legal counsel Harmon Law Offices.
The site that April referenced is good for MSF info and case law. Visit ftc.gov search Fairbanks and EMC settlements. USA/Curry v Fairbanks was the largest "settlement" involving a mortgage servicer to date. Yet few of the victims of Fairbanks/SPS appear to have actually been helped by the settlement. Victims of EMC/Bear Stearns are potentially facing a similar situation.
I'm sure that April will be more than happy to expound on this topic when she returns.
This voting foreclosure plan is a complete outrage.
Progressive Future has an action page you can use to send a message to the Michigan Secretary of State. We should demand a public statement that she will not permit voter suppression -- in this or any form.
You can find the email action here:
http://www
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