Port Chester Shuns Justice Dept

The New York suburb of Port Chester is making news and not in a good light these days. The town is a mixed town of affluent residents in the north and immigrants in the south. Despite a burgeoning hispanic population, the town's board has no representation from the south side. The Justice Dept told them to re-write their election laws after a resident filed a complaint, but the town government is refusing to acknowledge the federal involvement into the matter.

From Reuters:

Although they make up 46 percent of Port Chester's population, no Hispanic has been elected to the board governing the town of 28,000 people. The Justice Department sued Port Chester in December, after a complaint by Cesar Ruiz, a Hispanic who made an unsuccessful bid to be a trustee in 2001.

Unlike the turbulent 1950s and 1960s, there are no water cannons or dogs unleashed on protesters, no federal troops. The judge who halted the March 20 election called his action an "extraordinary remedy" that "should not be routinely granted."

(snip)

U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson then suspended the March 20 election for two trustee spots, pending a trial on the merits of the Justice Department's recommendation.

Robinson found the government was likely to win at trial, but the board still declined to settle.

"We've never had a problem with our elections or anything else. Now all of a sudden we have the federal government coming here, dictating to us they want us to have districts," said Port Chester Mayor Gerald Logan.

"There's such greater issues that the federal government could be working on, like what we are doing with our borders," he said, a reference the influx of immigrants -- many of them Spanish speakers from Latin America -- into the United States.

The defiance of the town's government is extraordinary. Instead of worrying about fair representation in the town, the fear of immigrants (btw we are a nation of immigrants) has led to ethnocentric policies that hurt nearly half of the town's residents. If the judge in the case went to extreme of halting the election, you know that Port Chester is in need of some serious help. The issue at hand may not be as serious as the turbulent times of the 1950s and 60s, but the matter is still important and must be remedied. If the current trustees continue to defy the federal government, they will find themselves in a heap of trouble.

Prospective U.S. Attorney Is A Criminal

You probably haven't heard of Timothy Griffin unless you are a Republican operative, but it is time to find out who this guy is. After the massive wave of firings of U.S. Attorneys Bush is set to pick a host of new ones to take their place. As the scandal heats up on why the 'Pearl Harbor Day Massacre' occurred, the story of Timothy must be shown the light of day.

From Greg Palast:

Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn’t mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.

However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails — potential evidence of a crime — to email addresses ending with the domain name “@GeorgeWBush.com” he sent them to “@GeorgeWBush.ORG.” A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns “GeorgeWBush.org.” When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.

What was in those emails was truly astonishing. His plan was to target minority voters in the tens of thousands and have them stricken from the voting rolls with his nefarious set of tricks. The lists included homeless shelters, African-American schools and military bases, which would secretly disenfranchise these prospective voters.

Now Bush is trying to scurry him past Congressional oversight using the Patriot Act. Breaking laws set by the Voting Act of 1965 will now be subverted with the incredibly unconstitutional Patriot Act. This madness must be stopped......Congressman Conyers, what say you?