Disgraced Florida GOP Chair Claims Party Endorsed Voter Supression
According to Salon, former Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer has claimed in a sworn deposition that the GOP implemented a “systemic effort to suppress the black vote.” He also called some party officials “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies.”
Why was Greer being deposed? In 2010, he was charged with criminal fraud, money laundering and felony corruption. From the Orlando Sentinel:
The criminal trial itself — in which Greer is charged with money laundering and fraud — will hinge on whether his activities were concealed from party leaders or par for the course in multimillion-dollar political organizations.
His trial was slated to start on July 30 but has been postponed to mid-November. Greer was charged with moving about $200,000 of party money to Victory Strategies LLC, a fundraising firm where he was a silent owner. He has pled not guilty.
Greer was the hand-picked coat holder for Gov. Charlie Crist to oversee the affairs of the state party…
But as the now-disgraced Greer faces criminal fraud charges stemming from the time of his rule, the former chairman is lashing out at those he accuses of plotting against him. The list of usual suspects is impressive: outgoing Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos, state Sen. John Thrasher, party counsel Jason Gonzalez and even Crist’s former chief of staff, Eric Eikenberg….
[C]onsidering Gov. Rick Scott and the rest of the Tallahassee Republican establishment embraced other voter suppression efforts such as reducing the number of early voting days and scrubbing of voter rolls, it would be reasonable to conclude where there’s smoke, there’s an elephant.
Amazing.
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Boy, this will be interesting to watch. Truth? Or a guilty man trying to confuse a jury and muddy the case?
What a can of worms. Still, the proof may be hard to come by. If he wasn’t wearing a wire, it’s all hearsay absent written documents.
Well, it is not exactly a bolt from the blue. The GOP in Florida was sanctioned by the normally impotent FEC for voter suppression in 2000 when one of the Republicans on the commission was so discussed with them that he cross party lines to vote against them. The national GOP is under a restraining order to desist in voter caging efforts. The entire effort against ACORN was begun after the Republican voter registration organization Positive Majority was convicted of destroying the voter registrations of people who filled out forms as Democrats. The Republicans wanted to prove that the Democrats did it too and when it it turned out that ACORN didn’t do it the right wing propaganda machine decided to just lie loudly and often that they did until they were driven out of business.
The GOP and conservatives in general are taught that efforts like this including even Watergate are justified because the evil Daily machine in Chicago stole the presidency from Nixon in 1960. Which isn’t even true. In the recount for the state wide race for the Senate the Democrat was declared the winner when widespread voter fraud was discovered, in Southern Illinois, by the Republicans.
The sad thing is that, assuming the allegations are true, its on only rare occasions when a person in a position to know the truth actually comes out and says it. It speaks to the stupid, blind loyalty that “normal” people can show to failed institutions to the detriment of the rest of us.
I presume the allegations are true, because that fits my perception of how Dog awful inept (and corrupt) both parties are. However, if there is reliable evidence to the contrary, that perception would change, as it should. Of course, proving a negative can be awfully hard, especially when one doesn’t trust much of anything the political parties present in their own defense on most any topic. Oh well, its just a matter of lost trust. The two parties obviously don’t give a rip, otherwise they would try to win votes on the merits instead of by employing duplicity and sleaze.
Democrats should pay this story on repeat.
Either way they “win” : was it racism out just lying? Republican laundry covered in stains.
If only this gave me relief that democrats would be moral. Yeah right
No surprise (nor anything new) about the GOP interest in suppressing the votes of groups who they view as potential dems. I mean just look at how dispensible ethical considerations have become to them over the decades. That said, I believe the greater problem with voters in general has to do with how easily they are influenced by propaganda, ads, repetitive rhetoric, etc. They are more like sponges than sentient creatures capable of thinking, of discerning fact from fiction, even making simple judgements based on reason. Of course there have been ample warnings about this. Here’s one such – an interesting interview with Aldous Huxley from 1958 conducted by a very young Mike Wallace:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/happy-birthday-aldous-huxley-a-rare-prophetic-1958-interview/260369/
Whether true or not this could be a PR nightmare for the GOP–for the sake of our democracy I fervently hope it is not. Unfortunately, there is nothing I would put past the GOP when it comes to winning an election
z
That was fascinating. We should have cloned all the Huxleys while we had them. I keep thinking about Redford’s film “The Candidate” and Huxley’s insight about how propaganda can be defining if started at an early enough age = or having a dumbed down enough population. It seems that’s where we now are because of television’s ability to entertain without informing.
Where is the honor amongst thieves?
Zeph– Huxley was right on when he predicted that technology could be used to spread propaganda and to predict what emotional appeals would work and block out the rational side of our brain.
It used to be a lot easier to tell the difference between fact and opinion, news and entertainment, real controversy and manufactured scandal.. Even for the vigilant it requires a constant effort
“Huxley’s insight about how propaganda can be defining if started at an early enough age”
Ohioan — as an agnostic I see a lot of religious training (indoctrination) in childhood like that. The religious belief becomes part of who you are –one that you don’t question because it has always been apart of your belief system
Has the GOP has ever looked so dire?
I say in earnest that Nixon would be an improvement.
Nixon had positive objectives — such as relations with china.
This GOP has literally nothing.
Cut the deficit? No — the sacred cow is biggest budget item. Defense.
That’s the only positive thing I can think of. And even that is a double-negative.
The GOP makes democrats look good. That is so pathetic we should all go to the bar and drink ourselves to tears.
Nixon WAS an improvement… Hell, I voted for him twice, and you’re right about China, prior to Nixon the US (Democrats and Republicans) didn’t want to even talk with China.
Attention paying Republicans have been coming over, begrudgingly at first, for years now. I’m looking forward to a new exodus come November.
bluebelle
The Jesuit motto is “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”, which is based on a quotation by Ignatius Loyola. There are many organizations that want to and do influence children; boy scouts and girl scourts, FFA, 4-H, churches, and schools. The most influential are parents and, now, television – which Huxley was concerned about.
Attitudes about others, good and bad, are difficult but not impossible to change. Edward Norton in “American History X” gives an example of propaganda in the home and the person’s dealing with it and later changing. Most of us have gone through rebelling against parental mores and then either re-accepting them or not in later life. Some interesting experiments in separating groups of children into green and red groups and their accepting the status of the group they are in which is pre-determined good or bad.
A further thought; I think this push to open charter schools has a basis in indoctrination as much as wanting better education. All these voter exclusion and youth indoctrination goals are being exercised on the local and state levels which are under the radar of most voters.
Glad you liked it O. I believe there were more intellectuals around in the 50′s than there are now.
Z
There may be as many intellectuals now, but it’s ironic that they are more cowed now than they were in the McCarthy era isn’t it? Could it possibly be that we will see the intellectuals sent to reeducation camps within this century? Dumbing down is de rigueur.
I disagree with TO; this site is a clear example that the intellectuals are not cowed. The problem is not suppression, and that IS the main problem intellectuals seem to have. They ‘believe’ that intelligent thought must be under direct attack, else why is it not mainstream and repeated by the masses? The answer lies in the question.
Intellectuals have more ‘freedom of thought’ than at any other time in history (save, perhaps, the 1960′s). What they do NOT have is widespread recognition. It is not a lack of ideas that is hurting the world, it is a lack of advertising of the good ideas (as well as a lack of consensus on the ideas we will continue to push for).
Rcoutme
This site?
I guess I seldom see originality like Huxley’s seemed to be, but I’m not that well-read anymore – and revisionism is wearing me down. But you could be right, and I am helping perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy.