Suppressing The Latino Vote

I guess the Republican Party has conceded the Hispanic vote, judging by this ad telling Latinos not to vote. The ad is running in Spanish and English.

Seems the guy behind this “don’t vote” campaign is linked to the Republican Party and his organization was once connected to a prominent Swift Boater.

I know, y’all are shocked. Well, not everyone is taking this lying down. Here’s a counter-ad explaining why Latinos should vote on November 2:



Back in 2004 when I was registering voters I’d occasionally run across African-American women who said they didn’t vote on religious grounds. The first time I heard that I was stunned. What religion preaches that people shouldn’t vote? They always said it was a “church” thing, as in, “my church doesn’t believe in that.” So these were Christians. Anyone know what church does not believe in voting? Is this a Jehova’s Witness thing? I honestly have no clue.

All I could think was: what better way to make sure people remain disempowered and oppressed than to tell them voting is against their religion?

[UPDATE]:

Yet another reason to vote:

PHOENIX – Lawmakers in at least 14 states are collaborating on proposed legislation to deny U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, according to lawmakers, including the sponsor of Arizona's 2010 law targeting illegal immigration.

Gotta love those family values! Because there's nothing more compassionate than breaking up families.

[UPDATE] 2:

DOJ investigating voter intimidation by Texas Tea Party group:

Harris County, the biggest county in the state, is where a Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots launched an anti-voter fraud initiative called "True the Vote," which recruited poll watchers and amped up fears over groups like the community organizing group ACORN.

Chad Dunn, a lawyer who is representing the Texas Democratic Party, told TPMMuckraker a number of witnesses have been interviewed by Civil Rights Division lawyers already. "We've gotten a number of reports -- quite a few out of the Houston area -- that poll watchers, King Street Patriot training poll watchers, are following a voter after they've checked them out and stand right behind them," Dunn said. There's at least a dozen reports that they could confirm with witnesses, he said. "Interestingly, it's all in the polling places in Hispanic and African-American areas," he added.

Terry O'Rourke, the first assistant in the Harris County Attorney's office, told TPMMuckraker that there have been allegations of poll watchers talking to voters, which they are not allowed to do, as well as hovering over voters as they are waiting to vote. He said the complaints came from Kashmere Gardens, Moody Park, Sunnyside and other predominantly minority neighborhoods of the county.

Of course. Because when brown people vote, Republicans lose.

Mr. Pot, Meet Mrs. Kettle

ThinkProgress has an interesting item up about Bill O’Reilly, who opined on his radio show that Middle Easterners “don’t want democracy”:

In my opinion, they just don’t. They want their meals. They want to smoke. They want to go to the mosques. They want to sit around, and that’s what they want to do. Do they want to vote? Do they want to get involved? Not really.

I’m going to pass that along without comment except to point out that the citizens of Nashville/Davidson County just elected a new Mayor and a new City Council, and turnout was about 28%--nearly 13% for early voting, 15% on election day.

I guess folks were just lazy, sitting around eating, smoking and going to church.