Uppity Wisconsin

Incredible! Bush wants the US DOJ to look into the GOP's proposed Ohio vote suppression scheme using HAVA, seeking forced provisional voting that suppresses legal voters.

After being shot down by the US Supreme Court on using the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) for the purpose of declaring eligible voters to be tentatively ineligible because of database mismatches - a purpose that the text of HAVA expressively forbids - Bush and the Republicans will not give up.

As the Milwaukee Branch of NAACP and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association write in their amicus brief in the Van Hollen v. GAB Wisconsin case, provisional voting is inherently suppressive, and many provisional voters will not be able to come back the next day to corroborate their legal voting status, and leave the voting process with questions about whether their votes counted.

Those longing for an accounting of Bush's historic abuse of power may get their wish.

In Salon, Tim Shorrock has uncovered new modes of state surveillance of Americans, and revealed documents contemplating "a potential investigation of the White House that could rival Watergate."

Breaking new ground on the government's programs monitoring Americans to be used in a declared national emergency, Shorrock reports on programs "designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law."

Some excerpts:

Three senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.

Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on Friday distributed a statement, "A Case for Hearings," that declares, "The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens."

Updated: John Edwards fundraiser acquitted on all counts, DOJ political prosecution goes up in flames

Via Michael Leon (MAL Contends) - As the politicalization of the DoJ and numerous other Bush administration agencies has become clear in the public mind, the House Committee on the Judiciary Chair, John Conyers, released a Justice Department internal e-mail on the discredited Georgia Thompson prosecution, tossed out of a Seventh Circuit's appellate panel.

The e-mail as recounted in Talking Points Memo reads:

Madison, Wisconsin—A Vietnam-era veteran filed his reply brief Monday in his benefits-turned-criminal case before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Keith Roberts, an honorably discharged Navy veteran (1969-71) from Gillett, Wisconsin, filed his brief arguing that “his constitutional rights were violated in this case, and that he was unjustly convicted and sentenced.”

Since March of this year, Roberts, a veteran with no criminal record, has been serving a 48-month sentence (and his family financially hit with associated costs of some $300,000) for federal wire fraud purportedly committed in his benefits application process with the VA, in a criminal-charges/VA benefits case now simultaneously before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the Court of Appeals for Veteran Claims (CAVC), where Roberts is pursing his benefits claim.

Court of Appeals for Veteran Claims (CAVC)