Heritage Foundation Told Trump to Keep Democrats Off Voter-Fraud Commission

[CousinIT]

In late February, the Heritage Foundation learned something “very disturbing” about President Trump’s upcoming “voter-fraud commission” — the White House was planning to let Democrats serve on it.

“There isn’t a single Democratic official who will do anything other than obstruct any investigation of voter fraud and issue constant public announcements criticizing the commission,” a staffer (whose name has been redacted) at the right-wing think tank told Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in an email obtained Tuesday by the Campaign Legal Center through a Freedom of Information Act request. “That decision alone shows how little the White House understands about this issue.”

The email went on to warn Sessions that, “If they are picking mainstream Republican officials and/or academics to man this commission then it will be an abject failure because there aren’t any that know anything about this or who have paid any attention to this issue over the years.”

Instead of appointing members of the opposition party, normal members of the president’s party, or people who have studied voting issues in institutions that aren’t funded by the conservative movement, this Heritage official suggested the White House staff the panel entirely with “real experts on the conservative side of the issue” like Kansas secretary of State Kris Kobach. Specifically, the think-tank staffer suggested that they appoint the real experts who work at the Heritage Foundation.

Ultimately, Trump decided to name two Democratic secretaries of State to his “Bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Integrity,” along with an Obama-appointed commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission.

But he also put Kobach in charge of the commission, and eventually asked Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky — one of fathers of the modern voter-fraud myth — to join his fellow “real expert” on the panel.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/heritage-told-trump-to-keep-democrats-off-voter-fraud-panel.html

[SummerSnow]

1. stacking the deck

[Nevernose]

2. In the last 48 hours these fucks have endorsed Jim Crow voting laws - literally -

And claimed that the reason they could prove people had voted illegally in New Hampshire was because they checked the voter's ID (out of state college kids are allowed to vote in NH), which kind of nullified all the arguments about voter ID laws.

Another guy on the panel today suggested there be literacy tests and only in-person courthouse voter registration -- things specifically implemented to keep black people from voting.

(Naturally this is brought to us by the same good people who also brought us The Blacks that are The Real Racists )

[JHB]

3. May I suggest that henceforth all persons connected to the HF be referred to as...

..."the treasonous bastards of the so-called Heritage Foundation, and its equally treasonous funders."

[dalton99a]

6. +1

[Duppers]

14. That was my description of them this evening.

Before reading your post, I was telling my hubby about the latest HF news and described the person we know who works for *them* as a treasonous asshole. We cannot believe my hubs' work colleague has a son who works for those treasonous assholes!!

[defacto7]

4. The Heritage Commission is a fraud...

The voter-fraud commission will be a fraud.

Under this administration and this congress there will never be justice or fact based analysis of any kind. Such a commission will serve to promote propaganda and produce right wing legislation.

[Warpy]

5. That's because nearly all the cases of documented voter fraud

have been of Republicans voting in different locations, sometimes different states.

Democrats won't hush that up. Republicans will try to.

[Initech]

9. And the Heritage Foundation is a Koch institution.

I'm sure that Mueller is finding they're neck deep in this, so they got to cover their tracks somehow.

[Merlot]

20. I think the repubs committing voting fraud do it on purpose

Either to a) show how "easy" it is to do knowing full well they won't pay any consequences for it, or b) to keep the words "voter fraud" in the media, to in effect "prove" that it does happen.

and then there's c) they're a**holes who think the rulls only apply to other people.

[Initech]

7. How? They are not a government organizations! They have no power!

Fuck off Heritage Foundation!

[not fooled]

12. In a sane world

they wouldn't. However, as soon as dump was "elected" and had finished partying with charlie (or was it dave who was with dump on selection night?), swarms of Heriturd Fuckdation bots were brought in to plot the course for the new maladministration. dump had minimal knowledge of what needed to happen next and the Heriturders were ready and waiting to fill the void.

They had lists of personnel--that's where all those hideous cabinet appointees came from--to staff the gov't as well as pre-written "policy" papers all ready to go. Just one example: their "blueprint" for OUR Federal Government, which is now being enacted in many respects--they had plans for each agency, detailing (not that they know or understand what the agencies do or how they should be run) cuts cuts and more cuts. Of course a pretext for slashing the Federal Government, the kochs' wet dream for decades.

They have done what Hitler could not--taken over the U.S., without firing a shot. Of course, many Americans have and will continue to die because of their radical "ideas".

The sooner charlie and dave take their sociopathic selves off to the big refinery in hell, the better for this nation. Had they never existed, we would all be a LOT better off. They and their ilk are destroying the country.

[Initech]

16. I have absolutely no doubt the Koch roaches are neck deep in this Russia shit.

And I hope that Mueller nails them on it. The question is how far do they go? Do they go to Trump? Or Erik Prince? Or do they go all the way to Putin? The sad thing is the GOP's new boogeyman is the "Deep State" but what they don't realize is that the deep state is the Heritage Foundation! The Koch shits really are running a shadow government using our favorite useful idiots like Newt Gingrich, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and so on and so forth. But just like the useful idiots of Nazi Germany, the Koch roaches will cast them aside when they are no longer needed, and it seems like that is happening now. How big does their fucking fortune need to get? 40 billion? 100 billion? 200 billion? Well when the revolution happens, I won't want to be them.

[annabanana]

8. . . . sounds about right.

Heritage Foundation is just crap in the robes of Academe.

[ornotna]

10. Is this for real?

“There isn’t a single Democratic official....."

They actually said "Democratic"?

I'm tempted to call this fake news.

[ProudLib72]

11. Can someone tell me what exactly the commision can do?

Voting is up to the states. I can see them trying to sue a few states if they don't comply with whatever suggestions the commission cooks up, but, in light of the very obvious RWNJ leaning of the commission, how can any court rule in their favor?

I feel there is something obvious I'm missing

[not fooled]

13. They want voter suppression at the Federal level

i.e. what the red states are now doing state by state.

Also, one of the koch plots is to convene a constitutional convention and write into the new constitution--aka billionaires' agenda--all of the voter suppression laws that puke states have enacted.

[ProudLib72]

15. Yeah, but how can they enforce that?

I get that they can "prove" fraud exists and steps must be taken. They can also issue some suggestions. But, at the end of the day, isn't it up to the states to decide whether they want to change how they vote? And, yes, I understand how producing a lot of seemingly convincing data might sway some people; however, in light of the number of states that already thumbed their noses at Kobach regarding the voter roles, I have to wonder how much influence these idiots have.

[shadowmayor]

17. Good ol' HF

Led by that "rocket scientist" Jim DeMint. Yee Haw

[geretogo]

18. These Neo Nazis are stealing our country out from under us. We know this . Why don't the spineless

democratic leaders do any thing to stop the criminals ?

[salin]

19. The letter suggests that the efforts of this commission are the definiton of the word farce.

eom.