Nasty business in Michigan

GOP caught kicking people when they are down

A local Michigan Republican Party Chairman (Macomb County) planned to use a mortgage foreclosure list to strike registered voters from the rolls, according to the Michigan Messenger.

"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

The Messenger also reports that the Michigan GOP, along with the McCain campaign, plans to conduct a statewide program of voter disenfranchisement.

This disenfranchisement strategy would mostly effect minority voters caught by the mortgage crisis, according to the Messenger's report.

The Michigan GOP quickly issued a denial and demanded a retraction from the Messenger. In support of its rebuttal, it then 1) left-baited the blog; 2) produced a tu quoque assertion which also conflated the actions of ACORN with those of the Democratic Party as a whole; 3) had Carabelli claim that the Messenger
libeled him with the alleged falsehoods contained in its story; and 4) asserted that the Messenger is a partisan political entity, a claim based on tenuous evidence.

Jefferson Morley, the Editorial Director for the Center for Independent Media, the organization of which the Messenger is a part,
refused to retract the article, denied that the Center was a partisan political entity and supported the investigative work contained in the article.

Finally, he discussed the matter this morning (9.18.2008) with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now.