It occurs to me that another Right which should be included in the veterans' Bill of Rights is the right to vote.  

I refer to the now well-known caging efforts of Republicans in Florida and other states during the past two election cycles, in which they sent registered letters addressed to individuals at their home addresses.  When the letters were returned to sender because the individual was on active duty overseas serving his/her country, the Republicans successfully challenged the individual's right to vote, claiming voter fraud inasmuch as the individual was not at the address under which they had registered to vote.  This is, as you know, called caging, and it disenfranchised literally thousands and thousands of mostly minority, Democratic voters and may have tipped the election to Republican candidates (including the president).

Would it not be appropriate to include in the bill terminology preventing disenfranchising someone on active duty in such a way?  

As it happens, the Pentagon has routinely offered absentee ballots to troops serving overseas, and many submitted their ballots, never knowing that they were challenged and thrown away, i.e., not counted.  This is ironic considering how the Republicans flew in absentee ballots from the officer corps into Florida, and insisted they be counted even if delivered late to the election office, whereas the Republicans challenged and discarded absentee ballots from minority enlisted personnel.  

Be sure to contact Moran and Bouchard about that!

...and very disappointing in comparison with what you normally post here.

I almost don't know where to start in refuting your nonsense.  Lets try this:  do you know what percentage of the military is minority?  Wouldn't this Republican "caging" also eliminate white enlisted military voters at a rate of 3-to-1 over minority voters, who presumably would overwhelming vote Republican since they are all "rednecks" anyway (at least in the alternative universe that you live in).

1.  Anyone whose address has changed due to military orders has unlimited mail forwarding for all first class mail, not just the one-year forwarding that the Postal Service provides for someone who submits a change-of-address.  During my 25 years of active duty Army service, I have received forwarded mail from a former address years after I transferred from that place.

2.  Even if a military member was to have his/her home state voter registration challenged, it would be automatically reinstated by their submission of SF 76A, the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA).  The military spends an enormous amount of time and effort every election cycle appointing unit-level Voting Assistance Officers and advertising the FPCA.

3.  Absentee ballots from military members are not segregated by officer or enlisted status and "flown in by the Pentagon."  The individual military member returns the ballot by placing it in the US mail.  Yes, from overseas locations that mail is handled by the military postal system until it arrives in the US.  Surely you don't believe that someone in that system has the capability of segregating officer and enlisted ballots?

4.  One of the dirty little secrets of elections is that absentee ballots, regardless of whether they come from military officers, enlisted, or civilians, are never counted unless the total number of absentee ballots received exceeds the vote difference in a single contest in that jurisdiction.  Then, all absentee ballots received in the US mail prior to the deadline are counted.

With all due respect, I find your characterization of minority enlisted military members as being cheated by "the Pentagon" for being prone to voting Democratic to be offensive and more than a little racist.  You should be ashamed of yourself for indulging in such a stereotyping of a broad catagory of citizens with divergent political views.  You make the military sound like slavery--poor, oppressed black enlisted members tricked and cheated by their white officers.  What bullshit.

And I am not insulting the Pentagon, but the Republican party. There is indeed a Dept pf Defense program to ensure that military personnel do in fact receive absentee ballots, whether they are enlisted or officer corps. Sounds to me like a good program, and the absentee ballots are not segregated by whether officer or enlisted; I am not sure why you interpreted the post as meaning that. It was NOT the Pentagon which "cheated" the enlisted or the minorities. It was the local Republican party organisations which had a program for sending registered letters to registered voters in minority areas, principally in Florida. NOT a myth; it was one of Rove's great ideas. It just happens that, strangely, the letters were primarily sent to low-income precincts which are full of minority voters (yes, there still is  defacto segregated housing in Florida, HisRoc, I lived there, I know)... and, being low-income, the individuals were primarily enlisted (you know how pathetic military pay is for lower ranks).

The Republicans had a remarkable database which enabled them (and still do) to slice and dice the electorate in a fine tuned manner. Far from being an urban myth, or any kind of a myth, the caging program has been pretty well documented; in fact, I believe Representative Conyers is trying to get his hands on extensive e-mails from the White House which lay out the program, some of which are even headed "Caging."

As for the flying in of absentee ballots from known Republican voters from various US military  bases, I well recall in 2000  hearing radio reports of exactly that, and whether or not the flights were chartered privately or simply space available standard military flights carrying baggage/personnel back I do not myself know, but the flights came into Tampa, and a there was a big controversy at the time about whether they arrived within the time frame to meet Florida state requirements, and could be counted (much righteous anger from Republicans about supporting the troops, how dare it be  suggested that the troops cannot have their votes counted, etc). These absentee ballots were especially sent by the Republican Party to registered Republican voters as a courtesy to ensure they voted. Quite a contrast with the way they treated absentee ballots from known Democratic voters, I'd say, and those voters which more likely were enlisted.

I am continually puzzled by the obdurate refusal of naive Democrats to recognize and fight sophisticated Republican voter suppression tactics. Consider the controversy over the fired District Attorneys, remember Iglesias from New Mexico, who, though himself a Republican, was fired, he says, for not prosecuting Democrats on bogus "fraudulent voting" charges. Caging is ongoing today.

Believe me, caging does exist, and it is targeted in great measure against low-ncome, minority voters who have a history of, or live in areas which have a record of, voting Democratic. Your description of forwarded mail is generally accurate, but the truth is in many areas of the country (as in Florida) it does  not necessarily work perfectly, especially when there is a concerted effort to "purge" the voter lists--- which purging also included the use of "felon lists" done by third parties hired by the Secretary of State (in Florida, that was Katherine Harris). Form SF 76A is all very well, but knowing about it, knowing that it must be used, knowing in time that it has to be filled out--- well, not too likely in too many cases. Moreover, you know and I know that in 2000 the officer corps was indeed nearly solidly Republican in political allegiance, and every effort was made by the Republican party apparatus to see to it that they exercised their right to vote.  

Settle down, my attack was not, repeat not against the Pentagon, and I am puzzled why you chose to construe it as such.  I, too, by the way, have a military background.

Another point I forgot to mention: those registered letters sent by the Republican (caging) committee had "Do NOT forward" on them, so they were never forwarded to the intended recipient.

In other words, they were especially designed to winkle out registered voters who weere not at the address under which they registered, which generally meant that they were overseas serving their country. A very clever, subtle method which can be considred legal (what if the voter had moved and not bothered to re-register? what if they were in jail doing time?). However it was done, the system resulted in literally thousands upon thousands of deliberately selected voters being challenged and removed from the rolls... Voters who were perfectrly legal, whose only mistake was in apparently have a Democratic voting record, and who just strangely happened to be minnority.  It all depended on how the caging was done.

The Republicans spent literally thousands of dollars on this program, and are doing so again. No wonder, it worked.

BTW, did you know that Vince Foster was Hillary Clinton's lover?  Chelsea Clinton was their illegitimate love child.  The reason that Hillary had to hide the Rose Law Firm billing records was because she was falsely billing clients when she and her law partner Vince were secretly meeting in Little Rock motel rooms for afternoon trysts.  Later in Washington, James Carville arranged to have him killed on Hillary's orders after Foster told her that he was leaving her for a younger woman--Monica Lewinski.  The National Park Service helped stage the killing in Fort Marcy Park to make it look like a suicide.  Shortly after Foster's 'suicide', Arkansas state trooper Bill Shelton was found shot dead at the grave site of his former fiancee Kathy Ferguson.  She was the widow of state trooper Danny Ferguson who was a co-defendant in Paula Jones' lawsuit against Bill Clinton and had shot herself in their living room while several packed suitcases were nearby.

n/t

But I think that you get my point.

of the tabloids, so it must be true.  

"humor" falls flat and is an obvious attempt to draw attention away from Teddy's thoroughly well-documented analysis by posting the most outlandish aspects of Republican conspiracy mongering as some sort of an analogy.  In other words, it is a subtle attempt to tar Teddy's posts with the same brush.  

I assume that since you could not find anything deficient with what Teddy said you simply resorted to this "comparison."  It's akin to trying to distract someone by saying "wait, what's that behind you?"  This is the type of thing people who have no answer to the facts before them do.  It's not legitimate argument.

I gave a well-documented analysis that demonstrated point by point what was deficient with what Teddy said.  Teddy's entire arguement appears to be based on "well-known facts" and things that "everyone knows."

The problem here is that some Democrats, not all, seem to be wallowing in the delusional theories that the Republicans "stole" the 2000 and 2004 elections.  After all, George Bush is such an incompetent president the elections must have been stolen, they reason.

The truth is that Al Gore and John Kerry ran abysmal campaigns and lost elections that were their's to lose.  Unless all Democrats come to accept that, give up these silly myths, and rally behind a viable alternative to Bush and the neo-con Republicans, our country will suffer another eight years of Republican mis-management.

Am I a Republican sympathizer?  Just the opposite:  I hate what Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld did to our foreign policy and our military establishment.  And, I hold the Democrats responsible for losing elections that shouldn't have even been close.

Elsewhere on this blog, people are crowing about Romney's win in Michigan because it weakens the Republicans.

Wrong strategy, people!  Counting on the other side to blow it is a loser's strategy.  Try concentrating on actually winning an election.  That's what the neo-cons have been doing to the liberals for years and the liberals never see it coming.  Case in point:  Reid/Pelosi.  Losers.

walk and chew gum at the same time?  In other words, work our asses off to win the election while also having a bit of fun speculating on the weakest Republican nominee.  That's all it is, by the way, a bit of fun.