True the Vote's mistaken: Holder DOJ is connected to reality, but it's the reality of power, not constitutional reality

By Michael Gaynor

The Obama reelection campaign succeeded, but, fortunately, the abusive and tenacious efforts to intimidate Engelbrecht and True the Vote were not effective.

Election integrity champion True the Vote opined on August 26, 2013 that "[t]he Holder DOJ is disconnected from reality" and asked "Just how off-base is the Holder Justice Department?"

The truth is that the Holder DOJ (the legal arm of the Obama Administration) is way off constitutional base, but tenaciously connected to reality – the reality of power. Thus, it will sue to try to circumvent the United States Supreme Court ruling that the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act is outdated and treat states like Texas and probably North Carolina as second class states will shamelessly playing the race card.

In a True the Vote press release issued on July 25, 2013, Engelbrecht declared: "We will not sit idly by and allow the most politically charged Department of Justice in US history to set aside the US constitution and attempt to bully the people of Texas. We will meet Attorney General Holder in court and we will do whatever we need to do to advance the cause of voters' rights for all Americans."

Engelbrecht continued: "General Holder's announcement today demonstrates just how radical the DOJ has become. The same department that criminalizes journalism and fails to prosecute IRS agents who violate the rights of American taxpayers is promising to sue states with taxpayer dollars to block laws passed by elected legislators such as voter ID and citizenship verification."

The Obama reelection campaign succeeded, but, fortunately, the abusive and tenacious efforts to intimidate Engelbrecht and True the Vote were not effective.

In its commentary purporting to answer that how off-base question available at http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=9t8ptdjab, True the Vote, referring to vote photo identification laws, asked this vital question: "Why are the feds preparing to spend millions of tax dollars against laws that enjoy 83% popularity nationwide?"

The answer, sadly, is simple: these days "the feds" generally and the Holder DOJ particularly are doing the bidding of President Obama and his radical allies and minions and their goal is to maintain power in order to fulfill the goal of "fundamentally transforming" the United States of America.

Election integrity procedures like voter photo identification and election integrity champions like True the Vote and, particularly, its founder and president, Catherine Engelbrecht, are in the cross hairs of the Obama Administration, because they champion traditional American values and thus threaten the fulfillment of the Obama Administration goals.

Anyone who has watched Illinois state senate hopeful Obama support "same sex marriage." presidential candidate Obama support traditional marriage and reelection hopeful Obama revert to support "same sex marriage" while his media allies lauded his switch as "evolution" instead of "devolution" or seen the video of young Obama talking about eventually achieving a single payer health care system and heard Senate Majority Leader Harry Reade musing about it recently really should know by now what presidential candidate Obama meant by "fundamental transformation" and that trusting him to respect the Constitutional limitations is foolhardy.

See "Why did the Obama administration target Catherine Engelbrecht personally?" (www.renewamerica.com/columns/gaynor/130603), "The 'War' the Liberal Media Establishment Ignores: Obama Administration v. 'Nice Woman' Catherine Engelbrecht" (www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=130624) and "True the Vote President (and Texan) Catherine Engelbrecht Will Stand Her Ground Against AG Eric Holder" (www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=130726).

As Engelbrecht put it in explaining why True the Vote sued the Internal Revenue Service for stalling its tax exemption application, "we faced a difficult decision regarding whether or not to challenge a powerful government establishment. We have now done so because demanding government lawfulness and accountability is essential for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness our forefathers so wisely cast in the foundation of our great republic. It is also important to establish a precedent for other private individuals and small organizations that fall victim to unjust acts on the part of out-of-control government entities and agents, urging them to stand up...stand together...to demand better service."

True the Vote was on the Team Obama radar screen even before Election Day 2010 and since things did not go well at the polls for Team Obama that year, Engelbrecht was a tempting target against whom that Republican War on Women canard would seem silly.

An October 2012 Obama Biden memorandum to Interested Parties from Robert F. Bauer, then General Counsel, Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee represented to be an "Update on Voter Misinformation Activities and Efforts to Protect the Vote" available online at http://secure.assets.bostatic.com/pdfs/BauerMemo/BauerMemo.pdf shows that True the Vote was on Team Obama's radar screen.

In the first paragraph Bauer charged that there was a "Republican assault on voting rights....with deep roots in the party's history and politics" led by the Republican National Committee "aided by organizations closely associated with the party and its goals, such as True the Vote." True the Vote is demonized in the six-page, single-spaced memorandum and, according to Bauer, it was "assisting the effort [to disrupt] the voter registration process" by purporting to train and deploy to polling places around the country 'poll watchers' on the watch for 'fraud'...." Section IV of the memorandum is devoted to True the Vote and begins, "Since the 2010-midterm elections, Texas-based True the Vote (TTV) has been an outspoken member of the voter fraud community and is the social group focused on ending 'vote fraud.' It is the first group since the Karl Rove inspired American Center for Voting Rights was discovered to be a Republican front in 2007."

What was Bauer doing before and after the 2010-midterm elections?

He was President Obama's general counsel. He was appointed on January 3, 2010. Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) opined at the time that Bauer was "perfectly positioned to be tasked with erasing the tracks between Obama and ACORN" when fallout arising from an ACORN investigation then underway in Louisiana was foreseeable. King also stated: "Bob Bauer has a public record of defending Barack Obama's relationship with ACORN" and his hiring "appears to be a tactical maneuver to strategically defend the White House exactly one week after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans and seized paper records and computer hard drives that may lead to the White House." Bauer stayed until June 30, 2011, and then returned to private practice to again represent President Obama's election team and the Democratic National Committee. President Obama publicly described Bauer as "a critical member of the White House team" who would "continue to be one of [his] close advisers."

Engelbrecht not only founded and led True the Vote when it became, in Bauer's words, "an outspoken member of the voter fraud community and...the social group focused on ending 'vote fraud,'" but allied with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief, who had worked for Project Vote, an ACORN family member that never even renamed itself after ACORN filed for bankruptcy at the time of the 2010 election.

Reality is ugly these days, and the Holder DOJ is determined to keep it that way.

Fortunately, Engelbrecht and True the Vote won't be intimidated.

© Michael Gaynor