It’s like they think nobody’s paying attention. In this AP story about AG-for-Torture Gonzales defending the Texas redistricting decision, we find this quote from some DoJ spokesdrone:

“All decisions made by the Justice Department involve thoughtful rigorous analysis of the law,” said spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos. “There is no place for politics in this process and to suggest otherwise is unfortunate and just plain wrong.”

Sure, Tasia. And in any minute, monkeys are gonna fly out of my ass.

They’re trying to defend their illegal certification of the Diebold election-stealing machines.

The North Carolina board of elections has certified Diebold’s equipment for use despite their failure to follow a judge’s ruling that they must follow state law and allow their system to be completely examined by outside observers.

A 2003 memo from Justice Department lawyers concluded that Tom DeLay’s redistricting scheme in Texas violated the Voting Rights Act, but senior officials (read: Bush partisans) overruled them and imposed a gag order on their findings. The Washington Post has the story, but it’s also all over the blogosphere.

Excerpt:

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan. The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department’s voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections. “The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect,” the memo concluded. The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options. But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, solidifying GOP control of Congress. J. Gerald “Gerry” Hebert, one of the lawyers representing Texas Democrats who are challenging the redistricting in court, said of the Justice Department’s action: “We always felt that the process . . . wouldn’t be corrupt, but it was. . . . The staff didn’t see this as a close call or a mixed bag or anything like that. This should have been a very clear-cut case.” . . . The 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, has been kept under tight wraps for two years. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to an unusual gag rule. The memo was provided to The Post by a person connected to the case who is critical of the adopted redistricting map. Such recommendation memos, while not binding, historically carry great weight within the Justice Department.

The one the Army tried to railroad into a treason charge, which then became a “mishandling documents” charge, which they eventually had to drop because they had no evidence at all? Yeah, he wrote a book.

So, in North Carolina, there’s a law that election machines must have open, examinable code so that people can trust that the machines do what they say they do. Diebold lobbied for and received an exemption from this law — which a judge then struck down. In response, Diebold is pulling out of North Carolina. What does this tell you about their voting machine code? Nothing good.

More here, wherein it’s made clear that the NC law mandated not public disclosure of the code but only escrow. What is Diebold afraid of?

Kos has an excerpt from Al Franken’s new book that you really oughta read.

• First: Abuse Worse than Under Saddam, via the Observer; and
• Second: Traffic management in modern Iraq, in which mercenaries shoot at civilian vehicles as they drive around Iraq. The video was shot by the shooters, apparently as a trophy.

Just so you don’t forget, we’re still making our HIV/AIDS relief efforts contingent on the recipient nation being ardently anti-choice.

The announcement, in 2003, that the US Administration under President Bush was to give $15 billion (£9 billion) to help the fight against AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean was welcomed by campaigner Sir Bob Geldof, and others, as a major breakthrough. But, critics argue, it has become increasingly clear that the Bush policy is, in many ways, proving more damaging that helpful, as this Editorial Comment from the Baltimore Sun reveals. AIDS has hit Africa hard. But non-governmental organizations confronting the epidemic have been hit even harder by the Bush administration’s ideologically based edicts. Last month, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, and others declared that the administration’s policy of emphasizing abstinence-only programmes and cutting federal funding for condoms has undermined Uganda’s HIV/AIDS effort. Sadly, Uganda is not alone.

This makes it clear that the priority is not helping people; it’s controlling people.

The Administration continues to make up its own rules when it comes to detaining people it deems interesting, and are working hard to keep the courts from having any role at all. Having finally charged Padilla, they insist they didn’t really have to, and that they can grab anybody they want, and hold them as long as they like. Lovely! (NYT link, so here’s a local PDF)

TSA made a flier take out her body jewelry before flying. (Via BoingBoing)

Kos points us to a real barn-burner of a column by Michael Kinsley.

Diebold would still like to destroy our democracy. (Mefi link)

In June, over 200 people traveled to Sacramento to voice their concerns at a public hearing before a panel of advisors to the Secretary of State on voting systems. Since then, every scheduled meeting of the Voting Systems Panel has been cancelled, and now the Secretary has simply disbanded the VSP without notice, without hearings, without any type of due process.