Entries for March 14, 2007

Here's a timeline of alleged voter fraud in New Mexico by U.S. News Librarian Jennifer L. Jack. Check back with us tomorrow for more details on how this is shifting the dynamics of the story.

Aug. 15, 2004: Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera brings suspicious voter registration forms to the attention of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias's office in New Mexico. The county's sheriff, Darren White, asked Iglesias to investigate voter registration. White is also the Bernalillo County chair for the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign.

Sept. 7, 2004: New Mexico District Judge Robert Thompson rejects a request by Republicans to require first-time voters to present identification at the polls. He says, "The 11th-hour request by the plaintiffs creates the risk of substantially disrupting the public voting process, which far outweighs any potential harm to the plaintiffs." One of the plaintiffs in the case is the father of a 13-year-old boy whose name appeared on the voter registration rolls.

The majority of the attacks by insurgents in Iraq continue to target coalition forces, according to a new report out of the Government Accountability Office. (The figures are on Page 17 of the pdf file.) But as the overall attacks increase in number, often to more than 5,000 per month, a large share are targeting civilians and Iraqi forces. The report also indicates a gradual increase in the number of Iraqi security forces trained and equipped for duty, from 142,000 in March 2005 to 327,000 in February 2007.

Etc.: Petraeus's Challenge: Security and Reconciliation, on USNews.com

As the saga of the fired U.S. attorneys slugs along, the focus is zeroing in on allegations of voter fraud in both Washington state and New Mexico, both places where the U.S. attorney was sacked late last year. White House officials are now suggesting that a resistance to investigating allegations of election manipulation by Democrats was behind the firings of the two attorneys in those states, the Washington Post reports.

Here's a timeline of the allegations in Washington state put together by U.S. News librarian Jennifer L. Jack. We'll have another timeline for New Mexico later today, along with further analysis.

This item was pointed out to us by Nation and World Editor Terry Atlas.

First the good news: A report out today from the Anti-Defamation League reports a 12 percent decline in acts of anti-Semitism in the United States in 2006, totaling 1,554 incidents (compared with 1,757 in 2005).

Now the bad news: The ADL says some hate groups are turning their attention toward immigrants instead.

"The national discussion over illegal immigration energized some Klan and neo-Nazi groups, causing them to refocus much of their energies on targeting Hispanics as immigration rallies and protests took center stage across the nation," the report says. "The national immigration debate caused extremist groups to partially refocus their energies away from their traditional objects of hate and onto other minority groups, particularly immigrants and Hispanics."

New York led the country in anti-Semitic incidents with 284, followed by New Jersey with 244.

Brad in California asks, "Dan Bartlett today said that Clinton fired all U.S. attorneys but that the Bush administration chose only to fire eight. Is it possible that his comparison is between the beginning of Clinton's first term and the beginning of Bush's second term?"

We turned to U.S. News chief legal correspondent Chitra Ragavan for an answer:

"Yes," Ragavan says. "In 1993, Clinton fired all his U.S. attorneys, and there was a Republican outcry that it was motivated to suppress investigations into prominent Democrats, including Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, and into Clinton's own controversial financial dealings. But that was at the start of Clinton's first term. This time around, the firings are of Bush's own appointees, in his second term."

"Also, Kyle Sampson (who resigned this week) opposed then White House counsel Harriet Miers's idea of a mass purging, reminding her of what had happened in 1993 with Clinton and how angry the Republicans were," she adds. "He wanted to avoid a similar outcome, according to Justice Department E-mails."

As we noted before President Bush left for his Latin American tour, the White House had high hopes for this trip.

Bush returns today after enduring a week of protests and taunts from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (video below). As the Washington Post noted, Bush is having a hard time shaking the various problems facing his administration, even when he's out of the country.

The Boston Globe has a column today on Bush's attempt to turn attention to poverty in much of Latin America and the U.S. effort to help alleviate it.

Stay tuned for a report tomorrow from chief White House correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh on how much success Bush had in this effort.

Just about every candidate is here in Washington today for a bipartisan forum hosted by the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Afterward, Bill Richardson heads to Cleveland for a fundraiser, and John McCain heads to Ames, Iowa.

From the Political Bulletin: Clinton says the "vast right-wing conspiracy" is alive and well.