I have written twice before (here, and here) about the new series of political pamphlets from Encounter Books. Encounter is producing these pamphlets as,"...indispensable ammunition for intelligent debate on the critical issues of our time." They are small (the one discussed here is 35 pages) and cheap ($5.99). In How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections (Encounter Broadsides)
, author John Fund attacks,"...dubious measures that make our current system even more prone to confusion and manipulation...".
This is the third in the series. I have been reviewing these in the order I have received them which is why I haven't reviewed the second book yet. I have to admit that I was a little suspicious of the topic for this one. I was very excited to read the first book in this series, but I wasn't so excited about this book. However, after reading the book, I have to say that Mr. Fund has done a good job laying out his case.
Mr. Fund points to the administrations action in some areas, and inaction in others, to make his point. He discusses a couple of cases that the Justice Department has dropped that were slam dunks / handed to Mr. Holder on a silver platter. Yet for some reason, this administration has dropped them. The case of voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers is one example. From Mr. Funds book:
Bartle Bull couldn't believe his eyes. The former civil-rights lawyer had been arrested in the South during the 1960's. He once forced local officials in Mississippi to remove nooses that were hanging from tree branches outside polling places. But until election day 2008 in Philadelphia, he had never seen a man brandishing a weapon blocking the entrance to a polling place. And now he can't understand why the Obama Department of Justice has dropped its case against the New Black Panther Party, the hate group (according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League) whose thugs he saw threatening potential voters with truncheons when they tried to vote.
Mr. Fund goes on to discuss how after the Justice Department obtained a default judgment against the accused members of the Black Panthers, the Justice Department suddenly dropped the charges. There are other examples of this in Mr. Funds pamphlet, and there are examples of policy decisions the Obama Administration is pursuing that could make federal elections more fraudulent instead of less. Mr. Fund ends with a paragraph that should worry conservatives and liberals alike:
If we do not demand that the Obama administration and its allies in Congress abandon schemes and policies that further undermine confidence in our electoral system, we are headed for crises that will shake our electoral system and will make us look back on the disputed presidential vote of 2000 with something like nostalgia.