Canada: Are the Conservatives lifting tactics from the GOP?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/do-conservative-tactics-have-gop-precedents/article17967563/

Are the Conservatives lifting tactics from the GOP?
Lawrence Martin
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Apr. 15 2014, 6:00 AM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Apr. 15 2014, 6:00 AM EDT

“Across the country,” Barack Obama was saying last week in a speech in New York, “Republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote.”

The President accused the GOP of using voter fraud as a pretext to introduce strict identity checks to limit the Democratic core vote. Rarely have voting rights been under such threat, he said, describing how voter fraud is hardly widespread.

It’s quite a coincidence. Anyone acquainted with the much-ridiculed Fair Elections Act here in Canada will no doubt draw parallels. U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder is waging a fight to block such Republican measures. Our government is waging a fight to introduce them.

Stricter voter ID laws are just one of the ways Republicans have been attempting to limit the vote, especially among minorities and the socially disadvantaged. There are many other tactics that might sound familiar to Canadian ears: Phone-jamming schemes, abusive calls about opponents, misinformation campaigns in which voters are given incorrect dates. Evidence suggests these tactics have increasingly been in play since the big payoff – the 2000 election, when the Republicans won Florida and the White House with the help of vote suppression.

[PDJane]

1. Yes, they are.

At least, those who blindly follow Harper are.

The Omnibus bill with the bombshell buried in the detritus is another tactic borrowed from the Bush administration. This man needs to be out, and now. He's going to destroy our democracy, and has gotten halfway there.