For years, Republican politicians like Todd Rokita and others have libeled African-Americans by accusing our community of generating rampant voter fraud.
The heinous Voter ID law, harassment at Black-majority precincts on Election Day, schemes and games to suppress and reduce Black voter turnout have all been driven by the Republican mantra that voter fraud exists in our Black community and must be stamped out.
Republicans could never produce evidence of actual voter fraud at the polls, just wild rumors, like those canards radical Republicans utter about President Barack Obama’s birth, parentage and early years.
Finally, a clear cut case of felony voter fraud has surfaced. And standing accused, naked but arrogantly unembarrassed, is Indiana’s third highest ranking statewide elected official, Secretary of State Charlie White.
Charlie White stands accused of crimes that involved raw, naked lying.
White lied about his actual Fishers, Ind., address. Lied when he registered to vote and when he voted in May 2010. Lied on a mortgage application and worse lied on his marriage license. White lied to the people of Fishers, drawing a salary representing one part of Fishers when he’d long moved out of his district.
If Charlie White were Pinocchio, his nose would stretch from Fishers to the Ohio River.
Indiana’s bad boy Charlie now has been charged with Class D and C felonies. Two special prosecutors, a Democrat from Adams County, a Republican from Warren County, threw the book at Charlie White as a Hamilton County grand jury charged the former head of that county’s Republican Party with seven felonies.
The Indiana Republican Party knew of White’s blasphemous conduct during the final weeks of the November election. Instead of speaking out, they sat moot, while Hoosiers voted for the white man named White and passed over the African-American Democrat with the un-Hoosier name, Vop Osili.
GOP Hypocrite-in-Chief Todd Rokita, White’s predecessor who’s now a congressman, presided over a kangaroo court State Election Board hearing that ignored White’s open flouting of election laws.
Now Rokita, along with Gov. Mitch Daniels and every statewide GOP elected official, having known White committed voter fraud, now want him to step down – temporarily.
Silent has been Mayor Greg Ballard, who, after the White scandal broke, insisted on holding a fundraiser for the felonious vote frauder. As of my deadline, Ballard has said nothing about White’s crimes against all Hoosiers.
I have always had respect for anyone, of any party, who the people have elected to office. Charlie White, though, attained his high office through fraud, deceit, treachery, betrayal, perfidy and scores more words in Microsoft’s thesaurus. He has forfeited my respect and the respect of all decent minded Hoosiers.
Unfortunately, Charlie White doesn’t care what I or Indiana’s 655,000 African-Americans or even what all 6.5 million Hoosiers think. He’s gonna hang tough and hang on worse than Richard Nixon ever did.
For years African-American Hoosiers have been tarred and feathered by Republicans of being vote frauders. When our community votes this year and next, we should remember Charlie White’s lies, scheming and treachery. We should remember the governor and his folks who enabled him; the mayor who raised money for him; and vote accordingly.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
It’s normal for elected officials to host and headline political fundraisers. It’s abnormal for staff members of those elected officials to do it.
When you read this column, New York City’s deputy mayor for operations will have hosted a fundraiser for Mayor Ballard. An event raising eyebrows as to whether it violates New York’s ethics and conflict of interest rules and laws.
In an e-mail invite, long time Goldsmith booster Mike Wells pitched donors to give the Ballard campaign $5,000 to meet Goldsmith in a “roundtable” where “architects, engineers, financial advisors who may have an interest” could hear Goldsmith “speak on public policy issues and his new role in New York.”
If that’s not a pitch for folks who want a piece of NYC government business, I don’t know what is.
New York state and city have tougher ethics and conflict of interest rules than Indiana. Goldsmith isn’t an elected official, but an appointed government worker. NYC deputy mayors are on the public clock 24/7. Goldsmith’s participation in a fundraiser, while earning a NYC salary, could be considered “ghost employment.”
Somebody needs to tell New York newspapers – Daily News, Times, Post, Newsday, Village Voice and New York’s TV stations what their deputy mayor is doing in Indianapolis.
Is Steve Goldsmith trying to be the Charlie White of the Big Apple?
And Indy’s three Democratic mayoral candidates should drop a dime about this mess to New York City’s Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.
* * * * *
A few years ago, this column expressed concern about the lack of diversity and sensitivity at the Marion County Commission on Youth (McCoy). Things haven’t changed.
At a meeting with community servant/leaders last week, McCoy and others made presentations about the disproportionality in the juvenile justice system. As part of McCoy’s presentation, a pie chart was passed out flatly stating that 24 percent of Marion County youth were African-American.
I instantly knew that figure was grossly wrong and I brought attention to the error to McCoy’s Executive Director John Brandon. Neither Brandon nor a staffer present could explain where the data came from and the pie chart handout contained no sourcing information (a violation of research ethics).
McCoy’s presentation concern was about youth aged 8 to 17, so for the record, the 2000 Census documented that there were 120,652 youths aged 8-17 in Indianapolis/Marion County.
In that same age range, the 2000 Census says there were 39,845 Black youth or 33 percent of all youth that age in the city/county.
What frightens me is that the mistake McCoy made before this community group could have been repeated during the past decade. McCoy’s Brandon told me Monday a “consultant” had prepared the bogus information. Brandon should ask for a rebate.
But, McCoy’s funders and enablers should be deeply concerned that an agency they fund and support has directly or through consultants, either been deliberately or callously naively misrepresenting or understating the size and scope of minority youth in Indianapolis. And they should demand to know why.
See ‘ya next week.
You can e-mail comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
