Sunday, October 19, 2008
More to it...
How many fake voter registrations are there? This is more than just making up names - this is actively premeditated - choosing vacant lots and empty, dilapidated homes as address listings. in addition to using other people's addresses. This is deliberate.
It reminds me of Salzman's choices for the phony letters he wrote - old people who wouldn't know any different when their name was used in the paper... it's always seemed to me that that was carefully planned. What goes on in those training sessions, anyways? What goes on at Pamplin Grove? Do you learn how to do this stuff so as to not get caught? How to spin it if you do?
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Your LiveLeak embed doesn't seem to work.
ReplyDeleteI can guess what it says however: that the Dems are using ACORN to steal the election, which is the Rove/Fox/right-wing-blogger talking point du jour.
It's all to provide cover for the Repubs concerted voter suppression efforts in battleground states where they've been purging the voter roles.
Remember the fired federal prosecutors that brought down Alberto Gonzales? What was that about? Republican pressure to prosecute voter fraud that did not actually exist. That was then, this is now. Read the latest Rolling Stone for Robert Kennedy Jr.'s report:
Don’t worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale.
- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.
Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.
- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.
Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.
- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent."
- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.
There's more:
- Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls."
Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state's purging his registration was particularly shocking - he's the county elections supervisor.
The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times.
"Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics," report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are "systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats."
The investigators level a deadly serious charge:
"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering."
It is a quantum leap from voter registration abuse to get some extra cash to voter fraud.
ReplyDeleteRose condones vote tampering as long as it favors McCain. Oh and don't forget about Reverend Wright!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry Bob, but Robert Kennedy Jr. has as much credibility with me as Daily KOS, and in case you didn't notice, his article is linked in a post below.
ReplyDeleteI characterize it as a good offense being the best defense. IN trouble? ACORN being exposed? File a counter attack! Jump up and down and scream, maybe no one will notice ACORN as they scuttle back into the shadows.
Oh, Mickey Mouse'll never vote. But Joe Smith and Mary Dogooder registered in five different addresses might. And you can be damn sure if they are being careful enough to put the registrations in with the addresses of vacant lots and empty houses that someone knows full well what they are doing. Some plans are obviously being foiled in recent days. Don't play dumb.
Saul Alinksy, right, use their own rules against them. Appeal to their high ideals - you want everyone to vote, get it set up so no one has to show ID or prove anything, then unleash the dogs.
I'll fix the link.
It's well worth watching. There is no way to trust the sanctity of this election. And I STILL haven't heard a single 'obamaworshipper' say "THAT IS TERRIBLE.
But people on the ground in Ohio report that the residents there are disgusted. So there is HOPE. People are generally good, and not tolerant of shit like this.
Link works fine for me. In that video it looks like the elections board doing their job trying to verify addresses to voters, knocking on doors and finding no one lives there, or there, or there, or there. Acorn or Rock the Vote, or project vote or vote from home, whoever, whatever, something is rotten in denmark. The little transvestite is a ratings booster.
ReplyDeleteBob
ReplyDeleteAbout these "voters" being purged? What is the reason, the rational, the legal authourity? You don't mention that!
Are you saying, suggesting, that the Republicans somehow just go in and take people off the voting rolls that they don't like? Or is it that they are verifing the voting rolls and removing those that should and shouldn't be on in the first place.
Will it be wrong for Nevada to purge the Dallas Cowboys and Mickey Mouse from their voter rolls too?
It's amazing how Obama supporters can justify any under handed tactic that suits their purpose.
Yeah. It is really a shame that they are removing all those dead people, imaginary people, duplicate registrations and felons who have no right to vote.
ReplyDeleteI would think that would be a bi-partisan effort. But again, I have yet to hear and Obama supporter support the sanctity of the vote for real. All I hear is defending the people who are setting up the most fraudulent election in our history - or is it since the Chicago machine first appeared, and first broke all records?
"Or is it that they are verifing the voting rolls and removing those that should and shouldn't be on in the first place.".
ReplyDeleteThey clear out the deadwood on the voter registration rolls up here, too. They used to not do it very often but started doing it regularly for some reason that escapes me now.
Kind of sucks when they do that sometimes. I know, with the Libertarian Party, here in Humboldt we used to gain about 100 new voters every year after I got involved. We went from around 350 to 750ish in about four years, if memory serves me correct.
Then, one time before one of our meetings, I called in to get a number update to pass on to everyone else at the meeting. We were down 100.
I freaked wondering what happened. The gal at Elections suggested maybe the Greens, or some such, had a voter registration drive and took a bunch of our voters. I didn't believe that for a minute. I would of heard about it if they did.
Found out later they'd done some purging of the list and removed people who had moved, died or whatever.
Makes you feel like a loser, even with that, but after thinking about it I realized it could actually be a blessing in disguise.
Back then I was doing a lot of signature gathering to get our candidates on the ballot. I'd end up going to houses where people had moved years before. That still happened after the list cleanup but not as much.
In fact, around then I did a mailing to all the registered LP voters in Humboldt. A whole bunch of the mailers came back as undeliverable. I ended up taking the returned mailers to Elections so they could use them to clean up the list. I wasted a whole bunch of money on bad addresses.
And, Fred, not only is that perfectly understandable, it is the EXACT opposite of what ACORN, and Project Vote are doing.
ReplyDeleteRose, it's not just Kennedy and Kos. The whole media understands that it's ACORN being defrauded, not doing the defrauding. Even Huckabee on his Fox show acknowledged as much last night.
ReplyDeleteSo far the only individual arrested for voter registration fraud is a Republican in Southern California who re-registered people by convincing them that they were signing a petition.
There is no evidence that anybody planned to show up at the polls to vote as Mickey Mouse. None. De nada. The only possibility for charges are the 12 kids who rented the house and registered there, and even that's ambiguous.
There is no voter fraud. There is only voter registration fraud, by all accounts perpetrated by workers who didn't want to do the actual work of registering people, perpetrated against ACORN, not on its behalf. If you disagree with this, please point to one piece of evidence which suggests otherwise.
One piece of evidence. Just one and I'll give it due consideration.
In the meantime, here are the fact checking reports from the media.
factcheck.org
Associated Press.
Washington Post
CNN
MSNBC
And I've watched the Fox coverage in great detail, but aside from Huckabee who had Rev. Al Sharpton on to discuss it, Fox dodges the question entirely, as Greta Van Sustern did in this interview. They've got their narrative and their talking points, and they aren't going to let the facts, nor the lack thereof, get in the way.
And Rose, the voter purging issue was a serious matter long before the ACORN issue came up. The Republican officials in several states have been purging voter rolls hot and heavy all summer, and while Obama finally has attorneys on it, he's being criticized for waiting too long to address it.
ReplyDeleteSo, Eric, do you believe fictional people should be able to vote? Dead people? Felons?
ReplyDeleteEven asking a question of Obama gets you the Palin treatment, any indication of non support makes you a racist, apparently purging your voter rolls of people who have moved, dies or been incarcerated - or never existed in the first place - is now a conspiracy. While registering dead people, imaginary people, and multilpe people is forgivable.
I totally understand. And William Ayres is just a guy in the neighborhood. A sweet little old professor.
But don't you wonder - is "R. Trent Williams" registered to vote in Ohio? How many times? And in how many different states?
Rose, you're not answering the question. Where is the evidence of plans to cast fraudulent votes? This isn't about Ayers. The authorities have been rigorously interviewing the people hired to get people registered and so far there's not one hint of any encouragement from ACORN itself. The guy on all the Fox shows and the woman in your video, who was also on Hucabee last night, say that the people were begging them to do it because they needed a certain number to keep their jobs and they were doing it to be nice.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if you're trying to actually commit voter fraud, are you going to register voters as Mickey Mouse or the Dallas Cowboys?
You've got the FBI, authorities in several states, and frenzied media all working overtime on this. Don't you think something would have surfaced now? Obviously the RNC and McCain campaign have a vested interest in avoiding the question, but there's no reason for you not to admit that from all indications this is not about vote fraud.
And the purging includes many who aren't dead, felons, etc. Joe the Plumber may actually be a purge victim if the Republicans have their way.
Eric - its the same day absentee ballot registration of fake Ohio'ans that bothers me. I don't give a crap if it is a democrat, republican, greenie or whomever. This crap has got to stop and who ever seems to be ahead always looks the other way.
ReplyDeleteNow I am a democrat but consider myself level headed and moderate. This has got to be fixed but as long as folks like Eric minimize it and look the other way, it will get worse.
Might as well be living in some third world country or in some communist state where ballot boxes are routinely stufffed!
3:48 - I don't know about the same day register and vote process, and I agree it can be troublesome. None of the articles I've read have specifics. I assume you have to do it in an elections office, and volunteers from ACORN or any other organization can't simply carry around absentee ballots to gather votes on the street. I assume that some sort of ID is required. With the motor voter bills, you know they qualify for a driver's license. It'd be nice if somebody specifically described the procedure, or lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteBut that's really a separate issue from voter registration fraud allegations, unless ACORN was sending people out with absentee ballots too.
Scare tactics, and an offense as defense approach, Eric.
ReplyDeleteAs long as Joe the Plumber meets the residency requirements, and isn't a felon, he gets to vote. No one can take that away, for God's sake. They can't take away your right to vote and they can't take away someone's right to vote because they are behind on their mortgage. Where does that kind of reporting even come from?
What we are talking about is EXTRA registration, people who don't exist, people who are dead being used - and, it is disingenuous to go down to the base level and use that as evidence that there is nothing going on here. You've been around long enough to know things get done, and certain people get to have 'clean hands.'
Like Carlos and Clif, for example. There was no evidence that Clif knew Carlos was telling people to fill in their ballots the WRONG way, but it was most certainly being done on his behalf, and it most certainly was planned.
There are layers and complexities here that the FBI should uncover - and the Hillary supporters are sharing what they know about the election fraud they saw... it isn't over. It's just too damn bad that it has taken this long for the media to FINALLY start to BEGIN to look into some of this stuff.
Obama's been running for years now, and it is about damn time. Two weeks before an election. Pffft.
As long as Joe the Plumber meets the residency requirements, and isn't a felon, he gets to vote. No one can take that away, for God's sake. They can't take away your right to vote and they can't take away someone's right to vote because they are behind on their mortgage. Where does that kind of reporting even come from?
ReplyDeleteThe Republicans are trying to exclude all new voters whose names do not match between the records. His name is different between the records. If they prevail, which I hope they won't, he won't be allowed to vote.
Secondly, I've now heard the story about Carlos, actually Jessica, in great detail, and it's been badly distorted. One of Johanna's supporters was arguing with Jessica and told her that she was supporting Johanna. Jessica then responded that the woman ought to then write in the candidate she supports. She was arguing that Johanna's decision to run through Roger's name was inappropriate. She was not trying to deceive anybody.
What are Hillary's supporters saying about ACORN?
Horse shit Eric. I had a conversation with Clif about that issue where he admitted what had happened and apologized for it. At least he could admit it. Perhaps you should take a lesson from him instead of making silly excuses like “it didn’t happen” or its been “blown out of proportion.”
ReplyDeleteI hear alot of things, Eric, and your version doesn't explain why I heard well in advance of Carlos and Jessica's actions that Carlos had been tasked with the 'disinformation mission.'
ReplyDeleteRumors and stories being what they are, I would have discounted it - until it turned out to be true.
Now - who tasked him?
Humboldt's election fraud hotspots? DUHC house for starters, there's five people living their on the roles for a three bdr. house.
ReplyDeleteCheck the mission and the endeavor too, ACORN was registering a bunch of homeless shelter addresses back east in those busts.
parc center, how many kim starr whorshipers crash out there...
ReplyDeleteWord has it PARC is about to incite a petition of local business owners to kick her out of old town. She's just too extreme even for the brassiere store and funky old bookstore people, and is basically running a soup kitchen out of an office building.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't GAGS have an office in that same building? ROFL
ReplyDeleteI think Joan still does. I doubt she cares either way, the Gallegos power couple knows better than to associate with Verbena.
ReplyDeleteVerbena just went off on a rant at Heraldo, basically telling people the election doesn't matter and everyone should come to her cop-hater shoutfest tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteNow if her loser contingent of tinfoil helmet trustafarians actually does sit out the election, Kim Starr might actually have done something to help.
I'm not sure her activist liberal shopkeeper neighbors would be as pleased though.
Cop hater shout fest? Cops shoot and kill unarmed people and you are o.k. with that?
ReplyDeleteI guess some of you think that if someone looses their house for what ever reason, that they loose their right to vote?
If we can't know what is in the proprietary code of the voting machines, owned by private corporations that count our votes in secret, the rest of this ACORN (and the republican guy arrested over the weekend in Ontario Ca. for the same thing) business is just a waste of time and effort.
Voter fraud like ACORN effects one vote at a time, election fraud as in machines flip votes from one party to another effectes entire elections.
see votes flipped at the bradblog.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6540
I support our Secretary of State Deborah Bowen for enforcing both problems going on with elections.
ReplyDeleteMickey Mouse may vote but will his vote be counted? Only ES&S and corporate cronies know for sure.
No, Tom, the problem is is Joe Smith registers to vote and gives the Village Pantry as his address in one town, then drives down the road and registers and votes as if he lives at Tom's Garage, then drives down the road and registers and votes at KGOE's address, and then goes home to where he really lives and votes again - that's wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnd make no mistake about it, that is what ACORN is up to.
When the voter registration boards are having to drive out and knock on doors, and are finding a bunch of these guys, registered at empty lots and vacant houses - one registrar said half the things turned in by ACORN were fraudulent, and she put it down and stopped counting because she knew she had a bigger problem on her hands - let's not pretend this isn't an orchestrated effort - and with every 100 they catch, how many hundreds will not get caught? How many will ACTUALLY VOTE?
When Salzman wrote his phony letters, he gave a phone number. How hard will it be for him to do the same thing there? Him and hundreds like him.
THUMBPRINTS. Checked against a national database for duplicates. Because you cannot trust the people any more. Corruption is too widespread. The Chicago virus has spread nationwide.
Mark Anthony Jacobs of Young Political Majors (YPM) was busted for registration fraud and perjury in Ontario, CA on Saturday, after reports that his group was hired by the GOP to dupe Democratic voters into changing their registration records to Republican in a number of states.
ReplyDeleteYou don't bring this guy and the Republicans up. You need to read the brad blog Rose. To just bring up ACORN and not to bring up this or the faulty machines is selcetive perception.
Fair enough, Tom. I'll post a link. Both sides should be shown side by side.
ReplyDeleteONE of the problems, however, is that on most of the national media outlets, only one side is getting shown. And while the big media outlets have sent teams of people to dig through Sarah Palin's garbage cans, they have not sent the same kind of effort to look into any of this stuff.
And they STILL haven't told us what happened to the hundred and ten million dollars in Annenberg Foundation grant money -
I wonder if they are sending teams to Hawaii - Thursday, I think, is the big day.
Tom, where do you get the idea that Verbena is supporting any election reforms whatsoever?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the voting machine scam, it so happens Tom. My point is that Verbena is a self-destructive force who damages every movement she tries to dominate. She is actually saying we're not in a democracy and elections don't matter, which actually UNDERMINES your support for needed election reforms.
Verbena is not your political ally, Tom. She is an anarchist who wants to destroy the government, not participate in the political process with the rest of the adults.
See Tom, we can actually find some common ground in all this. I think ACORN is overblown and voting machines should be junked completely.
ReplyDeleteI also support police review for our law enforcement here in Eureka -- which Verbena now opposes, declaring that it's either her cop-hater committee in charge or nothing should be done at all.
See Tom, people like us can agree on constructive solutions. Nothing Verbena does is constructive. All her accomplishments amount to is alienating people already in these movements, driving away potential allies and making drives for social justice look fringe.
2008 is stolen for sure. RFK JR. broke it down on Rachel Madow tonight. Millions of voters thrown off the rolls.
ReplyDeleteRFK Jr. is a stooge.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, here is a link for you, Tom -
Obama: Full Votes for Zombies, Half Votes for Floridians?
We have all heard some of the stories of Obama’s political rise to where he is now, at the verge of the highest elected office in the world. But I think it bears repeating so that we don’t forget just exactly what we are up against. I don’t think I am exaggerating when I make statements like “Obama hates democracy”, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have abused it so thoroughly in his rise to power.
I’ve written before about how Obama stabbed Alice Palmer in the back by having her, and every single one of his other opponents, removed from the primary ballot through cynical legal maneuvering. This after she had backed his initial run when she thought she would be heading to congress:
The day after New Year’s 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city’s South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.
Obama tries to couch his anti-democratic actions by citing rules. But as we all know, rules can be used to counteract their intentions. Politicians and preachers like to talk about the “spirit of the law” vs. “the letter of the law”. Obama uses the letter of the law in many cases to bypass the actual spirit of the law. As he said in the case of Alice Palmer,
And he defended his use of ballot maneuvers: “If you can win, you should win and get to work doing the people’s business.”
That’s about as close as I’ve heard him come to verbalizing the ”end justifies the means” philosophy, but I think it is fairly clear.
Furthermore, Obama seems to acknowledge that it is, if not immoral, than a clearly dishonorable philosophy:
“He wondered if we should knock everybody off the ballot. How would that look?” said Ronald Davis, the paid Obama campaign consultant whom Obama referred to as his “guru of petitions.”
In the end, Davis filed objections to all four of Obama’s Democratic rivals at the candidate’s behest.
While Obama didn’t attend the hearings, “he wanted us to call him every night and let him know what we were doing,” Davis said, noting that Palmer and the others seemed unprepared for the challenges.
But Obama didn’t gloat over the victories. “I don’t think he thought it was, you know, sporting,” said Will Burns, a 1996 Obama campaign volunteer who assisted with the petition challenges. “He wasn’t very proud of it.”...
There is more.
Lot's more. And lots of Chicago Democrats trying very hard to let the world know what they know -
ReplyDeleteThat piece is a long one. It continues:
Personally, I find Obama’s abuse of the law more disturbing. When it comes to elections, the spirit of the law is very clear. The voters should have a choice, and it shouldn’t be reduced through procedural technicalities. But there is more. Not only does Obama eliminate his competition, if the voters do not accept him, he discredits and slanders them as well. Every single one of us has been called a “low information voter”. That means that in their eyes we’re too stupid to vote, or at least too stupid to vote “correctly”. He accused voters in WV and KY of being susceptible to rumors about him (They’re stupid) and wrote them off completely. If anyone dares criticize him or his policies he labels them as racists (and we’re talking about voters, not his competition–although he does that too).
Unfortunately, Obama’s disdain for democratic principles is contagious. His followers actually believe that some people should not vote, and actively discourage those of us who are not pure in thought to not vote. This dropping was left by a troll calling itself Gavin, who by no means is the only Obama cultist to have expressed this sentiment:
Gavin, on July 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 am Said: Edit Comment
This “un-party” is only further proof that the problem goes well beyond politicians; the problem starts with the voters.
Those who would rather vote for McCain don’t deserve a vote at all. It only shows your complete lack of competence, objectivity, and ability to put together a coherent and rational thought.
All these people crying about Obama being responsible for uniting the Democratic party bring a saying to mind: “You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make ‘em drink.” You have to be willing to listen first.
My advice to PUMAs: If you won’t vote for Obama, don’t vote for McCain. Don’t vote at all. That may send the strongest message to those who are listening. Voting for McCain would only end up hurting you and the rest of the country and world.
Maybe Gavin, along with Obama, forgot what the Constitution has to say about voting rights. Maybe Gavin (and Obama) should familiarize themselves with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was amended in 1982 as follows:
And listen carefully, Tom. These are DEMOCRATS talking. Far from right-wingers.
But they are standing up and speaking out and cooperating with investigators looking into the voter fraud, ACORN and all the rest.
btw - Bob - you should read that, too.
ReplyDeleteSitting out the election is not good advice. They should vote for Barr or Nader.
ReplyDeleteEric, you prove over and over what a dumb ass you are. Where is any proof that acorn wasn't trying to stack the deck.Or that they haven't sucessfully already stacked the deck? Were you in on any acorn stradagy meetings? Did you get any of Obamas special training on voter registration ? Didn't you see the acorn workers telling people to vote for Obama? Do you actually know anything? Mr Obama is a promise you anything,liberal's liberal. Sounds a bit like you Eric.
ReplyDeleteHorse shit Eric. I had a conversation with Clif about that issue where he admitted what had happened and apologized for it. At least he could admit it. Perhaps you should take a lesson from him instead of making silly excuses like “it didn’t happen” or its been “blown out of proportion.”
ReplyDeleteClif wasn't there, and I wasn't there when Clif apologized, so I don't know what he was apologizing for or what he "admitted" happened. I do know what Carlos and Jessica said happened, and I haven't heard directly from anybody else who was there. I find it unlikely that Carlos or Jessica could believe they could fool anybody involved in the Rodoni campaign.
If somebody was actually there who has an account different from Carlos and Jessica's, I'll certainly consider that account. But until then, I'll believe the account which makes the most sense.
Eric, you prove over and over what a dumb ass you are. Where is any proof that acorn wasn't trying to stack the deck.Or that they haven't sucessfully already stacked the deck? Were you in on any acorn stradagy meetings? Did you get any of Obamas special training on voter registration ? Didn't you see the acorn workers telling people to vote for Obama? Do you actually know anything? Mr Obama is a promise you anything,liberal's liberal. Sounds a bit like you Eric.
ReplyDeleteGenerally speaking, the burden of proof is on the accuser. That's certainly how it works in our justice system. However, the fact that celebrity names, and names like Mickey Mouse were used, as well as names in alphabetical order from the telephone book, all suggest to me that there is no fraud follow up. Also the Fox News reports, which include the woman in the video in the thread, indicate that the workers who wanted them to sign multiple registrations, said that they needed 25 of them in order to get any money. That suggests it was the registration gatherers acting on their own initiative. And also that the majority of the false registrations were flagged and reported by ACORN itself - a fact left out of or downplayed by most of the media coverage until lately.
So, do you have any proof of intent to cast fraudulent votes by ACORN? Early voting is happening now. Have they caught anybody?
All I'm hearing from your side is lots of screaming, but few facts. "They're doing it, I just know it!!!!" That's about it.
Rose, the term "low information voter" comes from the media, not Obama. It's based on polling in which the subjects are asked questions about various political topics before asking their preferences. And the belief that Obama is a Muslim is in fact most common in states like West Virginia and Kentucky. That's not making a moral judgment. It's where the poll data comes from.
ReplyDeleteI hear alot of things, Eric, and your version doesn't explain why I heard well in advance of Carlos and Jessica's actions that Carlos had been tasked with the 'disinformation mission.'
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe you'll believe me and maybe you won't, but I've attended many "inner circle" campaign meetings and spoken with just about everyone associated with the campaign and I've never heard anything about a "disinformation mission" or anything of the like. The focus has always been reaching voters, raising money, and formulating policy positions. That's the campaign. No smoke filled back rooms of the Courthouse. No secret meetings late at night in empty parking garages. Just old fashioned campaigning.
Check the mission and the endeavor too, ACORN was registering a bunch of homeless shelter addresses back east in those busts.
ReplyDeleteWe did that in Santa Cruz when I was in college. As long as it constituted a residence, and the shelter folk would vouch for their legitimacy, the elections department was fine with it, although some conservatives weren't.
They're not my words, Eric. They come from the PUMAs who have been dealing with The Obama stuff closeup for a long time now.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think Obama is fighting the suit in Hawaii - seeking a court order compelling the state to release Obama's birth certificate and any other related records in the interest of full disclosure.
There are THREE suits now.
I don't understand fighting it. Just release 'em.
let's not pretend this isn't an orchestrated effort - and with every 100 they catch, how many hundreds will not get caught? How many will ACTUALLY VOTE?
ReplyDeleteIn like what, 5 or 6 states, the FBI and state authorities have been working feverishly on this, and found no evidence of it. None. Zippo. Where is your evidence that it was an "orchestrated effort." It would require literally thousands of people keeping hush, even under interrogation. Where were these hardened criminals trained to resist interrogation? China? Kaos?
It looks like Obama may win big, and it seems that the hysteria over this thing is a product of denial that the Republicans have moved so far out the the mainstream they're going to get creamed for the first time in half a century.
And afterwards, much like the left conspiracy theories coming out of 2000 and 2004, we'll hear all about how ACORN stole America. If you've ever attended an ACORN meeting you know how ridiculous this is. McCain has, and he does.
As for the challenges to petition signatures, were any of the challenges illegitimate as a matter of law. This was Chicago. It is aggressive, and perhaps not in the spirit of democracy, but what it looks like to me is role reversal - he was acting like the Republicans who want to purge the voters. Maybe even like Katherine Harris who ordered the purging of all voters with names similar to felons.
ReplyDeleteBut the PUMA accusations you've posted are scattered Rose. I was looking for some meat in there.
And hey, if Obama isn't a citizen, then he'll have to step down. President Biden. Maybe he'll make Hillary VP.
ReplyDeletefactcheck.org on the birth certificate. I don't know what the lawsuits are about.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I read it. What was it? As far as I can tell, it was the rantings of a frustrated Hillary supporter who thinks Obama stole the primary election. Quotes come from he comments on other blogs, which as I'm sure you'll verify is not exactly a reliable source.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the complaint? That Obama supporters challenged signatures on petitions that were faked -- hmmm, it's that just the sort of thing you're complaining about, fake voters?
You say, "As long as Joe the Plumber meets the residency requirements, and isn't a felon, he gets to vote. No one can take that away, for God's sake." Maybe you've forgotten Florida 2000, where Ms. Harris purged voters who had the same name as a felon, Joe Smith for example. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher might not have that problem, but under the match rules, if his drivers license says Samuel J. or S. Joe, there's no match. I read the local voter roles all the time, I know for example that if your drivers license says Rose, you wouldn't get to vote under those rules, because that's not how you're registed to vote. That's one tactic Republicans are pursuing, requiring drivers licenses, because they know a lot of poor people don't own cars and thus don't have licenses.
Now let's get back to the removal of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico - one of nine attorneys appointed by Bush then fired. Why was he removed by Alberto Gonzales? Acording to an internal Justice Dept. report it was because Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, had complained about Iglesias' handling of alleged voter fraud, which Iglesias (a Repub BTW) said did not meet the burden of proof for prosecution. Now Attorney General Michael Mukasey has named a prosecutor to investigate whether Bush administration officials violated federal law in the firings of the nine federal prosecutors. Iglesias was not the only one who was seen as not serving the Republican cause by falsely accusing voters of fraud.
I know you won't own up to it, but this has become a familiar Republican tactic. The party hardballers, Karl Rove etc. have been working on this since before the 2000 election. Read the Harper's piece to see what they did in 2004.
Here's an excerpt: On January 5, Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, released Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio. The report was the result of a five-week investigation by the committee, who reviewed thousands of complaints of fraud, malfeasance, or incompetence surrounding the election in Ohio, and further thousands of complaints that poured in by phone and email as word of the inquiry spread. The congressional researchers were assisted by volunteers in Ohio who held public hearings in Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, and Cincinnati, and questioned more than two hundred witnesses. (Although they were invited, Republicans chose not to join in the inquiry.)
Preserving Democracy describes three phases of Republican chicanery: the run-up to the election, the election itself, and the post-election cover-up. The wrongs exposed are not mere dirty tricks (though Bush/Cheney also went in heavily for those) but specific violations of the U.S. and Ohio constitutions, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act.
(The full report can be downloaded from the Judiciary Committee's website at www.house.gov/judiciary_ democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf )
Here's coverage of one lawsuit. It appears that Obama isn't fighting this one, so the document should be released per default judgment.
ReplyDeleteWhich are the lawsuits he is fighting?
Where's Fox News?
A conservative responds to the conspiracy theories around Obama's trip to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is a fascinating journey into the realm of right wing conspiracy theories. The same zeal as the "truth movement." Almost the same language at times.
ReplyDeleteMichael Savage has plugged the theory. Media Matters responds.
How about something more uplifting?
ReplyDeleteObama may lose his grandmother before she can even see him elected president. It'd be nice if some of the wackier elements backed off a little bit.
So, it seems that the Dems are looking to draw a line between the attorney firings and ACORN:
ReplyDeleteObama Camp Seeks Special Prosecutor on Acorn Inquiries
Seeking to portray law enforcement investigations into reports of fraudulent voter registrations in several states as an extension of the controversial firings of United States attorneys, the Obama campaign on Friday called for a review by a special prosecutor.
Bob Bauer, general counsel for the Obama campaign, sent a letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Special Prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy, who is investigating the attorney firings, requesting that Ms. Dannehy also look into the whether F.B.I. investigations of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, were politically motivated.
a bit more...
ReplyDeleteIn his letter, Mr. Bauer writes:
I request that Special Prosecutor Dannehy’s inquiry include a review of any involvement by Justice Department and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee (“RNC”)’s systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud. It is highly likely that the very sort of politically motivated conduct identified in the Department’s investigation to date, necessitating the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, is repeating itself, and for the same reason: unwarranted and politically motivated intervention in the upcoming election. An investigation must be entrusted to government officials who do not have an improper political motivation or a conflict of interest, either in fact or appearance.
Point being -- Democrats are responding to Republicans stealing elections by doing it in their own way.
ReplyDeleteA pox on both your houses.
Rose,
ReplyDeletePaul Weyrich, father of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and various other groups tells his flock that he doesn't want people to vote. That's why the GOP is obsessed with voter fraud---only they want to disenfranchise voters because as Weyrich said back in the '80's...the more voters there are---the less of a chance the wingers have in any election.
Watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw
You guys seem to be saying that Obama is taking a page from the Republican play book.
Also, this is not a democracy it is a republic. Democracies are what we force on other countries.
But Wait, there is more....
ReplyDeletePublished on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 by Times Online/UK
McCain Campaign Paid Republican Operative Accused of Voter Fraud
by Hannah Strange
John McCain paid $175,000 of campaign money to a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, it has emerged.
As the McCain camp attempts to tie Barack Obama to claims of registration irregularities by the activist group ACORN, campaign finance records detailing the payment to the firm of Nathan Sproul, investigated several times for fraud, threatens to derail that argument.
The documents show that a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican National Committee and the California Republican Party, made the payment to Lincoln Strategy, of which Mr Sproul is the managing partner, for the purposes of "voter registration".
Mr Sproul has been investigated on numerous occasions for preventing Democrats from voting, destroying registration forms and leading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to leach the Democratic vote.
In October last year, the House Judiciary Committee wrote to the Attorney General requesting answers regarding a number of allegations against Mr Sproul's firm, then known as Sproul and Associates. It referred to evidence that ahead of the 2004 national elections, the firm trained staff only to register Republican voters and destroyed any other registration cards, citing affidavits from former staff members and investigations by television news programmes.
One former worker testified that "fooling people was key to the job" and that "canvassers were told to act as if they were non-partisan, to hide that they were working for the RNC, especially if approached by the media," according to the committee's letter. It also cited reports from public libraries across the country that the firm had asked to set up voter registration tables claiming it was working on behalf of the non-partisan group America Votes, though in fact no such link existed. Read the rest here:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/22
Common Dreams is as good as Daily KOS, Tom, in case you didn't know. Throw indymedia in there, along with Huffington Post.
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible to tell what is true anymore. And the hateful spin and spite from those quarters tops anything the Moral Majority ever imagined. You've crippled the Presidency.
Regardless, from whatever place it comes from, voter fraud is wrong. We can agree on that. It must be condemned, and it must be stopped.
No dead people voting. No imaginary people voting.
I am no fan of a national ID card, but that will be forced to happen because of shit like this. There is no other way to ensure the sanctity of the vote. Thumbprints, checked against a National database to prevent duplicates.
Simple, easy done. And sad that it has to come to this. Not just sad. Disgusting and despicable.
Looks like Eric and Tom have come unraveled over this one.
ReplyDeleteHeh. The effort to pretend there is nothing at all wrong with ACORN is quite astounding. No, nothing there at all.
ReplyDeleteMakes me want to remind people that Al Gore wanted a recount - of only the heavily democratic counties in Florida way back when, not the whole state. He also wanted to throw out the overseas military votes.
All this shrieking about voting machines, which were supposed to solve the hanging chad, human intervention factor...
But yeah, let's only count the democratic counties. And let's trust Richard Salzman-types to "protect the votes."
You know, if we would just submit, and give in and vote for The Obama, all would be well.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we resist? Why? Can't you see that he is the answer to all things? That only goodness will come of his election, Everything will be equal. No one will be allowed to live in a mansion, except, of coursem him - and how he afforded a million dollar home on a "community organizer" salary has yet to be revealed in full.... oh and Saint Gore, he and Edwards, and Kerry and Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi, they can all have their mansions, as for Joe the Plumber, he has to pay up so people who sit on their asses can have more.
All will be well.
Joe Plumber isn't a plumber.
ReplyDeleteWith Obama's tax breaks Joe will have more money to invest in real-estate. If this was a Repub or Dem. issue, why didn't the Dems or Repubs get involved in Ohio in 2004. The libs and greens paid for that re-count. As for Al Gore, had he pushed for a recount of the entire state of Florida, he would have won! The press found that out one month after 9/11 and it just got lost in the BE AFRAID NEWS MIX that followed for 6 years.
As far as voter fraud goes, it is a felony to register to vote at many locations and then go and drive around on election day to the different polling places to cast your votes. Risking a felony by doing this in person, increasing the risk of being caught with each additional visit to another polling place makes this type of crime less likely than a secret proprietary code that can't be traced, checked or attributed to any one person. I still think this is a motive to give us a national ID card instead of clean elections.
It is more of a distraction. If it were a crime conservitives took seriously, Ann Coulter would be in jail for being registered to vote in two different locations in Florida at the same time.
Coulter, who appears to have committed a third-degree felony by knowingly giving an incorrect address on her voter registration form in Palm Beach, Florida, and then knowingly voting at the incorrect polling place last March, could face up to $5,000 in fines and five years in prison if convicted. Once again see the brad blog http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2809
Rose, as you said this is bad for everyone. Now this just in from the Bradblog.com
ReplyDeleteVotes Reportedly Flipping from Repub to Dem in TN!
So NOW Can We Impound These Machines, Take Them Out of Service and Give Every Voter a PAPER BALLOT, Please?!
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6547#more-6547
Also, thank you Rose for letting me tell your readers about this stuff. It is all important! ACORN, Mr. Sproul, the machines, it's all relevant. See the big picture. There are some that want us to give up and not vote. Lets all vote on paper or at least work toward that goal.d
This one'll take you a while, Tom - and if you don't understand that Joe is a plumber, I'm not sure you'll be able to get through it - but between you and Eric, this'll be an eye-opener -
ReplyDeleteBreaking! The Numbers Don’t Lie (But The DNC Does)
This has to do with the PRIMARY. “2008 Democratic Presidential Preference Election: Primary versus Caucus: How millions of voters were systematically disenfranchised and election results were skewed,”
and Stealing the Presidency: An Obama/ACORN Primer... starts out: "A People's Organization is dedicated to an eternal war...A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play."
- Saul Alinsky; Reveille for Radicals; p. 133
Rules? What rules? Laws? What laws?
Clearly, Alinsky's acolytes take him at his word. When one is fighting a war "against social evils," one is above the law. Rules and laws are for the other people.
I'm stunned by the irony here.
For the past eight years, Americans have been bombarded nearly nonstop by cries of "Bush stole the White House," without a single proven shred of evidence, without a single indictment or conviction of Republicans on vote fraud, vote rigging or anything even close. Meanwhile the only group indicated and convicted in actual vote fraud cases in the last two elections -- ACORN -- is fully mobilized still, claims to have registered 1.3 million new voters this year, and is tied historically and inextricably to our front-running candidate for President, Barack Obama.
If anyone tried to sell this story as fiction, no publisher in his right mind would touch it. The average reader's willingness to suspend disbelief simply doesn't stretch this far. (...)
I say again - these are not just Republicans pointing this out - these are DEMOCRATS.
ReplyDeleteYes Rose, the recount in Ohio led to elections officials being thrown in jail. Just because they rigged the election there and just because that was the state that put Bush over the top for electoral votes doesn't mean Bush stole it. Just because those elections officials were Republican doesn't mean they meant to throw the election. Just because the courts there said that they broke the law doesn't mean they did. What are you talking about?
ReplyDeleteTom - this is where you assume and make an ass out of yourself.
ReplyDeleteYou assume that Rose and others on this blog that are really bothered by this voted for Bush.
I didn't - can't stand him. And I agree with Rose on this issue. It is bad. Bad for all of us.
Heh. The effort to pretend there is nothing at all wrong with ACORN is quite astounding. No, nothing there at all.
ReplyDeleteOh, there's definitely something wrong with them. They employed too many college students who suffer from the young leftist view that poverty begets virtue and hired people hard up for money to do a job which cannot be adequately supervised.
To date, nobody has presented evidence of anything more.
Rose, I took the link looking for substance, but the argument seems to be (1) that the caucus system is flawed because there are no certified vote counts and (2) Obama drew more votes than democrats had drawn in the past and by higher percentages than he was drawing votes to the polls in primary states.
ReplyDeleteThe first point is well taken, but it is amusing that we've had caucuses now for a couple of centuries and few people complained about them until now, although Dukakis complained about them in 1988 when he lost Michigan to Jesse Jackson. Completely absent from the analysis is that motivated grassroots based candidates have always benefited from caucuses because the process is much more involved than simply showing up to vote then leaving. The meme seems to be that because Obama was better organized for the caucuses so that he performed better than he did in primaries, he must be committing fraud. Again, not much about the mechanism.
Obama's grandmother, by the way, may not make it to the election. All those allegations that she was faking her illness so Obama could break into a public building and alter his birth certificate, well, maybe she'll fake her death too?
Campaigns are supposed to be nasty to a certain degree, but this is the worst since 1988.
I don't recall anybody saying he was going to break into a building and forge a birth certificate. I did hear people noting with irony that his compassionate trip just happened to coincide with his fight to keep anyone from seeing his birth certificate.
ReplyDeleteIt's ludicrous, Eric - so simple to put an end to the speculation - just turn it over, for God's sake. Why would he not just do that. You have to present it for a driver's license. Surely when you aspire to be the leader of the free world that would be a given. Tax returns, medical records, student papers and grades - all these things should be a given. He's refusing on three of those.
You're backing a guy who is part of a dirty political machine, Eric. More and more evidence of that is being unearthed. It should have been done sooner and would have been if journalists were doing their jobs. They haven't.
According to factcheck.org it's already been released. The guy held it in his hands.
ReplyDeleteSnopes also debunks the claim that it's being withheld.
So I'm not sure exactly what the lawsuit is demanding, nor what Obama is resisting.
Just found this link. Berg's case was tossed out.
ReplyDeleteOff to bed.
One more thing though. Did you know that Berg believes that Bush and Cheney were responsible for 911? He's a truther.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't make him wrong about the birth certificate of course.
Two cases have been tossed out saying the people asking had no standing.
ReplyDeleteYour fact check link is very convincing. It would certainly settle the matter.
Then WHY on earth is he fighting any of the three suits?
I agree, Eric, it is probably nothing - that is why it makes NO SENSE to not just turn it over. Without any questions, second thoughts or protestations.