Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today.
Two of those charged - Maria Miles, 36, of Milwaukee, and Kevin Clancy, 26, of Racine - worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community organizing group.
"The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other (special registration deputies) registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN," the Van Hollen release says.
Both were charged with one felony count.
Attempts to reach ACORN today were unsuccessful. What name did you try under?
Also charged was a couple - Herbert, 60, and Suzanne Gunka, 54, both of Milwaukee - for allegedly double-voting in November 2008, once absentee and once at the polls.
Michael Henderson, 40, was hit with two felony charges of being a felon who cast a ballot even though he was still on probation. The Milwaukee man was convicted in 2005 in Rock County with two felonies for bail jumping and one disorderly conduct misdemeanor. He was sentenced to five years' probation.
Each felony count for voter fraud carries a maximum penalty of 3 1/2 years behind bars and a $10,000 fine. All five individuals are scheduled to appear in court on April 20.
The charges were brought as part of the Milwaukee Election Fraud Task Force.
Van Hollen's announcement comes the same day that No Quarter disclosed that the Milwaukee County prosecutor for election fraud accused Milwaukee police of sitting on their hands and failing to investigate these cases for the first half of this year.
The prosecutor, Bruce Landgraf, said the Milwaukee Police Department began looking at election fraud cases last year only after Van Hollen's agency " stepped up to start the work MPD should have commenced immediately after your referral."
Landgraf was addressing a city election official.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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"Bankers don't need another vote in the United States Senate," President Obama said as he urged Massachusetts voters to support Attorney General Martha Coakley over Republican Scott Brown. He also railed against "the same fat-cats who are getting rewarded for their failure."
But in Illinois, Democrats have nominated a banker for Obama's old Senate seat. Not only is Alexi Giannoulias's family bank on the verge of failing, but he has a golden parachute made of federal tax refunds:
Alexi Giannoulias, kin could walk away from Broadway Bank Collapse with $15 million
(Crain's) -- The family of Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias stands to collect more than $10 million in federal tax refunds even if its Broadway Bank fails, which Mr. Giannoulias said last week is likely.
Obama might have to watch what he says about bankers. And fat cats, for that matter.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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Mr President, tomorrow night, go have some more kids with your life so you may become a prime example of the sin of the fathers.
Washington, D.C.--President Obama assured the American people that it was "no big deal" that passage of a radical and deeply unpopular health care bill that would forever limit patients' medical options could result from an ethics charge involving a drunk comment at a wedding reception brought against a Democrat of ambiguous sexual orientation who verbally sparred with the White House Chief of Staff -- whom he called "son of the devil's spawn" -- when they were both nude in the Congressional gym.
A calm and relaxed Obama told gathered reporters "It's all part of the normal legislative process," adding that "Some of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress resulted from alcohol-induced references to gay sex and naked shower roughhousing."...
Posted by: Mike ||
03/09/2010 08:51 ||
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I've been trying to erase these images from my mind ever since they got planted yesterday.
US President Barack Obama and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou are to hold talks overnight on economic issues amid concerns that speculators are undermining Greece's efforts to overcome a severe debt crisis. Everyone else is getting a handout from Washington, why should the Greeks be left out?
Mr Papandreou arrived in Washington after visits to France and Germany as part of efforts to drum up international backing for his debt-crippled nation, which has adopted new austerity measures to pull out of its crisis.
In his first public address on arrival, Mr Papandreou called on the US to crack down on speculators, apparently referring to reports that some US funds have placed big bearish bets against the euro, the sole currency of 16 European Union member states, including Greece.
"Unprincipled speculators are making billions every day by betting on a Greek default,'' he said. I think he means you, Mr. Soros ...
The single European unit has come under market pressure since it was disclosed that Greece's public debts have mushroomed to 300 billion ($450 billion), well above its annual economic output.
Mr Papandreou warned that the repercussions of any coordinated speculative attacks on the euro would also be detrimental to the US.
"That is why Europe and America must say 'enough is enough' to those speculators who only place value on immediate returns, with utter disregard for the consequences on the larger economic system -- not to mention the human consequences of lost jobs, foreclosed homes, and decimated pensions,'' he said. A little hard to complain when your country has spent decades living beyond its means ...
The White House said that "economic issues will be an important part of the discussion'' between Mr Obama and Mr Papandreou and that they were expected "to discuss their shared commitment to financial reform and economic recovery,'' among other topics.
Mr Papandreou is unlikely to ask for financial aid from the US although his hard-pressed Socialist government, which faces a mounting barrage of strikes over its austerity cuts, has suggested it could appeal to the International Monetary Fund for help if rebuffed by the European Union. The IMF being paid for by Uncle Sugar ...
"Neither the prime minister nor Greece has asked the United States for anything,'' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after talks with the Greek leader.
She said Mr Papandreou wanted the US to lobby for financial reforms in the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging nations.
"What I think Greece is looking for, as the Prime Minister alluded to, is that the United States, working in the G20, will make some of the changes in regulatory regimes governing some of these financial instruments that have been used to the detriment not only of Greece, but of other countries, including our own,'' Ms Clinton said.
She cited as an example credit default swaps or CDS, which function like an insurance contract for bonds. US and European regulators are scrutinizing such contracts in the wake of the Greek debt crisis amid concerns that excessive speculation could have exacerbated the country's fiscal woes.
Ms Clinton said the US wanted to work with other nations to reform the "unregulated financial market that globally moves money at the speed of sound, if not light, and leaves in its wake all kinds of consequences that governments have to contend with.''
Whatever he has done or not done, I will miss Eric Massa, for no other reason than his gift with a phrase.
In an amazing, far-ranging interview with a Rochester-area radio station, Massa admits making an off-color, sexual comment to a young staffer -- but still claims Democratic leadership ratted him out to kill a health care "no" vote.
That brought him to the subject of Rahm Emanuel and arm-twisting:
"Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn," Massa said, according to City Hall. "He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive."
Later in the interview, Massa -- who sits down with Glenn Beck for a one-hour interview on Tuesday -- tells a bizarre story about Emanuel accosting him in the House gym -- in the buff:
"Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel," Massa started. "I was a congressman in my first eight weeks, and I was in the congressional gym, and I went down and I worked out and I went into the showers...I'm sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn't going to vote for the president's budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?"
Massa has never enjoyed a particualrly close relationship with Emanuel, who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when Massa first ran for unsuccessfully, without much DCCC support, in 2006.
Massa's near defeat of incumbent Randy Kuhl that year -- he lost by 6,033 votes -- attracted the attention of Emanuel's successor Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who helped Massa defeat Kuhl in a nail-biting rematch in '08.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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Massa's got the quote of the day, and he's certainly taken his revenge on Rahm Emanuel, whom we will now all instinctively picture naked and poking. I mean, back when the movie "Psycho" came out, it was a standard thing to be afraid to take a shower, because we were picturing Anthony Perkins, in his dress, come to jab us with that knife. Now, the image is Rahm, naked, come to poke us with that finger.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/09/2010 8:37 Comments ||
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That is why I wouldn't do well in politics. Some asshole comes up naked and pokes me and yells at me in the shower and it would be the last goddamn thing he ever did.
Fortunately, blood washes off in the shower so it would be a win for me.
#5
An off-color, sexual comment to a young staffer? And yet Bill Clinton gets away with his escapades with Monica Lewinsky? Can you say double standard? Can you say hypocrisy? It kinda makes me wonder what the hell is really happening.
Faced with diminishing numbers, a threatening ballot measure and the perpetual challenge of being a small third party in a two-party system, the California Green Party may be fading to chartreuse.
But that won't happen if a hardy core of delegates, who gathered in San Jose over the weekend for a semiannual state meeting, have their way. Still, the Greens couldn't even hold the attention of their own members. By Sunday, the meeting had shrunk by half to 40 people. Even its two candidates for governor, Laura Wells of Oakland and Deacon Alexander of Los Angeles, skipped Sunday's talks on platform and procedures.
Five years ago, there were 158,000 registered Greens, or 0.95 percent of California voters. By January this year, the number had shrunk to 111,000, or 0.66 percent of the electorate.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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"A 17th-century electoral system keeps minor parties minor," Stauffer said.
Under a modern European parliamentary system minority parties would still be minor, but combined in a more popular coalition can have their policies advanced or codified.
That is why the American left is so in love with Euro-socialism
#2
In proportional representation extremists have their own small parties---releasing the steam presure. In winner take all, extremists have no choice but to take over a major party. For example: US democrats & ultra-left. And wait until religious-right takes ofer republican party.
#3
In proportional representation if a party puts a pedophile (or a scammer, like in Israel some years ago, OK he only scammed foreigners) first position he will be elected
In proportional represntation, representatives have to bow in front of party leadership because the leaders decide who will be in "guaranted to be elected" or "guaranteed to not be elcted" position".
In proportional represntation voters have no saying in which parties will govern. It is negoatio between paarty leasderrs totally behind their backs.
In proportaional represntation sme small party represnting 5% of the people holds the keys to governemnt and the larger ones (that is those who represent far more people have to bow in front of it.
In proportional represntation losing votes is no problem as long as you are needed to form goverment (minor party) or you + minor party over 50% (major party).
In proportional representation you don't have democracy but partitocracy.
#4
And lets be honest, small party or big party, that all do not want to give the American voter the choice on the ballot of "None of the Above" for fear of the consequences when NA gets the plurality.
#5
In the US if you have a small party you might still gain influence with those in one of the big two who are always trolling for votes and inclusive with the big tent idea. In most cases if the small party isn't entirely nutty their ideas find their way in without the small party being able to hold a coalition hostage because they demand Ferret-laws be changed and it isn't happening fast enough.
For example the LIbertarian ideas find their way into the Republican party from time to time. if not, we get Tea Parties which force the Republicans to reconsider.
Or another example is the Greens. There ideas have been entirely looted by the Democrats so what do they really have to offer except an impossibly slim chance of winning an election?
I think the US system tends to work well. If third parties were serious and had something unique to offer they'd storm the local and state elections with victories before even considering the national jobs. Instead they hitch their wagon to a big name (Nader, Perot, Ventura) and fade away when the Cult of Personality fades.
#7
another advantage with the American system: voters get an opportunity (through primaries) to oppose their party being hijacked by a minority (Ok sometimes get an Obama). In proportional system you, have zero chancesgto do something aboutyour (big) party dancing to the tune of a small one represnting those 2% votes it needs to get the majority.
Also a problem with the proportional system: regionalisms. You have a party in region who has say 5% off teh regional vote and 1% nationally. But they are still in position to be kingmakers. That means they will get concessions from the would-be governing parties andmore importantly the means to brainwash children (control of scholls) so future generations become more and more radical, until they ask for independency. That is how Spain is imploding.
In a a majority system vote swings give majorities of 100 representatives or more so the national parties don't need to bow in front of the nationalist parties in order to get 10 reprenstatives elected in their region. So the independentists don't get credit for bringing funds to the region and they don't get control of the schol.
#10
another advantage with the American system: voters get an opportunity (through primaries) to oppose their party being hijacked by a minority (Ok sometimes get an Obama). In proportional system you, have zero chancesgto do something aboutyour (big) party dancing to the tune of a small one represnting those 2% votes it needs to get the majority.
I agree with this analysis, but as far as the Democratic party is concerned, I believe Obama represents how a majority of them really feel. They've made good starts at nationalizing finance, _and_ the automobile industry, and they don't even think they're governing if they're not nationalizing a new industry this month. (The current target is health, and the next one after that is energy).
#11
Probably the best PR system around is the multi-member, single vote system. The Irish use this system as do elections to the Australian senate.
You get to vote for the man woman of your choice, and choose between candidates from the same party. Because excess votes are transfered to the person from your party with the next highest number of votes, the overall result accurately reflects total votes cast.
A party has to get around 15% (in Ireland) in a constituency to elect a member, so it is also good for reflecting regional issues.
Republicans will run on a platform of repealing President Obama's health care reform bill, the Republicans' Senate campaign chairman said today. NRSC Chairman John Cornyn, R-Tex., said that he prefers both to run against President Obama's health reform bill and to stop it in Congress, but that in the event that it passes Republicans will guarantee it remains the main issue of the 2010 election by promising to repeal it.
"If the bill passes, I think that's surely one of the things they should and will run on," Cornyn said, although he added, "I'd prefer to run against the bill and stop it." Cornyn said that if the bill passes, Democrats will be hard-pressed to change the subject ahead of the November ballot. Recent polls suggest that the bill is unpopular, and a Republican candidate won a Senate seat in Massachusetts two months ago in part by promising to vote against it if elected.
Moreover, the bill's provisions are mostly delayed until 2014 -- except for its tax hikes and cuts to the Medicare Advantage program for senior citizens, which begin almost immediately.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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I promise that if this Obamacare bill passes, I will not vote for any Democrat in any election, for the rest of my life . Period
Posted by: Bill Omomong2682 ||
03/09/2010 7:10 Comments ||
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Or any McShame-type RINOs.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
03/09/2010 8:58 Comments ||
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So far, except for the viet. from LA., the republicans including the rino's have held firm against the takeover bill.
"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.
His point was that the big-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters' independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.
No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state's history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.
They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.
But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress -- or lack of it -- over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.
Those Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million -- all originally extracted from taxpayers -- into effective TV ads.
Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California -- almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census.
Texas is a different story. Texas has low taxes -- and no state income taxes -- and a much smaller government. Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California's year-round legislature. Its fiscal condition is sound. Public employee unions are weak or nonexistent.
But Texas seems to be delivering superior services. Its teachers are paid less than California's. But its test scores -- and with a demographically similar school population -- are higher. California's once fabled freeways are crumbling and crowded. Texas has built gleaming new highways in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
In the meantime, Texas' economy has been booming. Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs.
And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. That inflow has continued in 2008-09, in which 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state, at the same time as 98,000 were moving out of California. Texas is on the way to gain four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment.
This was not always so. In the two decades after World War II California, with its pleasant weather, was the Golden State, a promised land, for most Americans, while Texas seemed a provincial rural backwater. Many saw postwar California's expansion of universities, freeways and water systems a model for the nation. Few experts praised Texas' low-tax, low-services government.
Now it is California's ruinously expensive and increasingly incompetent government that seems dysfunctional, while Texas' approach has generated more creativity and opportunity. So it's not surprising that Texas voters preferred Perry over an opponent who has spent 16 years in Washington. What's surprising is that Democrats in Washington are still trying to impose policies like those that have ravaged California rather than those that have proved so successful in Texas.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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What's surprising is that Democrats in Washington are still trying to impose policies like those that have ravaged California rather than those that have proved so successful in Texas.
Because Donk policies are largely built upon 'belief' rather than practicality. While they demand perfection of all others and demonize those who fall short, they absolve themselves of those same standards and of their failures because they 'cared'. Their indulgences are paid for by others, so why should they be concerned how ruinous they despoil the nest.
Six months after U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson accused President Barack Obama of lying on national prime-time TV, the South Carolina Republican's re-election bid has broken fundraising records.
Wilson and Rob Miller, his Democratic challenger, likely have raised a total of $6 million. While updated campaign finance reports won't be filed for another month, that total would blow past the S.C. record for a U.S. House race -- and is on track to challenge the richest contests ever in the country.
Both men are trying to deal with the intense attention their rematch -- Wilson defeated Miller by margin of 54 percent to 46 percent in 2008 -- is drawing.
Wilson has traveled more frequently outside South Carolina than he said he would in the aftermath of his Sept. 9 "You lie!" yell at Obama. At the time, Wilson said he would take only three trips outside South Carolina, declining other requests from GOP groups and candidates seeking to cash in on his newfound fame.
Miller has run a stealth campaign, holding few public events and kicking a Columbia TV crew out of a speech to Democrats.
Two weeks after his outburst, Wilson said he would limit his out-of-state trips to Michigan, Missouri and Virginia. "I love traveling the country, but I love traveling the 2nd District more."
Wilson has taken at least eight trips to New York, California, Georgia and beyond, sounding more like a sportsman on a victory lap than a contrite congressman who says Obama accepted his apology and "the incident" is over.
When Wilson campaigned in October in Michigan, trying to help Republican Tim Walberg regain the U.S. House seat that he lost, Walberg campaign's invitation had a photo of Wilson with the caption "Stand for Truth."
Wilson recently acknowledged he has taken more trips beyond South Carolina than he had intended, adding, "I've declined dozens and dozens of other invitations."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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What are the nutroots moneymen looking to punish lese majeste or something? You'd think they'd be trying to save powder to protect Democratic seats in this cycle...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
03/09/2010 17:24 Comments ||
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Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was not persuaded by President Obama's just-completed healthcare speech in Pennsylvania.
"President Obama's latest health care sales pitch is, just like all the others were, heavy on snake oil and light on the harsh reality Americans would face under his plan: higher taxes, reduced Medicare benefits, and lost jobs," Boehner said in a statement.
"It's now up to the President's fellow Democrats to choose between siding with their constituents and joining his crusade for a government takeover of health care."
Boehner repeated the GOP call to scrap the current reform legislation and start from scratch.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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Thank you John, for stating the obvious.
I know people out there who want Obamacare, so keep pounding this stuff out until they understand the serious consequences of enacting "Obamacare".
Posted by: Bill Omomong2682 ||
03/09/2010 7:03 Comments ||
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#2
I heard the President say yesterday that "children" could stay on my medical insurance until they are 26.
The question I have is if my wife and I do not keep our children on our insurance, say as a means of controlling cost to ourselves, will we go to jail? Will our children be able to sue us?
Posted by: Kelly ||
03/09/2010 8:01 Comments ||
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No, Kelly. Under Socialism you are merely stewards of property and wealth that belongs to the state. The state will act in your behalf, of what they know is 'right', and make sure your children are covered. The state will just send you a bill for the cost plus administrative overhead and processing costs. /[but just barely] sarc off
#4
Obama is selling less than snake oil. Health care will be a big government takeover and destruction of a very good health care system that is the envy of the world. "Cap and steal" is the selling of will-o-the-wisp, airy-fairy stuff.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was not persuaded by President Obama's just-completed healthcare speech in Pennsylvania.
