Jun
21
By Israel
While watching the news this week from the UK l have to say that l admire the rightwing media in the US for being consistent. Not right, just consistent.
Three things have happened this week and it’s hard to find more than a handful of reporting on them on the right wing side of the US news, expecially Fox (aided in most parts by Drudge and the right wing blogosphere) who, if these stories were about Democrats, would have them as banner headlines for the last week.
What are the three things? Well l can’t do them all justice here but here’s one of them.
Voter Fraud:
Before the election John McCain, when talking about voter fraud and ACORN, said that it would be “destroying the fabric of democracy” if they went unchecked. The insinuation was that because of ACORN millions of false votes would be counted for Obama, illegally handing him the election. They would have you believe that a group that pays people to register voters checks the names and, if it finds false ones on there reports it to federal authorities AS REQUIRED TO BY LAW, leading to the person involved being arrested, have actually taken these false names up to the polling booth and pressed a button/punched a card/pulled a lever and registered a vote. Whether the people going back up to vote again took a change of clothes and were wearing fake mustaches or eye patches doesn’t make the reports.
This has been one of the hot button topics of the right before and after the election. The rejection of the core principles, ideals, and the war-mongering reckless blood lust of regular conservatives and neo-cons is still hard for them to take. A community advocasy group with links to a president they dislike for reasons ranging far and wide, be they birther, christianist or McCartyite, gives them a great target, expecially when the media arm of the party and the reincarnation of Howard Beale decide to spend countless hours on something which was not only check into by the Bush administration, but led to a scandal when nine US Attorneys were dismissed for not going along with a blatent attempt of voter intimidation on false evidence.
Go to Factcheck.org and you find this:
Satterberg: [A] joint federal and state investigation has determined that this scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.
Instead, the defendants cheated their employer, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN), to get paid for work they did not actually perform. ACORN’s lax oversight of their own voter registration drive permitted this to happen. … It was hardly a sophisticated plan: The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets looking for unregistered voters. …[It] appears that the employees of ACORN were not performing the work that they were being paid for, and to some extent, ACORN is a victim of employee theft.
Of course none of this will slow down the likes of Glen Beck and this week at ACORN’s 39th Anniversary he sent Fox News “producer” and professional Glee Club Member Griff Jenkins, a man so poor at civics he actually thinks that the US 1st Amendment means that when he asks a question people HAVE to answer him to loiter outside wearing what looked to be his dad’s tux, and standing on a piece of carpet he seemed to have picked up at a flea market, to do the usual peice of quality Fox “journalism” by ambushing people going in and asking them loaded biased questions. There was also bit of an “ahh, bless!!” moment when a left wing blogger tried his hand at fox style “reporting” but due to the fact that he hadn’t been trained in the dark arts of the Sith by the masters at Fox it didn’t go as well as he hoped.
So while all this was going on with ACORN a man named Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owned a company called Young Political Majors (YPM), plead guilty to voter fraud and in a plea deal was sentenced to three-years probation and 30-days of community service. The thing l haven’t yet mentioned is that Jacoby and YPM are actually REPUBLICANS.
Brad Freidman of the Bradblog has been keeping tabs on this tale of actual voter fraud and has the full details of it along with other cases of voter fraud including the case of Paul Bishop in Clay County, KY and the new case of alledged voter fraud by Anne Coulter who may not have an ex-boyfriend in the FBI to help her this time.
The Jacoby story was printed in the LA Times last tuesday and Friedman wrote this about it:
“Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state. Jacoby had been arrested for Voter Registration Fraud last October, smack dab during the media’s orgasmic heights of last year’s phony GOP ACORN “Voter Fraud” hoax, even as Fox “News” (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) were going wall-to-wall with their unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats and Obama.”
So the question is, WHERE WERE FOX NEWS AND GRIFF THE EXPERT TEABAGGER AND PREPPY BOYWONDER FOR THIS? They could have flown him to California to do the report and still got him back in time to air the mothballs out of his dad’s suit to stand outside and do his Kabuki dance at the ACORN thing.
An actual real case of voter fraud, something they have been screaming about for months and none of them, not Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, Dobbs, Malkin or the other Helen Lovejoy’s on the right have seen fit to report on this. Not even Senator McCain, who was the first to raise alarm about this before the election has made a comment.
In reality this is par for the course for republicans. As l wrote above, there were three stories to pick from this week, all of which failed to register in the so-called “Liberal Media”.
Somehow the guilty plea in a real case of voter fraud, the story of an adulterous affair by yet another self-rightous “religious” family values conservative (but this time without the added element of gay sex, bathroom stalls or diapers) or the murderous activities of Shawna Forde a member of a group lauded by Dobbs, Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly (who said of them, “Talking Points applauds the Minutemen. They are in the great tradition of neighborhood watch groups.”) have somehow failed to be mentioned by ANY of them.
All you can hear are the sounds of crickets chirping.
BTW if you are wondering why l chose the voter fraud story over the other two, expecially over the hypocrisy of O’Reilly who spent a lot of the last few weeks complaining about the lack of coverage over the murder of Private Long, yet has spent very few minutes on the Forde murder story, the simple fact is that Griff Jenkins really REALLY annoys me. To quote the late, great Douglas Adams “he has a smile that makes you want to hit him in the face with a brick”.
Watching him at the Democratic Convention last year helps bring me out of the funk i’ve been in for the last few days almost as much as these do.
Comments
26 Responses to “Voter Fraud, The Media And The Sound Of Crickets”
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Mr Cabbie,
There is voter fraud and voter fraud. None of which is excusable. There was a saying in Australia
“Vote early! Vote often!”
That was before they had better management of the Electoral Roll by having a single statuary body the Australian Electoral Commission that as well as dealing Commonwealth wide with electoral enrolment also oversees any electoral process.
Be it a Commonwealth of Australia Election either a General Election or a bye election;
Be it a State or Territory Election either general or bye:
Be it a Council, Municipal or Shire local elections.
It even oversees union and elections of major public organisation such as universities.
Now back to the fraud issue.
As applicable to the USA Electoral system. Which as far as I can see is so open to fraud it is laughable. Why does not the USA, that claims to be the most “democratic” country in the world have a statutory body, the United States Electoral Commission, to oversee electoral enrolment and elections at all levels?
As for Electoral fraud in the USA it appears just to depend on the level at which it is exercised.
Whether down at the enrolment level
Whether at the actual voting level.?
Whether at the voting machine level?
Whether at the state level?
Whether at the SOTUS level?
Take your pick!
My Fellow Bloggers,
Apologies.
At least I got statutory correct the second time ! It will not be a piece of art work!
Hayward
That piece was by Israel, not myself.
I agree that there is far too much electoral fraud in the US for a country that defines itself as the most democratic in the world. There is a federal election comission in the US. However I don’t think they should be responsible for what is, at it’s conception, a state level issue. Even elections for the presidency are organised on a state rather than national basis – the states elect electors to the electoral college who then decide who shall be President. That is how the constitution envisaged elections – I imagine that a national comission solely responsible for running elections would probably be unconstitutional.
Israel
Well that’s a straw man argument. It couldn’t be could it that we don’t like him because he’s incompetent, a liar and far far far too liberal for our liking? What has that to do with christianity or McCarthyism? Is this the left wing echo chamber talking? Dissent is no longer patriotic, but is McCarthyism. Crikey!
Israel
To try and equate YPM and ACORN is I’m afraid, ridiculous. YPM was a one off event, to be derided of course. However, ACORN’s fraud was a systemic country wide fraud that went far beyond their workers defrauding their employer. In one county in Illinois, every ACORN sumitted registration form was fraudlulent. In Indiana, they had to stop counting ACORN submissions when the first 2000+ that they received were all fraudulent.
You try to make the point that voter registration fraud isn’t electoral fraud. I’m sorry, but that is just wrong. How do you think polling companies determine how their polls should balance for the number of Democrats and Republicans? By how many are REGISTERED to the respective parties. Do you deny that polls can effect an election? So if there are many more registered Democrats owing to ACORN’s fraud, that unfairly skews polls in the Democrats favour.
As for how the right wing media report matters like John Ensign. You do remember that it was up to the National Inquirer to report John Edwards’ ‘playing away’. The left wing media didn’t touch the story with a barge pole until it was too big to ignore. And as for media bias, perhaps you would like to explain why, when a Republican is involved in a scandal, the media unfailingly report him prominently as a Republican, but when a Democrat gets involved in a scandal, his/her identification as a Democrat is either not made or buried deep in the story.
I’m sorry Israel but you don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to media bias.
It really amazes me that people who less than six years ago had no problem with the statement “If you’re not with us your with the terrorists” and actually asked with straight faces “Why do you hate America/The troops/ Apple pie?” (Okay not pie) when people voiced opposition to a war which l and a very large amount of people believe was waged on a series of lies can actually write down that “Dissent is no longer patriotic” when talking about the present administration and not feel their faces burn with embarressment.
Why is it NOW okay for dissent?
Who the hell gave right wingers the rulebook and let them set them?
What makes a group of people given total control of all branches of the US government and did such a pisspoor job in six years people voted them out very quickly the right to try to still set the agenda?
If, as you say the reason you don’t like President Obama is that he is supposed to be incompetent, or a liar or far too liberal for your views then fine, l would have mentioned those points. But if you think that the things l have put down as reasons are strawmen then you have your head in the sand.
There is STILL a large birther movement out there as Von Brunn link has shown us. Orly Taitz and Alan Keyes have’nt gone away. Republican Bill Posey’s birther bill is STILL there in the House and has five co-sponsers and backing from Senator Tom Coburn (R) of Oaklahoma.
There are still extremist christianists in the US and overseas (some of whom comment on mel’s spectator blog) who believe that President Obama is a secret Muslim and nothing will shake that from their thinking.
And there are those who will NEVER forgive or forget the demonization they went through when exercising their democratic rights to oppose what was being done in their name by those on the right be they politicians, commentators, or bloviating blowhards.
You question the call of McCarthyism?
Why don’t you ask the Dixie Chicks what their view of the last administration was or ask Bill Maher why Politically Incorrect was cancelled? You may dislike Keith Olbermann but there was a reason for the first special commentary that he did on his show, and that was when Donald Rumsfeld equated those who opposed the was with Chamberlin and pre-war appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930’s.
There have been many many more incidents than those l have mentioned, each one an attack on dissent and patriotism which reminded me and others of McCarthyism, that is why l mentioned it.
Mr Cabbie,
Apologies Mr Cabbie , orry for the confusion.
But is it not a wonderful term “Unconstitutional” that it can be used in all sorts of situations
Hayward
Hopefully only when something is, well, unconstitutional.
Actually I do think it’s a wonderful thing. There should be a check on the dictatorship of the majority and a constitution serves as a pretty good check.
Israel
I bring up dissent, because while leftists were firebombing Army recruitment centres, their defence was specifically that “dissent is patriotic” as a rebuff to accusations of a patriotic defiency. But now that the left are in charge, dissent is no longer patriotic, it is now terrorism. A DOD 2009 training course now defines protest as “low-level terrorism”. Interesting how times change when the left are in charge.
As for the Dixie Chicks and McCarthyism. You mean like the treatment of MSNBC and others on the left of Carrie Prejean? There is a simple way round this whole birther thing, Barack Obama should produce his birth certificate. A simple matter drawn out by Obama. And BTW, the whole Birther controversy was started by Hillary supporting Democrats.
Cabbie:
“To try and equate YPM and ACORN is I’m afraid, ridiculous. YPM was a one off event, to be derided of course. However, ACORN’s fraud was a systemic country wide fraud that went far beyond their workers defrauding their employer. In one county in Illinois, every ACORN sumitted registration form was fraudlulent. In Indiana, they had to stop counting ACORN submissions when the first 2000+ that they received were all fraudulent.”
The thing is cabbie, YPM was NOT a one off event:
“YPM has been accused of using bait-and-switch tactics across the country. Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit.”
Which is one of the reasons why l mentioned it. Til now there is STILL no comment fron Senator McCain on this actual “threat to the very fabric of democracy”.
“And as for media bias, perhaps you would like to explain why, when a Republican is involved in a scandal, the media unfailingly report him prominently as a Republican, but when a Democrat gets involved in a scandal, his/her identification as a Democrat is either not made or buried deep in the story.”
ARE. YOU. F’ING. KIDDING. ME?!?!?!?!??!?!?
Mark Foley:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3570
Dennis Hastert:
http://crooksandliars.com/2006/10/04/google-news-ap-dennis-hastert-is-a-democrat
Bill Janklow:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200808010001
Ney/Cunningham/Abramoff/DeLay:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200708090004
http://mediamatters.org/research/200708060005
http://mediamatters.org/research/200610020004
http://mediamatters.org/research/200606200007
There’s also the soft shoe shuffle when Libby was found guilty on four counts:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200706060001
http://mediamatters.org/research/200707030008
As for the Edwards story? I can only assume that the same reason that stopped Fox airing the Ensign story was the one given for not airing the Edwards story, ie not a good reason at all. The only good thing abou it was the story l heard that if Edwards looked like getting the nomination his staff were ready to blab to the media to stop him. Maybe one of them gave the Enquirer the access for the photo? Would be interesting to find out.
Israel
Fair enough – I could supply the same links from Newsbusters (the right wing equivalent of Mediamatters) about the non-identification of Democrats.
On YPM
It’s a joke trying to equate YPM and ACORN. In total, YPM only registered 70,000 people. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands fraudulently registered by ACORN. Did John McCain act as a trainer for YPM? No, but Obama did for ACORN. i’m also sure that McCain didn’t give $800,000 to YPM like Obama did ACORN, nor that John McCain supplied YPM with his donor list like Obama did.
Cabbie:
“As for the Dixie Chicks and McCarthyism. You mean like the treatment of MSNBC and others on the left of Carrie Prejean? There is a simple way round this whole birther thing, Barack Obama should produce his birth certificate. A simple matter drawn out by Obama. And BTW, the whole Birther controversy was started by Hillary supporting Democrats.”
Dude you are making me go all Abe Simpson on your ass:
http://www.globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloud.jpg
So we are doing the equivalency thing again are we?
Okay then. Prehaps you can link me to any stories where either MSNBC, Bill Maher or any of the others who mocked Prejan organised rallies where her photos were destroyed or where she was called unpatriotic for voicing her opinions. Show me any of th fake outraged commentators who called for a clmplete boycott of Prejan. You show me that and l will agree that the future host of Fox & Friends was treated in the same way as the Dixie Chicks.
On the DOD story are you sure this is from the Obama White House?
I ask because the DHS report that had the right wing going all Helen Lovejoy was actually commissioned by the Bush White House. These thing tend to take a long time to collate and process then send out. Maybe it’s one that has yet again come back to bite right winmgers in the behind, a report which, if they were in charge, could be used against political opponents without fear of comeback but looks bad when they lose power? I wonder when the first complaint will come about “free speech zones”.
I was struggling with your references to firebombing Army Recruitment Centres as l hadn’t heard of any recent incidents. I didn’t realise you had gone back to Vietnam.
Cabbie:
Thanks for not just dismissing Media matters out of hand. then again l don’t know why l typed that!!! You are one of the fairest right wingers l know and even though you make me use my brain a lot more than l wish too interacting with you on issues is a lot of fun.
But back to it:
“Did John McCain act as a trainer for YPM? No, but Obama did for ACORN. i’m also sure that McCain didn’t give $800,000 to YPM like Obama did ACORN, nor that John McCain supplied YPM with his donor list like Obama did.”
You are right, McCain didn’t give $800,000 to ACORN. However the Bush Administration in the eight years of the Bush Presidency gave ACORN $13 MILLION DOLLARS, and at no time did they look to cut off the funding for them. something you would think they would do under HUD or other agencies if they were a corrupt as people say they were.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHQ3cN47Mkc
Whoa, cabbie mate, just went to newsbusters, now l need to wash out my eyes!!!
I didn’t know they were linked to Bozell and his crew. When you said they werte a conservative comparision to Media Matters l thought you meant that they took the actual statements made by the commentator and used the actual words they said to show where they were lying, you know, like in this example:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200906040053
I couldn’t find an example of that on that site.
Cabbie:
I didn’t know if l wanted to reply to your acceptance of the birther mantra. It is beneath you, just as if you were standing at the top of the Hoover Dam and the birthers are at the bottom. Factcheck.org have gone through the birthers claims time and again:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/has_obamas_birth_certificate_been_disclosed.html
There is an interesting article on one of the complete nutjobs heading this folly and does a great deconsrtuction of the arguement she makes:
http://www.ocweekly.com/2009-06-18/news/orly-taitz
Israel
I’m not a believer in the whole birther rubbish and I wasn’t aware that factcheck had actually seen the certificate (if what they say is true). In that case, Obama has done everything and that’s fine by me. Like the lefts 9/11 conspiracy theorists, this is just conspiracy theorists at play. No big deal.
That’s true my man that is true.
on my way out and saw this posted by a mate on facebook.
Try no to smile before the end of watchig this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk&feature=PlayList&p=D659E66F463328E3&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1
I guess I am ‘one of those’ Christian nutters then Israel! Obama IS a muslim and IS NOT a natural born citizen.
Democracy gives me the freedom of speech to say this.
I wonder how long true freedoms will survive under an extreme left-wing Trojan horse?
Original Tony,
Isn’t it amazing how the left tries to shut down any dialogue that they disapprove of…It drives me crazy!
They start by calling you demeaning names…
If I want to say that I believe that Obama is a Muslim, a Fascist, and perhaps a non-citizen (isn’t it interesting leaders of Kenya have said many time that Obama was born in Kenya, his Kenyan grandmother says she was at his birth in Kenya). All we need is a legitimate birth certificate to settle this questions.
I have the right to say anything I want about Obama…In fact, shout it from the rooftops, if I so choose.
This isn’t Israel’s country, it’s mine and I will say anything I like about his false idol or at least until I lose my freedom of speech along with my other freedoms that Obama plans to ‘Change’.
An Anmerican:
Freedom of speech does allow you and your friend to spout your rubbish on street corners with large signs plugged into the mains supply with intermittent neon signs spouting the false garbage you believe just as it allows me to call you out for the nutter that your friend admits to being.
It’s not that “the left” are trying to stop you spouting your garbage, it’s just that people are trying to make sure your garbage doesn’t spill onto the discourse of rational debate and take away from real issues. You birthers are on par with Alex jones and the other tinfoil hat wearing conspiricy theorists, and should be treated as such. As l have said before on this site, it won’t matter how many fact are put in front of you self confessed nutters, you have your beliefs and nothing will change that.
i have to thank you though. If ever l need to show an example of faith over reason l can just show rational people the discussion between you two.
Israel,
Did I address my latest comment to you? No…I addressed my comment to O. Tony.
We have no way of finding out the truth about Obama because the far-left press won’t investigate anything about this ’seamy’ fellow…I guess that’s ok with you.
And I’ll continue to state what I believe whether you like it or not… and guess what…you and your liberal friends can go jump in the lake…you could use a real cooling off.
An American:
I was refering to the self confessed nutter who agree with judging by your above reply.
So what, you are now saying that Fox is some sort of left wing enclave?
You think with the $40 mil Limbaugh earns a year he couldn’t have someone look into this?
You don’t think that the RNC wouldn’t have put any money to it?
Wouldn’t Malkin and the rest od the flying monkeys who make up her following and other bloggers in the land of the wingnuts would not have done any real investigation into this?
Would ALL of the above have been silenced if there was ANY DAMN TRUTH to these lies you hang your hat on?
The simple answer is NO.
This has been gone through again, and again, and bloody again, and yes you have a right to keep on repeating them, but guess what? The door swings both ways. And as l have said before, just as you keep on repeating the falsehood l will keep posting the reply and the links, lake jumping or no, and there are only two things you can do about that:
(a) Nothing, and
(b) LIKE IT.
Israel,
I hope you live long enough to realize that you have been wrong about what you and liberal progressives want for the UK and America…I probably won’t live long enough to tell you…”I told you so”, but at least I won’t have to live in the hell that you and the left have created. I was fortunate enough to have lived in the best of times in the best of countries.
I wish you no ill…I know you are a caring person, but you just don’t get it.
An American.
I do get it.
The major difference is that, unlike before, many more just like me are not buying what republicans are selling, and that is a problem you don’t seem able to handle. Each generation moves more and more away from Mayberry, and that just seems to be something that you either fear or fail to understand.
The Bush administration and the man you venerate did great damage to the ideology of conservatism.
Eight years in charge and what state did they leave your country in?
Can you say it was in better shape after those eight years?
Some republicans say that they are “the party of the big tent”. How have you shown this recently?
Does sending out an email where the first Arican American president is represented as a spook the way to bring that group to the table?
Does comparing the first Latino nominee to the Supreme Court to a cleaning lady bring that group who moved away from you on immigration back to you at a canter?
YOU may have forgotten who originally bailed out the banking industry and started nationalisation but the rest of us haven’t.
You think all those people who worked for GM will quickly forget the republicans who said there jobs and livelyhoods were nothing and that they should just let their industries fail and let them be put out on the street? Republican senators with Toyota car plants in their states?
The sad thing about some republicans is that they are so unpatriotic that they would rather see large groups of their fellow citizens destitute and desperate, or the victims of a terrorist atrocity hoping that either would bring them back into power. Or they “love” their country so much that they are willing to suscede from the Union.
Did you notice how above l said republicans and not conservatives? There is a reason. About a week ago Cabbie put up a Gallop poll which showed that 40% of those asked were self indentified conservatives. The bit that was missing was that those who said they were republicans had FALLEN. With all the religious African American and Latino citizens out there (and they are growing in numbers) you would think the party would have the sense to walk away from the hate filled bile of the likes of Limbaugh, but what am l saying!! This is the group led by the major hat wearer Steele!
Keep on with the fear and loathing An American. The further you go into Alex Jones territory the further you move away from rational people and serious debate. More people will see it for what it is and more will tune out. It will be interesting to follow what happens with the health care debate this summer. Frank Luntz has his talking points out there and the GOP parrots are squawking. Lets see if yet again repetition triumphs over reason.
Israel,
Whatever….just keep beating the hate drums against Bush, the Republicans, Conservatism and Americans like me…who by the way helped create one of the best countries on earth.
When Obama and the far left along with all his ignorant, uninformed followers, whites, blacks and hispanics…you know the ones who don’t pay any federal taxes or health insurance…the takers/losers in our society… take over the US and socialize it…when there are more takers/losers than givers…it will all implode.
Then you can celebrate achieving your socialist ‘one’ world, workers paradise…everyone will be poor (except for Obama and the Mullahs) incredibly happy and everything will be perfect. Human nature will change, there will be no evil in the world and no wars. We will all be socialist brothers in Allah.
Unfortuantely, I believe it will be much worse for the UK and Europe. You’ll be the first to fall… when your weak-willed socialist governments willingly hand your countries over to the Muslims. Hell, the Muslims won’t have to fight for your lands, they’ll just breed you out of existence.
Dream on… people like you deserve everything that is coming your way someday. You are going into this with your eyes wide open… But you won’t ever face up to it and admit to the destruction that you’re wreaking…a hundred years from now, they’ll still be blaming Bush and the Republicans.
Give it a break Israel…I really don’t care to comment with you any further…
Okay.
Well, see ya.
I’m sure that Mel’s spectator page will get you lots of pant wetting supporters who will nod their heads and post lots of comments agreeing just how sage you are. If you really need an ego stroking that bad then good luck to you.
Via Con Dios and happy trails.
Colon, minus symbol, close brackets.