(Raleigh, NC)—MAR 20, 2013—The NC State Board of Elections has confirmed their intent to prosecute five people on suspicion that they voted in both Florida and NC during the November 2012 election, according VIP-NC Finds Dual Voters in FL & NC, according to the North Carolina chapter of the Voter Integrity Project.

(Raleigh, NC)—MAR 20, 2013—The NC State Board of Elections has confirmed their intent to prosecute five people on suspicion that they voted in both Florida and NC during the November 2012 election, according to email records provided by the Voter Integrity Project of NC, the group that investigated and identified the voters to both states’ election offices earlier last month.

The group initially identified what it thought were 33 potential instances of double voting. Of these, they classified “19 as ‘highly likely,’ six as ‘probable’ and eight as ‘possible’ vote fraud candidates.” The NC Board of Elections, however, determined that several apparent instances of double voting were clerical errors. After a VIP-NC search consuming who knows how many man-hours, the NCBOE confirmed 5 for possible prosecution by matching signatures on voter rolls in NC and FL.

If successfully prosecuted, double voting is punishable as a felony. And it should be.

VIP-NC is frustrated that the state BOE cannot prosecute the five remaining cases itself. That is the purview of local District Attorneys. So VIP-NC is asking the legislature to expand the BOE’s jurisdiction. They don’t want local prosecutors determining whether or not to prosecute alleged voter impersonation fraud — which these five cases are not. The voters who allegedly cast ballots in two states (which is still illegal) did so in their own names. And while alive, too.

The Voter Integrity Project believes these five cases are “only the tip of the iceberg,” says Executive Director, Jay DeLancy.

You remember Jay DeLancy. He’s the amateur sleuth who challenged 550 voters’ registrations in Wake County last year. The Wake County BOE found only 18 that merited further investigation. After the board threw out those remaining 18, DeLancy “snatched his microphone off the board’s table mid-meeting, kicking glass doors open in front of him as he stormed out of the meeting room,” WRAL reported.

On the VIP-NC site, DeLancy dismisses those who insist that voter ID is a solution in search of a problem, saying, “Vote fraud deniers make nice poetry and they give good sound bites, but the idea is as absurd as claiming that no speeding happens on I-40 unless the Highway Patrol writes tickets.”

Except the Highway Patrol is not expected to prevent all speeding. The force is sized and budgeted as a deterrent, to minimize speeding and to prosecute it when they find it. If, for example, the Voter Integrity Project really expected the Patrol to prevent all speeding violations, they had better hand their wallets to the tax man. They would end up creating a lot of those government jobs that government never creates and find themselves living in the police state that tea party members fear.

If on the other hand, DeLancy wants increased enforcement of existing voting laws to eliminate the potential of, say, five double-voters found only after an exhaustive search, fine. Perhaps they’ll also find that funding that enhanced enforcement is cheaper than inconveniencing millions of legitimate North Carolina voters with a Voter ID law instead.

And how many of DeLancy’s five suspects already had photo IDs that played no part in preventing double voting? If the suspects can flit back and forth between their NC and FL addresses by car, the odds are all of them. This will not likely dissuade Republican legislators in Raleigh from passing a Voter ID law in the current session. Their leadership recently abandoned voter fraud as the primary rationale for passing it anyway, which means that for all the pious hand wringing about protecting the integrity of the election process, they never took their own warnings seriously.

If instead of a preventing someone from casting an illegal vote at a polling place, the discussion was about preventing someone from buying a firearm at a gun show illegally, supporters of North Carolina’s Voter Integrity Project might make a very different argument. To wit, they might claim that no amount of legislation would prevent a determined criminal from getting his hands on a gun. Instead, laws passed to stop him will simply interfere with law-abiding Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms.

Just don’t expect them to believe that a Voter ID law will interfere with law-abiding Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans.)

Friday, a friend put me on to a musical bit that I know by heart, but he gave me a fresh perspective on it. I had never seen it in a modern political context, in a cable news/talk [...]]]>

The Music Man "Ya Got Trouble"

Friday, a friend put me on to a musical bit that I know by heart, but he gave me a fresh perspective on it. I had never seen it in a modern political context, in a cable news/talk radio context.

In one, short speech — building intensity as he goes — Professor Harold Hill gathers a crowd of onlookers and rattles off a litany of big city sins “the right kinda parents” worry about corrupting their children and their small town: sloth, drinking, gambling, being “stuck-up,” smoking, loose morals, and indecent pop culture. In a fevered crescendo, Hill warns parents of “shameless music • That’ll grab your son, your daughter • With the arms of a jungle animal instink!”

Mass-staria!

Harold is selling something. And in four minutes he creates a market for it out of thin air — among people he calls “as green as the money.” Moments earlier…

HAROLD HILL: Now, Marce, I need some ideas if I’m gonna get your town out of the serious trouble it’s in.

MARCELLUS: River City ain’t in any trouble.

HILL: We’re going to have to create some.

Hill presses every button the people of River City, Iowa have to press, plus appeals to patriotism and God to create a city-wide moral crisis that four minutes earlier the townspeople didn’t know they had. Sound familiar?

Now strike pool . Insert contraception , voter fraud , death panels , or a half dozen other right-wing bogey men and the grifter’s pitch works the same. Today, Harold Hill would be working for Fox News or Americans for Prosperity. He’d be running American Crossroads, and making a lot more money.

Eat your heart out, Karl Rove. Watch the video here. Lyrics here.

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans.)

President Richard Nixon once observed, “Flexibility is the first principle of politics.” But that brings up [...]]]>

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. – Matthew 6:24

President Richard Nixon once observed, “Flexibility is the first principle of politics.” But that brings up something I notice about some right-wing antagonists: how lithe they are in debate.

It is behavior progressive talk show hosts know well, particularly when it comes to hot-button social issues. Right-wing callers dial in hoping to score a few on-air points against the liberal. If one tack isn’t working, they quickly pivot and launch into another argument they hope will get more traction – the first was disposable. And then another, almost as if they are getting paid by the talking point. These exercises are not about the truth, or even about being right. This is about winning.

There is something else that enhances their flexibility: the unholy marriage of Christianity, libertarianism and Austrian economics. What the latter two have to do with Jesus is beyond me, but the order of argument depends on the particular bent of the person doing the arguing. It goes something like this:

When it is convenient to argue from Christian morality, they argue morality. If that isn’t scoring points, they change the subject and argue personal freedom. And if that isn’t getting traction, they switch to free-market economics. And if that isn’t working, it is back to morality, or else cry socialism. This is the rock-paper-scissors of right-wing rhetoric.

I got into an online debate with a tea party supporter over the proposed Arizona law allowing employers with moral objections to opt out of offering employee insurance plans that include contraception coverage. I asked, as an employer, how it is any of my business how employees spend the compensation they’ve earned and, in a contractual arrangement, I agreed to pay? Well, first it was about freedom, then it was about morality (and hair-splitting about whether employer or employee buys coverage with the employee’s earnings), then it was about how the government offering employer tax benefits distorts the free market.

For all the moral posturing, why is it that economics dominates right-wing debates about values?

As a businessman, I am also free today not to have any employees or to offer any benefits besides cash if my morality is that big an issue. Just because there is a tax advantage doesn’t mean the government is holding a gun to my head to take it. If I have moral qualms and will lose sleep over it, I am free to drop the health benefit altogether – and if I am a free market supplicant, let the free market have its ever-lovin’ undistorted way with me. But by my choices people will know which I value more, my morals or my money.

That sort of world exists, you know. The Amish eschew electricity and automobiles out of their sense of morality. They freely choose to limit interactions with the rest of society and with the government, and that’s just fine by them. And they freely accept the consequences for their lifestyle and their bottom line. They don’t need to spout off about their values on TV and talk radio because they are too busy living them and letting the “English” live theirs. They refuse to compromise their beliefs to improve their social status, or to gain political power, or to impose their views on others, or to build their portfolios and boost the bottom line. Because their beliefs are their bottom line.

So, you want a society as free as possible from government interference – a real one, not a fictional one? (And with less anarchy than Somalia?) Where families are stable, where everybody looks like you and shares your Christian faith, where peer pressure, not law, keeps people in line, and where the government pretty much stays out of your business? Well, there it is, not in some Randian fantasy, but in Lancaster County, PA and Holmes County, Ohio.

Go for it. Show us all what you really value.

And that’s my sermon.

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans.)

A Southern California Tea Party activist and Republican Party official came under fire Saturday after it was revealed that she sent an email including an altered photo depicting President Barack Obama as an ape.

The e-mail sent by party central committee member Marilyn Davenport shows an image posed like [...]]]> Claude Rains unavailable for comment.

A Southern California Tea Party activist and Republican Party official came under fire Saturday after it was revealed that she sent an email including an altered photo depicting President Barack Obama as an ape.

The e-mail sent by party central committee member Marilyn Davenport shows an image posed like a family portrait, of chimpanzee parents and child, (That’s right, the deceased mother of the President of the US is portrayed as a chimpanzee, too.)with Obama’s face superimposed on the child. Text beneath the photo reads, “Now you know why no birth certificate.”

County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh said he “received it Friday afternoon and quickly responded with an email telling Davenport it was “dripping with racism and is in very poor taste.” Baugh has called for Davenport’s resignation, and says the incident should be referred to the ethics committee.

“If Davenport refuses to resign, she should be ousted, said Michael Schroeder, former chairman of the California Republican Party and an Orange County GOP activist. “I looked at it, and my jaw dropped,” Schroeder said.”

Davenport responded initially by blasting the leak as “cowardly,” and attacking the “liberal media.”

Scott Moxley of the OC Weekly pointed out some startling facts about Orange County:

“Orange County might be a beautiful oceanfront locale, but it’s also home to Holocaust deniers, vicious anti-gay bigots and freakish big-haired televangelists.

Here, one of our Republican politicians welcomed the inauguration of the first African American U.S. president in early 2009 by sending out an email that depicted a watermelon field in front of the White House.”

When Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose emailed the White House watermelon photograph, he was defended by…guess who? Marilyn Davenport. California Republican Party Michael Schroder said that whe “Newport City Councillman voted against installing grass turf near the beach because it would “attract Mexicans”,” Davenport also came to his defense as well.

Reached by telephone before her “official” comments on the matter, Davenport told OC Weekly “Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black.(Emphasis mine.) Besides, I only sent it to a few people–mostly people I didn’t think would be upset by it.”

I wonder if any of Davenport’s black friends received the email, and why did she think that some people might be upset by it?

In her “official” statement, Davenport said that “I will NOT resign my central committee position over this matter that the average person knows and agrees is much to do about nothing.” The full statement can be read here.

KCAL and KCBS reported during their respective 10 and 11 p.m. broadcasts that in a telephone interview Davenport blamed the media for this controversy and slammed down the phone.

But Georgia state Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, has to be considered the top contender. He was the one who proposed a law that would require rape and sexual assault victims — but not the victims of [...]]]> With the rise of the Tea Partiers, there’s intense competition for the title of Craziest Wingnut Holding Public Office.

But Georgia state Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, has to be considered the top contender. He was the one who proposed a law that would require rape and sexual assault victims — but not the victims of any other crimes — to be called “accusers” unless there was a conviction in their cases.

Then Franklin introduced a bill that would do away with drivers’ licenses, arguing that they “are a throw back to oppressive times.” As CBS reported:

In his bill, Franklin states, “free people have a common law and constitutional right to travel on the roads and highways that are provided by their government for that purpose. Licensing of drivers cannot be required of free people, because taking on the restrictions of a license requires the surrender of an inalienable right.”

(More details on both measures here.)

Now Lindsay Beyerstein brings us word of Franklin’s latest:

A Georgia Representative has introduced a bill to investigate all unsupervised miscarriages as crime scenes. Don’t believe me? Here’s the relevant language from HB 1, downloadable from legislature’s website:

When a spontaneous fetal death required to be reported by this Code section occurs without medical attendance at or immediately after the delivery or when inquiry is required by Article 2 of Chapter 16 of Title 45, the ‘Georgia Death Investigation Act,’ the proper investigating official shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall prepare and file the report within 30 days[...]

Beyerstein adds that the bill “is radical even by the standards of people who think fertilized ova are people.” That’s an understatement — according to MoJo, ”Both miscarriages and abortions would be potentially punishable by death.”

One has to conclude that Bobby Franklin doesn’t need a challenger so much as a decent shrink.

Cross-posted at AlterNet and my butt-ugly personal blog.

“Yeah, now she wants her f——g money back for all the power you’ve charged right up, jammed right up her a—— for f——g $250 a [...]]]> Remember the Enron recording where two traders were joking about how they crewed the people of California and then “Grandma Millie” was trying to get her money back?

“Yeah, now she wants her f——g money back for all the power you’ve charged right up, jammed right up her a—— for f——g $250 a megawatt hour.”

Every time I hear a quote from someone resenting what a great deal the public employees unions have I remember that quote. It reminds me of who we are not hearing from in this prearranged crisis in Wisconsin.  We are not hearing the voices of the people who set up the financial crisis in the state.

Today Ian Murphy, editor of the Buffalo Beast, called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, pretending to be billionaire industrialist and secretive conservative political activist David Koch. Koch (pronounced “coke”) is one of the big money people behind Walker. Walker’s office admits the call is real and for a brief period of time the media will be forced to move the focus of the story from unions and their supporters fighting Walker and conservatives.

In the call we got to hear how Walker sounds when he talks to big money. Now I’d love to hear how rich people like Koch actual talk to each other about these protests.  Are they laughing at everyone? Do they chuckle when the media miss their role in this? Do they smirk watching tea partiers play their role? There will be a lot of press calling Walker’s office about the Fake Koch call, but how many will call the Real Kochs? Even if some do, Koch will be on guard.

I want to hear more unguarded conversations like this, to hear the real emotional tone behind the words. Radio is a powerful medium because while it might take listeners some time to process the meanings of the words, the tone and emotional context behind the words is deduced almost immediately. Video can also give us lots of information, as anyone who has watched Lie To Me can attest to; but it requires more focus than listening, which can slip into people’s mind almost everywhere they go.

Why do I want more people to hear how the rich say things? Because I’d like to activate certain groups of people on an emotional level. Emotions, like anger, need to be directed at the right entities. As Silivo said to Tony in the Sopranos, “Our true enemy has yet to reveal himself”.

If the Tea Party people are directing their anger and resentment at the public union employees that means they are not mad at the rich corporate persons who are actually behind making their life less rich. I suppose it is easier to be mad at someone who has a slightly better life than you than with someone who has a wildly better life than you. But if you heard these rich people laughing at you as they talk about their schemes to keep beating you down I would think that even many tea partiers would get upset.

It’s too bad that we won’t hear the conversations of people who were responsible for driving states into deficits via unproductive corporate tax breaks. Wouldn’t you love to hear the conversations of the people responsible for the financial meltdown?  Do they joke about our inability to prosecute them for their economic treason? Do they laugh as the media moves on to the crisis of the day without looking for the true cause of people’s pain? Do they breath a sigh of contented relief as we turn on each other?  What would it sound like?

If we heard them in all their cackling glory or insensitive obliviousness perhaps we all would want to take the fight to them. Not physically, of course, but financially.  The UK Uncut movement has been showing us the way. One of the funniest and most profound movies of the eighties has a quote that I think applies here. In Trading Places Eddie Murphy’s Bill Ray Valentine finds Dan Aykroyd’s Louis Winthorpe III character cleaning a gun and explains why that is a spectacularly bad idea.

]]> http://dirtyhippies.org/2011/02/24/the-rich-are-laughing-at-us-and-the-tea-party-people/feed/ 2 http://dirtyhippies.org/2011/02/23/note-to-tea-baggers-public-workers-arent-demanding-anything-from-the-taxpayers/ http://dirtyhippies.org/2011/02/23/note-to-tea-baggers-public-workers-arent-demanding-anything-from-the-taxpayers/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:47:08 +0000 Joshua Holland http://dirtyhippies.org/?p=44 A common refrain from people wishing to destroy public employees’ unions is that their workers are ‘demanding more from the tax-payers.’ It’s a testament to how confused the Right is about the role of government.

Public employees are not demanding anything from “the taxpayer.” They are workers demanding fair wages from their bosses.

We live [...]]]> A common refrain from people wishing to destroy public employees’ unions is that their workers are ‘demanding more from the tax-payers.’ It’s a testament to how confused the Right is about the role of government.

Public employees are not demanding anything from “the taxpayer.” They are workers demanding fair wages from their bosses.

We live in a democracy, and tax-payers get to participate by voting. If, for example, one doesn’t like our public education system, one can vote for a representative who shares his or her view on the subject.

However, a sizable majority of Americans do want a decent public school system. It’s a democracy, so we’ll have public schools. That’s the end of the role of the tax-payer in this story.

Now, our schools need to hire teachers, and those teachers are workers, and our school system is their employer. They’re not making any demands on the tax-payer — the tax-payers role was deciding to have public education in the first place. And the same can be said of garbage collection, law enforcement or anything else the public sector does.

Cross-posted from my butt-ugly personal blog.