Author Topic: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, etc.  (Read 595296 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #400 on: November 19, 2013, 06:07:25 PM »
O'Reilly mentioned the cooking of the pre-election unemployment numbers tonight and said it would be covered more tomorrow.

ccp

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #401 on: November 20, 2013, 05:22:33 AM »
Rush reminded us he predicted the unemployment rate would magically dip below 8 well before the election.  In fact I remember him saying this.  I doubt that there was not one listener who did not agree with his prediction.  I also doubt there was not one listener who also did not agree with his insinuation that the "books would be cooked" to achieve this "magical" number.

The MSM is silent. 

"oh these are career government officials"

as though their integrity and honesty is above reproach.

Unfortunately there are no Nixon tapes of Obama and/or his henchman Axelrod  to be discovered.

I guess only then could we speak of impeachment.  Like the mafia.   It is hard to connect the evidence to the masterminds pulling the strings.

DougMacG

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #402 on: November 20, 2013, 07:27:28 AM »
Rush reminded us he predicted the unemployment rate would magically dip below 8 well before the election.  In fact I remember him saying this.  I doubt that there was not one listener who did not agree with his prediction.  I also doubt there was not one listener who also did not agree with his insinuation that the "books would be cooked" to achieve this "magical" number.

The MSM is silent. 
"oh these are career government officials"
as though their integrity and honesty is above reproach.

Unfortunately there are no Nixon tapes of Obama and/or his henchman Axelrod  to be discovered.

I guess only then could we speak of impeachment.  Like the mafia.   It is hard to connect the evidence to the masterminds pulling the strings.

Wesbury warned that the economy alone wouldn't be bad enough to defeat the President.  But ccp is right, Rush predicted for a year that the manipulation of the data would magically happen coming into the election.  Jack Welch also commented on the cooked books and the media, refusing any role as a watchdog, just lazily claimed the critics to be wearing tin foil hats.  Now it turns out to be true, much worse than we thought, and there will be no consequence?

"Unfortunately there are no Nixon tapes of Obama and/or his henchman Axelrod  to be discovered."

Yes there are, such as the IRS targeting communications contradicting the testimony and reports in the Federal Register exposing the President's lies. We just don't have them 'Obama administration tapes' yet because no one is demanding their release.  We won't get them without an effective and relentless special prosecutor.

I keep pointing to this one example.  A group called ACORN was banned from federal funding for their co-mingling of taxpayer dollars and political activities - and they have since reappeared under many different names.  The head of ACORN said the co-mingling of funds was impossible due to the impermeable "firewall" (what a joke!) separating these activities, even though it was the same people working both sides in the same office.  Yes there is attrition, but largely the same community organizers became the Census 2010 paid workers, learning everything about everyone in the neighborhoods, outside the constitution and at taxpayer expense, who then became the paid workers of the Obama 2012 campaign to 'get out the vote'.  They called it a magical and top secret "data mining" operation.  But they knew who was black.  They knew who was Hispanic, and they knew who was in every other identifiable demographic group.  They knew who relied on food stamps.  They knew who was on Section 8.  They knew who got medicaid and all other federal programs and they came to their doors with iphones and clipboards tracking voters, arranging rides and making sure all the targeted people voted.  It was not data mining, it was illegal data sharing.  I came from the people to the government, and then to the campaign.  All the while, in a different agency of the same executive branch, conservative groups were targeted, questioned and prevented from organize in opposition, while in a third agency they were cooking the books to change the story line, and in a fourth agency they were covering up events overseas that contradict the President saying al Qaida was 'on the run' even though he slept while they were surrounding and killing Americans.

The idea that there is no trail to the top turned out to be false when we looked at the IRS.  It went to the top, to a guy who had daily meetings with the White House.

If we investigate, subpoena evidence and compel testimony on the rest of these irregularities, we will find the 'Nixon tapes and much worse.

ccp

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #403 on: November 20, 2013, 06:50:34 PM »
"If we investigate, subpoena evidence and compel testimony on the rest of these irregularities, we will find the 'Nixon tapes and much worse."

How can "we" do this?

Crafty_Dog

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« Last Edit: November 22, 2013, 04:17:52 AM by Crafty_Dog »

DougMacG

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Re: Risk of Obamacare enrollee data being mined for election purposes
« Reply #405 on: November 22, 2013, 09:32:43 AM »
http://patriotpost.us/posts/21802

Yes, where did we first hear that the top secret, highly successful, campaign data mining operation was really the illegal leaking of private data by partisan government workers also working on the campaign?  And that the government workers gathering our private data and the campaign workers using that same data were actually the same people?  :wink:
 
In answer to ccp's question, how can we get this investigated, it is good to see people are following up on the points made here on the forum:

Same healthcare 'navigator' caught by James O'Keefe releasing private data for political purposes was also regional field director for Organizing for Action, Barack Obama's campaign arm.

As I wrote earlier, if you investigate, you will find it is the same people and same data.  Highly illegal.  No consequence.
------------------
http://www.examiner.com/article/busted-enroll-america-employee-latest-sting-video-former-ofa-official

Earlier Thursday, we reported that James O'Keefe released a video showing an Obamacare navigator conspiring to release personal data obtained through the healthcare website for partisan political purposes. The plot thickened, however, when the Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft revealed on Wednesday that Christopher Tarango, the navigator in O'Keefe's video, was also the regional field director for the El Paso office of Organizing for Action, Barack Obama's campaign arm.

"In fact," Hoft said, "Tarango is mentioned on Obama’s official Organizing for Action website."

Tarango, Hoft added, was a top official with Obama's campaign arm.

"Now he’s working for Enroll America – and he’s willing to release private data for political purposes,"

"there's a lot of talent that got sucked into Enroll America, but we are all Obama people."

SMU political science professor Matthew Wilson told KDFW there are strict barriers regarding the sharing of information and resources.  "The difficulty is, how bright a line can you draw between the non-partisan activities and the specifically political activities when it's exactly the same people doing both?"
-----------------

Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder will be all over this, I'm sure!  A special prosecutor?  RICO prosecution? 

An organized, criminal operation undermining our electoral system - on a national scale, large enough to swing a Presidential election is treason, is it not?  Or was this, too, "just the Cincinnati office"?

G M

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #406 on: November 22, 2013, 09:39:59 AM »
Another "fake" scandal that will get no coverage from the MSM.

DougMacG

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False job numbers: Did the White House know?
« Reply #407 on: November 25, 2013, 08:08:51 AM »
The Census is our private data, taken forcibly and unconstitutionally from us by the government, and then shared with leftist political thugs. The White House and the campaign and control of the 2010 Census operation are all one and the same.  I watched the campaign work the inner city this past campaign. They knew exactly who they were looking for and skipped the others.  That information didn't come from "data mining".  It came from the Census, food stamp rolls etc.  Finally a reporter has emerged with an informant is on the edge of this massive scandal.  Maybe more activists and insiders will begin to see the lies they were told and come forward with their stories.
-----------------------------------------------------------
False job numbers: Did the White House know?

By John Crudele,  NY Post
November 23, 2013
False job numbers: Did the White House know?
Photo:  Rahm Emanuel and President Obama at a DNC fundraising event in 2011.


Let me be the first to ask: Did the White House know that employment reports were being falsified?

Last week I reported exclusively that someone at the Census Bureau’s Philadelphia region had been screwing around with employment data. And that person, after he was caught in 2010, claimed he was told to do so by a supervisor two levels up the chain of command.

On top of that, a reliable source whom I haven’t identified said the falsification of employment data by Census was widespread and ongoing, especially around the time of the 2012 election.

There’s now a congressional investigation of how Census handles employment data. And we can hope that we’ll find out this was just an isolated incident.

But let me tell you why it might not be.

Back in 2009 — right before the 2010 census of the nation was taken — there was an announcement that the Obama administration had decided that the Census Bureau would report to senior White House aides.

The rumor was that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was in charge of the nationwide head count.

The chief of the Commerce Department usually oversees the Census, which determines how many congressional representatives and how much money each state gets for the next decade. But the Obama administration had decided — the story went — that Emanuel was a better guy for the job.

The idea that a political creature like Emanuel would be calling the shots on how states would be redistricted in coming elections sent Republicans into a tizzy.

“This is nothing more than a political land grab,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

Other Republicans expressed similar dismay. And the tension got so high that Judd Gregg, a Republican senator from New Hampshire, even withdrew his nomination to be Commerce secretary. (Gary Locke assumed that post.)

And why wouldn’t the Republicans be bothered? Even though the average American might think the census is nothing more than a nuisance, by Washington’s two most important standards — votes and money — it’s anything but.

So here’s where my story picks up.

Back in 2010, I started getting reports that the Census Bureau had some very unusual hiring practices. Census takers and supervisors — at risk of heavy fines — were reporting to me that large numbers of people were being hired only to be fired shortly afterward. And then rehired.

I theorized at the time that Census was trying to make the job-creation totals look better nationwide in those bleak months leading up to the midterm congressional elections.

This employment policy seemed too coordinated. The regional higher-ups at Census couldn’t be doing this on their own; there had to be a grander plan.

I still don’t know what was going on.

But then I heard about the falsification in Philly. This time, however, it wasn’t the employment numbers that were being doodled with. This time it was the unemployment data, which are gathered at the Census Bureau and handed over raw to the Labor Department.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself on this, but Philadelphia is pretty close to Washington, DC. And the census taker who was caught cheating — a guy named Julius Buckmon — had been canvassing the DC area when he was filling out forms for people who didn’t exist.

And the Census Bureau had been inexplicably downsized in recent years from eight regions to only six, giving more control to whoever had seized control.

The supervisor who was fingered by Buckmon did admit that he told other survey takers to hand in half-filled-out interviews. And the White House always has pretty good influence at the Census Bureau, even if it didn’t get its wish for Emanuel.

Maybe it’s just my deeply ingrained distrust of authority — especially when it resides in Washington — or my hope that a good story will last, but I’m betting 60/40 that the White House had grand plans for Census. And some of those may have been carried out.
http://nypost.com/2013/11/23/cooked-census-reported-to-obama-and-rahm/
« Last Edit: November 25, 2013, 10:59:00 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Obamacare rigging the future
« Reply #408 on: November 26, 2013, 02:42:15 PM »
Pasting this over here too from the Health Care thread


http://pjmedia.com/blog/rigging-the-future-obamacare-creates-50-new-state-databases-with-no-function-beyond-gathering-potential-voter-information-real-or-fraudulent/?singlepage=true

RIGGING THE FUTURE: Obamacare Creates 50 New State Databases With No Function Beyond Gathering Potential Voter Information, Real or Fraudulent

It was never just a health care “fix”: A series of precise, brilliant, secretive, and illegal decisions by Obamacare authors led to the creation of 50 unbeatable election tools — and to nothing else. As you read, try to identify a rational explanation besides malevolence. (This is Part One of a two-part article.)
by David Steinberg
Nov 26, 2013 - 8:25 am


Since the passage of Obamacare, all fifty state Medicaid agencies have been forced to create a new standalone database that contains nothing besides the contact information of Medicaid applicants who used Healthcare.gov.
 
Some of these new databases mail out voter registration forms automatically. You cannot refuse them.

 



No worthwhile verification occurs before the forms are mailed. Apply for Medicaid and the form will be mailed to you, be you a verifiable citizen or Ayman al-Zawahiri on a computer in Pakistan.
 
Further, these new databases are accessible by groups like Organizing for Action, the reconstituted ACORN, and malevolent figures like Chris Tarango.
 
And no reasonable purpose exists for creating the databases besides making them available to the aforementioned Democratic activists.
 
———————
 
Heard nothing regarding this before? Not only are you not alone, several state secretaries of State we contacted had no clue any of this was occurring under their watch. One source involved in the recently initiated legal battle to expose and dismantle the databases described the situation as follows:
 

Evil genius.
 
A complete disregard for certain federal law, the skirting of others, the exploitation of existing Medicaid structures, the issuing of rules and regulations with virtually none of the required paper trail. …
 
Just evil genius. They friggin’ thought of everything.
 
The remainder of this article is composed of descriptions of the several decisions made by Obamacare authors that led to the construction of the databases. The listing of these decisions is intended to illustrate the impossibility that these databases were created unintentionally, or due to incompetence — a “fumble.”
 
We hope to show that a rational, disinterested observer must arrive at the conclusion that these actions could not have been taken for any reason beyond the intended exploitation of the Affordable Care Act as a vehicle for future Democratic election victories.
 
We invite readers to offer alternative interpretations. We have reached out to several Democratic congressional offices to give them the opportunity to offer their own.
 
We also have reached out to GOP officials to see if any are willing to go on record stating the lone reasonable conclusion: objectively, some authors of the ACA were not “bleeding hearts,” but white-collar criminals.
 


Decision #1: The “Honor System”
 
Applicants to Healthcare.gov must enter their current income level. This is a pivotal piece of data for the system: income alone is used to determine if the applicant will be presented with the option to: a) purchase full-price or subsidized health insurance policies; or b) if the applicant will be directed towards Medicaid/CHIP programs. This determination is calculated according to the new Modified/Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) scale.
 
However, Healthcare.gov does not perform any checks at all (such as requiring the submission of pay stubs, the prior year’s tax return, etc.) to verify the income amount entered by the applicant. This all-important piece of data is accepted by Healthcare.gov on the “honor system.”
 
 
 
Decision #2: The Community Organizing, Aggressive Application of “Motor Voter” Law
 
If an applicant’s entered income is low enough to be eligible for subsidy, the applicant will soon be asked by Healthcare.gov if he or she does not wish to receive a voter registration form. This question alone utilizes aggressive application of three provisions of federal law.
 
The 1993 National Voter Registration Act, or “Motor Voter,” requires all municipal and government facilities which provide public assistance to also offer voter registration services. The Obama administration claims that “Motor Voter” thus applies to Healthcare.gov, and subsequently Healthcare.gov must provide voter registration services. Some states have disagreed with this application as it relates to state exchanges, but expect those states to face DOJ litigation – Rhode Island and other states have.
 

1. Since the adoption of Motor Voter in 1993, the Federal Government has successfully forced states to push voter registration in all on-line contexts.
 
This represents a significant distinction: the federal government has necessarily crafted entirely new fields of law to handle the development of electronic interactions.
 

2. Motor Voter specifies that facilities offering public assistance must have voter registration services available, and the Federal Government is forcing applications to specifically reject voter registration, sometimes multiple times.
 
As such, you can draw your own conclusions about the motivation behind applying Motor Voter to the ACA, and behind phrasing the question in that manner.
 

3. A stunning apparent violation of federal law: In practice, Healthcare.gov does not let you say “no” to a voter registration form.

Even if you say “no,” you may be mailed a form automatically.
 
You may receive a form that is pre-populated with the identifying information you entered into Healthcare.gov. Comprehension of the form is thus unnecessary; the recipient of the pre-populated form need only determine where to sign it.
 
As explained below, this will occur at the state level, where the design and implementation of Obamacare regarding voter registration make these transparently intentional abuses of Motor Voter seem tame.
 
Among sources reached for this article, that phrase “evil genius” was employed when referring to what Obamacare requires of state Medicaid entities; we were told its usage has become commonplace.
 
Decision #3: Restructuring Medicaid’s — and Only Medicaid’s — Eligibility Screening Procedures
 
Since the enactment of LBJ’s Great Society public assistance programs, most state Medicaid agencies have not been responsible for handling eligibility screenings.
 
Generally, screening for the various public assistance programs has instead been handled by state departments of Health and Human Services, or by similar state entities. One system would screen for all of the public assistance programs; the individual state program agencies would only handle administration.
 
After 50 years of precedence, Obamacare has changed this. But only for Medicaid.
 
As discussed earlier, if an applicant enters a qualifyingly low income into Healthcare.gov, the applicant is sent to the Medicaid side of the website. At this point, those five decades of established fraud prevention procedures are jettisoned.
 
Identifying information entered on the Medicaid side of Healthcare.gov is treated differently than identifying information entered while applying to all other public assistance programs.
 
How it works now: each state Medicaid agency has been instructed to create a new stand-alone database for storing identifying information entered by Medicaid applicants via Healthcare.gov. (Note the word “instructed,” not “required by law” or something similar. We will get to that shortly.) As instructed, all fifty states have created one of these databases.
 
They have further been instructed that this identifying information should no longer be sent to whichever state organization formerly performed the eligibility screening. The information must only go to these new databases.
 
 
 
Decision #4: The Parting of Data
 
As instructed, each state designed these new stand-alone databases to be dedicated to storing only the identifying information of Healthcare.gov applicants — but no medical data.
 
If you happen to be familiar with the basics of both health care and election law, perhaps your pupils just grew wide. Because you are aware that medical records are treated by the law as private and sacrosanct, but voter rolls, consisting of only identifying information, are publicly accessible.
 
To summarize:
 •The federal government instructed states that they could not send any applicant data entered into the Medicaid side of Healthcare.gov to their traditional eligibility screeners.
 •They then instructed state Medicaid agencies to create stand-alone databases for this new applicant information, and that these new databases would be forbidden from containing any medical information.
 •Per an incorrect application of Motor Voter law, the Obama administration considers the Medicaid side of Healthcare.gov to be a public assistance “office,” and as such, required to offer voter registration services.
 •The Obama administration also considers it legal to treat the distribution of voter registration forms as “must opt-out,” instead of “must opt-in.”
 
These four bullet points are the basis of Decision #5.
 
 
 
Decision #5: The Illegal, Automatic Mailing of Voter Registration Forms and “Opt-Out” Forms
 
States were instructed that, to comply with Motor Voter, these new databases must automatically mail voter registration forms to each new individual applicant sent over from Healthcare.gov.
 
Recall, you may have said “no” earlier. It doesn’t matter.
 
The new databases must also mail a second form that states “I do not wish to register to vote,” which you must sign and return.
 
Otherwise, it is assumed you wish to register.
 
If the Feds notice you still haven’t replied?
 
Remember Decision #4: the new databases are publicly accessible, since they do not contain any medical information.
 
Anyone – perhaps Organizing for Action, or Battleground Texas – can get their hands on it, and then show up at your door with yet another form.
 
——————–
 
Review the prior five decisions: are you able to determine a reasonable explanation for all five of them besides getting potential voter information in the hands of Democratic organizing groups? Groups populated by bad actors like Chris Tarango, but which nonetheless have the blessings of the administration?
 
Recall that this is voter information gathered via Medicaid applications, a program whose recipients vote almost exclusively Democrat.
 
If Orwell comparisons strike you as tedious, an additional instruction to the states about how they are allowed to screen eligibility, along with the precedent-breaking, whispered demands from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that follow may have you granting an exception.
 
Decision #6: Eliminating the State Medicaid Screeners
 
For the past five decades, states have dedicated a tremendous amount of resources to providing a “second-level review” of applicant information transmitted to them via a federal agency.
 
But now, and quite simply, that has been ended. But only for Medicaid.
 
States are no longer allowed to challenge the validity of applicant information sent to them from the Medicaid side of Healthcare.gov.
 
Instead, states are to assume that if information was transmitted to them, the federal government has deemed that information to be valid. States haven’t simply been instructed to no longer let their traditional public assistance eligibility screeners touch Medicaid information from Healthcare.gov — they have been instructed that state Medicaid agencies can’t screen it, either. This isn’t an administrative shift of the state screening processes, it’s the forbidding of state screening processes.
 
We already know what little concern Healthcare.gov itself has for the validity of applicant information. The site employs the “honor system” for income, the most important piece of data. Also, as previously reported at PJ Media, the Medicaid side of Healthcare.gov allows anyone on Earth to secure at least 90 days of Medicaid with just two easily forged documents and a lie about being a legal alien.
 
The security bar is even lower for entrance into one of the new state “Medicaid/voter roll” databases. In fact, it’s non-existent: apply for Medicaid as a citizen, you’re going to end up in your state’s new “Medicaid/voter roll” database.
 
And the state is forbidden from checking the application’s validity.
 
————————-
 
This development represents an endpoint, with identifiable products of those six federal decisions. The products are:
 •Fifty unscreened databases, accessible to all, of identifying information of likely Democratic voters.
 •Fifty databases of likely Democratic voters, which automatically mail voter registration forms and required “opt-out” forms to each applicant.
 
What is the rational result of these two final products following their implementation?
 •The Democratic Party exploiting a federal law passed without a single Republican vote, a law that mandates citizen participation, a law that mandates citizens purchase a product to sustain the law financially, to produce an unbeatable tool to utilize for winning elections.
 •Bad actors within the Democratic Party, both within and outside of government, using this tool to easily commit voter fraud.
 •An organized entity hostile to the United States exploiting the massive security holes created by this Democratic law to flood the Medicaid rolls with fraudulent enrollees, rendering the massive program database unusable.
 •An organized entity hostile to the United States exploiting the massive security holes created by this Democratic law to flood the voter rolls with fraudulent identities, rendering the administration of elections impossible.
 
To employ an example from our prior article on fraudulent 90-day Medicaid enrollments:
 1.Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, from a computer in Pakistan, can tell Healthcare.gov that his income this year is zero.
 2.He will be directed to the Medicaid side of the website, where he can claim to be an American citizen temporarily living abroad.
 3.He can enter the address of his local post office.
 4.Al-Zawahiri will have himself a voter registration card arrive shortly.
 5.He can instruct his millions of supporters to do the same.
 
If Healthcare.gov was actually working, al-Qaeda could get that done by the weekend.
 
——————
 
How did the Obama administration accomplish this? Where’s the paper trail? Aren’t there established processes for the development and implementation of rules and regulations applying to a federal bill, and aren’t all of those deliberations required to be publicly released?
 
Yes. But in perhaps the Obama administration’s worst “fumble,” they bypassed just about the entire rule-issuance process.
 

Decision #7: Breaking All the Rules
 
In Part Two of this article, to be published following the Thanksgiving holiday, we will discuss how the federal government’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, acted in a precedence-shattering, secretive manner in issuing orders to state Medicaid agencies regarding how to construct the databases.
 
We will also discuss the massive security holes created by the allowance of “telephonic signature,” and the secretaries of State who were left completely in the dark.
 
We will link, post, and discuss the paper trail — and who was involved.
 
And we will discuss the George Soros-funded Demos organization, which helped push the “opt-out” approach to Motor Voter, and which happened to be one of the few entities that had any knowledge of the new databases.
 
Indeed, they happened to have enough knowledge regarding the databases to prepare and publish a report containing state-by-state strategies for taking advantage of them.


Crafty_Dog

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Friends of Michelle dumped for Donors to Baraq
« Reply #410 on: January 14, 2014, 08:13:58 AM »
HealthCare.gov: Michelle's friends out, Obama campaign donors in. 
Published by: Herman Cain

Change you can believe in.

President Obama always finds someone other than himself to blame when things go wrong, and of course he especially likes to blame private-sector corporations. So never mind that CGI Federal, whose senior executive Toni Townes-Whitley was a college classmate of Michelle Obama's, was hired by the Obama Administration to build HealthCare.gov.  Nothing here is the White House's fault, ever, by definition, and now we learn that CGI Federal is being fired.

After spending all of that money they’ve now come to the conclusion that CGI Federal can’t get the job done. I guess that could make for some awkward conversation at Michelle's next class reunion.

You know who they’re gonna hire instead? They're hiring Accenture, which oh by the way just happened to contribute $280,000 to Obama's re-election campaign. I don't think they wanted me to tell you that, but I can't un-say it now! Sorry, Mr. President.

Now here’s what I know about IT projects, because as many of you know I've worked on my share of them. If CGI Federal has messed it up so badly that they can’t fix it, Accenture is going to have to start all over. They’re not going to be able to go in and take somebody else’s code and fix it. No one in IT does that. It’s gonna require a do-over.

So be ready because more delays and more excuses are coming down the road. It's inevitable. In all my years working in IT, I was never given a project where I was supposed to take somebody else’s code or system design and go in and fix it. You have to start over, and that’s what Accenture is going to do.

So Michelle's friends are out, Barack's contributors are in, and it pays to be connected but it doesn't pay to go shopping for health insurance on HealthCare.gov, because the darn thing still doesn't work.

The Barack Obama presidency. Making your life better through government.


Crafty_Dog

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Dark Money
« Reply #412 on: January 21, 2014, 05:57:10 PM »


G M

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Re: Dark Money
« Reply #414 on: January 22, 2014, 03:55:17 PM »


Crafty_Dog

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Mukasey in the WSJ: The Criminal Vote
« Reply #416 on: February 17, 2014, 04:32:20 AM »

By
Michael B. Mukasey
Updated Feb. 14, 2014 6:35 p.m. ET

There is a worthwhile debate to be had over whether state laws that disenfranchise felons should be changed or even eliminated. There can be an interesting discussion of how the history of such laws affects that debate. But you would not have known that from Eric Holder's treatment of the subject in a Feb. 10 speech at the Georgetown Law Center in Washington.

The U.S. attorney general told us that statistics can be read to show that felon disenfranchisement laws actually promote recidivism. He said that such laws, which vary from state to state, are rooted in outdated notions going back to colonial days (when no one did any voting). He said that they were used during Reconstruction intentionally, and have been used since (whether intentionally or not is left hanging in the air) to deny the vote to blacks—who make up a larger percentage of those convicted of felonies than they do of the general population.

The statistical argument derives from a recent study in Florida that showed a lower recidivism rate for felons whose right to vote had been restored than for those whose right hadn't. However, there is more going on here.

Florida has had, and indeed has broadened, a system that requires felons to go through an application process before their voting rights are restored. Obviously, those who are motivated to navigate such a process self-select as a group less likely to repeat their crimes. Suggesting that the automatic restoration of voting rights to all felons would lower recidivism is rather like suggesting that we can raise the incomes of all college students if we automatically grant them a college degree—because statistics show that people with college degrees have higher incomes than those without them.

The history suggested by the attorney general is just as deeply flawed. A clue to the flaw lies in his failure to call for a federal law barring state felon disenfranchisement statutes. Why would an administration given to bold legislative action at the federal level—given to bold action even without legislation—shrink from calling for such action here?
Enlarge Image

United States Attorney General Eric Holder Reuters

The omission becomes less curious when one considers that the history of felon disenfranchisement statutes is tied up intimately in constitutional history. Most particularly, it is tied up with the history of what are known as the Reconstruction amendments: the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution—the very amendments that ended slavery and set out the basic guarantees of equality for all under state law.

Abolitionists, viewed at the time as radicals, embraced what has been called a philosophy of formal equality. They not only insisted on the liberation and enfranchisement of former slaves, but also supported the disenfranchisement of criminals, rebels and other wrongdoers.

In its first section, the 14th Amendment guarantees due process and equal protection to the residents of all states. Yet its second section directs that states which deny the right to vote to any male citizens over the age of 21 will lose electors for president and vice president (in proportion that those denied the right bear to the whole number of such citizens)—except when such denial is "for participation in rebellion, or other crime."

The Supreme Court has held that this apparent recognition of the legitimacy of felon disenfranchisement in the 14th Amendment insulates the practice against constitutional attack. Even the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude generally, carves out an exception "for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

That view, to be sure, has its critics, and their arguments are worth considering. For example, they argue that it is one thing to say that states cannot be denied electors for disenfranchising criminals, and quite another to say that the practice otherwise passes muster.

They note that the 14th Amendment's accommodation of gender-based voting distinction—using the population of 21-year-old male citizens as the measure—itself has been overtaken by history. Still, a fair reply would be that it took a constitutional amendment, the 19th, to do it.

The historical evidence suggests that even Reconstruction progressives saw the 14th Amendment's reference to gender as a political necessity and believed that the crime exception was principled. The concern that former slaves would be disenfranchised for trivial offenses was dealt with in the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, which confined the sanction to felonies—serious crimes.

Rather than deal directly with the evidence, both statistical and historical, Mr. Holder put the issue squarely in terms of race: Because blacks stand convicted of crimes in greater numbers than their proportion of the population would dictate, the effect on them of felon disenfranchisement statutes is disproportionately high; that disproportion is unjust, and the laws should be repealed. The attorney general proposes substituting for current laws and practice what is essentially a transactional standard implicit in the phrase paying one's debt to society: Once the sentence has been served, the fine paid, it is time to make it—as a cleanup-company slogan says—like it never even happened.

Mr. Holder does not urge that we go as far as the states of Maine and Vermont, which bar disenfranchisement on any basis and thus permit convicts to vote from jail (assuming their residency requirements are otherwise in order). But neither does he display anything but contempt for the notion that there is a moral taint that attaches to a felony conviction—a taint that should require that one at least show some brief period of law-abiding existence before full readmission to the polity.

This failure actually hurts his case, because it invites cynicism about his motives. Thus a report in the Washington Post GHC +0.07% ended by citing an academic study showing that if disenfranchised felons had voted in the 2000 election, Al Gore would have been president. That may be true, but it probably doesn't help the attorney general's argument as much as sticking to the facts might have.

Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general (2007-09) and as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York (1988-2006).


DougMacG

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Electoral process, vote fraud: Data sharing between govt and Dem campaigns
« Reply #417 on: February 19, 2014, 09:28:49 AM »
James O'Keefe exposes Texas Dems taking government data and using it for partisan, get out the vote operations.

Who has been making that allegation here?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXKwQI_0kDI[/youtube]

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/02/19/Exclusive-OKeefe-Busts-Battleground-Texas-Voter-Registration-Scheme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXKwQI_0kDI

The footage shows Battleground Texas volunteer Jennifer Longoria saying the group uses the phone numbers from voter registration forms in later efforts to boost turnout on election day.

Texas Election Code prohibits the use of, or even the copying of, phone numbers provided by individuals registering to vote.

“Every time we register somebody to vote, we keep their name, address, phone number,” Longoria said.

The video also shows volunteers calling to boost turnout for Wendy Davis's gubernotorial bid.

The new revelations are likely to add to concerns about an apparent culture of data sharing among Democrat-aligned political and nonprofit organizations.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Tin hat or true tragedy?
« Reply #420 on: February 25, 2014, 05:42:55 PM »
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/obamas-voter-id-scam-is-busted/
True  crime.

Try entering a Dem event without 'Voter ID' !

Data-sharing between government agencies and the campaign completes the trifecta of 2012 election scandals, along with IRS targeting and voter fraud.  That doesn't count the ugliest part, Candy Crowley and her debate assist on Benghazi or the most blatant part of election stealing, lie to their face and repeat the lie until everyone has it:  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/  Other than all that, I thought it was a fair contest.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2014, 06:09:10 PM by DougMacG »

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ccp

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Voter fraud in Florida. Not a peep of this in MSM. Nada.
« Reply #424 on: March 19, 2014, 05:24:39 PM »
I don't know if anyone would recall I asked how can we find voter fraud if we don't ID people who are voting?  How would anyone really know if they are who they claim or even if they are entitled to vote?   This is what I mean:

http://www.westernjournalism.com/illegal-aliens-non-citizens-caught-voting-florida-vast-numbers/

Like Peter King asking for any evidence of unethical use of data acquired by the NSA.   "Not one shred of evidence" he  loves to shout.
So  I'll ask again.  How would any of us know?  How could we know?  How could anyone prove such a thing?  Good luck.

Crimes are committed all day long.   Smart criminals just do it in ways no one can see.   Especially true when no one is looking.  Or no one really cares.  Or those few who do an easily be persuaded to keep their mouths shut.

DougMacG

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #425 on: March 28, 2014, 09:21:18 AM »
Harry Reid used campaign funds to give granddaughter $17,000
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Harry-Reid-Reid-Granddaughter-Reid-Slush-Fund-Elisabeth-Ryan/2014/03/27/id/562124/

Isn't that the same crime that sent James Traficant to prison?  (A Democrat who ripped the Clinton administration ruthlessly in the 1990s.)

Harry Reid is still majority Leader.

G M

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #426 on: March 28, 2014, 09:25:32 AM »
Harry Reid used campaign funds to give granddaughter $17,000
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Harry-Reid-Reid-Granddaughter-Reid-Slush-Fund-Elisabeth-Ryan/2014/03/27/id/562124/

Isn't that the same crime that sent James Traficant to prison?  (A Democrat who ripped the Clinton administration ruthlessly in the 1990s.)

Harry Reid is still majority Leader.

I'm sure Eric Holder will get right on it, as soon as the IRS investigation is finished...

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #427 on: March 28, 2014, 09:27:45 AM »
While those fit here and are quite pertinent, please note from here forward we now have a thread dedicated to corruption.


G M

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #428 on: March 28, 2014, 09:29:58 AM »
While those fit here and are quite pertinent, please note from here forward we now have a thread dedicated to corruption.



Harry Reid and corruption probably deserves its' own thread...

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #431 on: April 03, 2014, 03:44:08 AM »
"Bid to cut voter roles" is of course the way the NYT describes this.

It wouldn't surprise me if 1,000,000 voters nationwide are fraudulent.

It can't even be measured.



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Electoral college
« Reply #434 on: April 16, 2014, 05:19:06 AM »
second post

http://dickmorris.rallycongress.com/15119/reject-proposal-to-bypass-electoral-college/

Would someone be so kind (BD are you out there?) as to give the argument for the electoral college?

DougMacG

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Re: Electoral college
« Reply #435 on: April 18, 2014, 11:35:24 AM »
second post
http://dickmorris.rallycongress.com/15119/reject-proposal-to-bypass-electoral-college/
Would someone be so kind (BD are you out there?) as to give the argument for the electoral college?

Bringing this request forward with a few thoughts. 

a. The central point and purpose of the constitution is to define limits on all rule and majority rule in particular.   Division of powers and super-majorities required on various important things are examples of this.
b. We are a union of states so the is in each contest in each state for who we want to empower as chief executive.
c. Because of the EC, a distribution of support is required to win.
c. In a close election like happened in Florida 2000, imagine that recount fiasco happening simultaneously in all precincts of all 50 states.

To those who oppose the electoral college I would ask, do you oppose the Senate and the Supreme Court as well.  Both are also designed to potentially deny or delay the majority their will.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #436 on: April 18, 2014, 01:55:43 PM »
"b. We are a union of states so the is in each contest in each state for who we want to empower as chief executive."

EXCELLENT soundbite!

DougMacG

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, corruption etc.
« Reply #437 on: April 19, 2014, 10:30:34 AM »
"b. We are a union of states so the is in each contest in each state for who we want to empower as chief executive."

EXCELLENT soundbite!


Cleaning up the wording: 

We are a union of states so there is a contest in each state for who we want to empower as chief executive. 

Then the states's choices are weighted by size of their populations to balance the states' interests with proportional representation of/by/for the people. 

Not a perfect system but better than all the alternatives.

I am also curious what Bigdog thinks of the wisdom of the EC.   





Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Political Fraud about Voter Fraud
« Reply #440 on: April 28, 2014, 11:14:14 AM »
Political Fraud About Voter Fraud
The president's selective statistics are red meat to supporters, but still bogus.
By Robert D. Popper
Updated April 27, 2014 6:25 p.m. ET

The Obama administration has been ramping up its rhetoric about the evil of voter identification as part of the run-up to the midterm elections. In January, Attorney General Eric Holder told MSNBC that voter fraud "simply does not exist to the extent that would warrant" voter ID laws, adding that many who favor such measures do so in order to "depress the vote." Vice President Joe Biden claimed in February that new voter ID laws in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas were motivated by "hatred" and "zealotry."

In an April 11 speech to Al Sharpton's National Action Network, President Obama recited statistics purporting to show that voter fraud was extremely rare. The "real voter fraud," he said, "is people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud."

These arguments themselves are bogus. Consider the two studies from which Mr. Obama drew his statistics. The first, which he said "found only 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation in 12 years," is a 2012 report issued by News21, an Arizona State University project.


The News21 website explains that students "under the direction of journalism professionals" sent public records requests to state and federal officials asking for information about voting fraud cases. The project acknowledged significant gaps in its data. Several states made no meaningful response. Counties argued that "public records laws don't require officials to respond at all." Election officials and state attorneys general admitted that they did not track voter fraud. The Justice Department referred News21 to its 93 local U.S. attorneys but, the website reported, "many of those offices, in turn, referred News21 back to the department."

Crucially, News21 noted that "nearly all the data" it received had "some vital piece of information that had been requested specifically but that was missing." Responses lacked "important details about each case—from whether the person was convicted or charged to the circumstances of the alleged fraud to the names of those involved."

Given these limitations, it is hard to believe any valid conclusions about voter fraud can be drawn from this study.

Mr. Obama also cited an "analysis" showing that only 40 voters "were indicted for fraud" from 2002 to 2005. That number is drawn from an Aug. 2, 2005, Justice Department news release—which describes the department's "Ballot Access and Voting Integrity" initiative—and from a related list of federal cases. The release mentioned 120 pending election-fraud investigations, 89 prosecutions and 52 convictions.

It is preposterous to cite that news release as proof that voter fraud is rare. The release contains no information concerning prosecutions in any of the 50 state court systems for violations of state voting laws, even though these are far more common than prosecutions for violations of federal voting laws. Even as a list of federal offenses, the news releasee is inadequate. Justice did not claim to have compiled all convictions, prosecutions or investigations—let alone all known or unsolved cases—involving federal voter fraud. The release was only a list of legal actions relating to what was then a three-year-old initiative.

More generally, judging voter fraud by counting criminal proceedings is misguided. For any crime, convictions are a fraction of prosecutions, which are a fraction of investigations, which are a fraction of known offenses, which are, in turn, a fraction of committed crimes. This is even more likely to be true of voter fraud, which is often a low enforcement priority—as News21 confirmed, many states do not even track it. Moreover, the fraud may be all but impossible to investigate or prove if it is carried out successfully.

We do know that this country's decentralized system of election administration offers abundant opportunities for fraud. For example, a February 2012 report by the Pew Research Center on the States, "Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient: Evidence That America's Voter Registration System Needs an Upgrade," found that 1.8 million deceased registrants were listed as active voters, and that 2.75 million voters had active registrations in more than one state.

In court papers filed last year, Virginia noted that a limited cross-check with 21 other participating states—which did not include California, Texas or New York—showed that 17,000 voters were registered in three or more states. Imagine if the cross-check were extended to all 50 states and if Virginia's results were typical.

Voter fraud, whatever its extent, can matter. Many elections, particularly local elections, are decided by slim margins. In January, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted released remarkable statistics showing that 35 local races and eight local issues were decided in the Buckeye State in 2013 by one vote or by using the state's designated procedure, such as coin-flipping, to break a tie.

If the available evidence suggests that the amount of voter fraud is understated, the evidence that voter-ID laws suppress voting is nonexistent. In elections held after new voter-ID laws were enacted in Georgia and Tennessee, for instance, minority turnout either was stable or increased. In Tennessee, the turnout among Hispanics of voting age rose to 34.7% in 2012 from 19.2% in 2008, according to surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau, even though a strict new photo ID law was in effect in 2012. Turnout among blacks of voting age declined slightly, to 57.4% in 2012 from 58.1% in 2008, but this was within the Census survey's margin of error. In both years, black turnout was around 4% higher than the comparable white turnout.

When it comes to the subject of voter suppression, it is revealing that Mr. Obama avoided statistics earlier this month and relied entirely on conditional verbs: voters "could be turned away from the polls . . . may suddenly be told they can no longer vote . . . may learn that without a document like a passport or a birth certificate, they can't register."

The president's speech may have been red meat for his base and good for fundraising. But it failed to engage the serious issues relating to election integrity. The coming months don't promise an improvement.

Mr. Popper is a senior attorney for Judicial Watch and served as the deputy chief of the voting section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2008-13.

G M

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Here it comes: "Save the political system"
« Reply #442 on: May 01, 2014, 08:23:15 AM »
By making voting mandatory!
Voting is a right and a privilege.  Not a taxable offense if you don't vote.   First the comparison to jury duty is not equivalent.  People are screened before sitting on a jury.
Second, can anyone imagine the fraud if we all start voting from smartphones and other gadgets?  Third there is NO question this about progressives getting more of people who are big government advocates to dish them more money to vote.   All this will do is increase the centralization of power even more.  This will not fix the "system".  It will result in even more of our rights being taken away.   Fourth micro-targeting will not go away as suggested.   The battle for ideas will not go away.  Manipulating voters views will not go away.  Indeed it will likely and inevitably serve to have more ignorant people vote on emotional issues or whoever promises the most benefits to them.
Fifth, what if some people simply do not want to vote?  Now they commit a criminal offense?  This is purely a big moneyed Democrat trying to con us to coercing more Democrat votes.    (Didn't the napster punk steal the idea from someone else?)   These silicon guys may or may not be great business people but some still seem like punks to me.

The time should never come for this:   

****The time has come to make you vote

By Matt Bai 6 hours ago Yahoo News

Voting booths are set up in Waterloo, Iowa. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Word is that Sean Parker, the 34-year-old Web visionary who built Napster and then helped grow Facebook, is the latest billionaire with an idea to save the political system, or at least a lot of money in search of an idea to save the political system. Parker and other investors are said to be planning a startup aimed at organizing disaffected voters. They've hired some well-connected Washington consultants, because that's what you do when you really want to stick it to the status quo.

This isn't new space, exactly. A few years ago, some moderate operatives in both parties got together and started something called "No Labels," which sends a lot of admonishing petitions to Congress about partisanship and which has the backing of politicians who like to expound on the ugliness of our politics but don't actually want to do anything too controversial.

The truth is that incivility is more a symptom than a sickness; the root cause of our problem is the antiquated system by which we choose our leaders. And if Parker and his high-tech friends really want to "disrupt" our political stalemate in the way they disrupted record labels, then they should consider something more drastic than urging people to get involved. Maybe it's time we coerced them.

Let's first consider the situation in which we find ourselves. Once again this year, the two parties that dominate our politics will conduct parallel campaigns aimed at two distinct subsets of Americans, rather than engaging in any actual debate. One side will scream about liberal overreach and the other will scream about conservative greed and bigotry, and whoever arouses the most passion in their most reliable voters (generally the party out of power at the moment) will probably win.

It wasn't like this when we were a nation that joined and trusted institutions, including political parties. But now that fewer and fewer Americans feel compelled to support their local parties or even register as affiliated, primaries are dominated by an ever dwindling number of hardcore activists, and they're deciding options for the rest of us. And since more than half of voting-age Americans will find those options so uninspiring that they would rather stay home than vote this November, the vast majority of time and money on both sides will be focused on motivating voters who already agree with them.

There are some promising reform ideas out there. Californians have had some success with nonpartisan elections, which bypass the traditional primary system. There's a lot of talk about curtailing all the outside money flowing into campaigns, too – though the Supreme Court is unlikely to cooperate. Taking the responsibility for redistricting away from politicians is a no-brainer for everyone but the parties themselves, which continue to resist it.

But I recently heard a more radical argument from my friend Jonathan Cowan, who runs Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank. Cowan has been kicking around the idea of compulsory voting – or, in other words, a government mandate just like the one that now forces you to buy health care insurance, except it would require everybody to vote.   

I first heard a version of this argument back in 2008, when I gave a series of talks in Australia. The Australians have compulsory voting and they're quite proud of themselves for it, and some of their politicians had fun engaging me in a spirited debate about whose democracy was really more of a model for the world, since they could boast 100 percent voter participation in every election.

The concept struck me then as essentially un-American. After all, as I argued to my Australian friends, part of being a free country is having the freedom to abstain. And anyway, as I rudely pointed out, a country whose Parliament can technically be dissolved by the British queen can hardly go around calling itself a democracy, much less a perfect one.

But Cowan makes a compelling case that compulsory voting in federal elections would actually be the most elegant way to revitalize our democracy overnight, without having to chase a series of piecemeal reforms in dozens of legislatures. Think about it: If voter participation suddenly went from, say, 40 percent in an off-year election to 95 percent (assuming there will always be some slackers and protesters who defy the law and risk the penalty), then the modern industry of voter turnout operations would magically go away.

No more arcane microtargeting and database wizardry. No more overwrought direct mail playing to the most irrational fears of gun owners or xenophobes. No more "base elections" where the only message is that the other guy is a Satan worshipper who will call forth the horsemen of the apocalypse if you let him win.

Suddenly candidates would have to think about ideas again – about how to persuade all of these skeptical, unaffiliated voters that they actually have a plan to govern. The parties would almost certainly open their primaries to independents, if not move entirely to nonpartisan elections, because it would be the only way to make sure their nominees had broad enough appeal to win. Candidates would have to be more responsive to the broad electorate than to the tiny number of wealthy contributors who currently help them get out the vote.

You'd have to decide, of course, whether to tax people who refuse to vote or whether to treat it as a criminal offense, like refusing to register for the draft. (Probably the former, practically speaking.) You'd have to make sure voters could still come to the polls and formally abstain, so there's no violation of free speech. And you'd have to make it a lot easier to vote than it is now, which means extending the voting period well beyond a single day and letting people e-vote from home.

(And before all you professors send me mail again telling me how the Internet can't even protect your credit card, much less protect your vote from Chinese hackers, let me just say: Yes, I know, online voting can never be as failsafe as, say, the days when we trusted some guy in Chicago to count up a box full of paper ballots and take them in his trunk to the county office. But I think we can figure it out.)

You could argue that Parker and his fellow investors would be wasting their time to campaign for something so hard to achieve. It's not entirely clear to scholars who've looked at the issue whether you could impose compulsory voting by statute, which would be pretty hard to do, or whether the Supreme Court would ultimately require a constitutional amendment, which might be nearly impossible.

But there's a value to starting a national conversation about ways to modernize the electoral system, which is long past due. And it's hard to imagine that even Silicon Valley's brightest minds can build a real movement of unaffiliated voters without having at least one big, serious proposal to rally them around.

Is compulsory voting un-American? No more so, now that I think about it, than making people serve on juries for their own civic good – which everyone complains about but no one really resents. I find the argument persuasive, which is more than you can say for our campaigns

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, etc.
« Reply #444 on: May 17, 2014, 06:50:33 PM »
They have no problem when their fellow Democrats win ridiculous awards.   Every other week I see Hillary winning some award which is really a thinly veiled bribe to the next potential President.   :x

I heard no disclaimer from Shapman about George Herbert Bush winning an award recently at the Kennedy Center for you know what - his bravery at raising taxes against his campaign promise.   For THAT the "F" left has an award for him.  Not any other service he provied the country his entire life.  Just for raising taxes. 
And worse, he goes and "graciously" accepts the phony award.   The Bushes are great Americans.   Their politics suck.

 :x


Crafty_Dog

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Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules-- Conyers gets on ballot.
« Reply #446 on: May 23, 2014, 04:46:03 PM »


Rep. John Conyers Jr., Longtime Lawmaker, Allowed on Ballot
Representative John Conyers Jr. narrowly escaped a political fiasco on Friday when a federal judge granted him a place on the November ballot, allowing him to survive a campaign misstep that left him hundreds of valid signatures short of the number required for his re-election petition.
Mr. Conyers, a Democrat who was first elected in 1964, found his place on the ballot at risk because his campaign failed to collect 1,000 valid signatures on petitions for re-election. What initially appeared to be a minor misstep quickly became a grievous error that threatened the career of one of the most senior members of Congress, who is a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/us/judge-rules-conyers-can-be-on-ballot.html?emc=edit_na_20140523


G M

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Re: Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules-- Conyers gets on ballot.
« Reply #447 on: May 23, 2014, 10:15:59 PM »


Rep. John Conyers Jr., Longtime Lawmaker, Allowed on Ballot
Representative John Conyers Jr. narrowly escaped a political fiasco on Friday when a federal judge granted him a place on the November ballot, allowing him to survive a campaign misstep that left him hundreds of valid signatures short of the number required for his re-election petition.
Mr. Conyers, a Democrat who was first elected in 1964, found his place on the ballot at risk because his campaign failed to collect 1,000 valid signatures on petitions for re-election. What initially appeared to be a minor misstep quickly became a grievous error that threatened the career of one of the most senior members of Congress, who is a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/us/judge-rules-conyers-can-be-on-ballot.html?emc=edit_na_20140523



Laws are for the little people.

Crafty_Dog

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POTH on Conyers
« Reply #448 on: May 24, 2014, 07:35:17 AM »



Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan narrowly escaped a political fiasco on Friday when a federal judge granted him a place on the Democratic primary ballot in August, allowing him to survive a campaign misstep that left him hundreds of valid signatures short on his petitions for re-election.

Mr. Conyers, a Detroit Democrat who was first elected in 1964, had found his re-election prospects at risk when his campaign failed to collect the required 1,000 valid signatures. At least two workers collecting them were not properly registered to vote, another violation of state law. What initially appeared to be a minor mistake quickly became a grievous error that threatened the career of one of the most senior members of Congress, who is a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.


In his ruling on Friday, Judge Matthew F. Leitman of Federal District Court said that the “failure to comply with the registration statute was the result of good-faith mistakes.”

“They believed they were in compliance with the statute,” the judge wrote.

Judge Leitman added that the First Amendment rights of Mr. Conyers and the signature collectors working for his campaign were “severely burdened” under the current law.

The news, which arrived after a day of anxious waiting, was met with relief by the congressman’s supporters, said Bert Johnson, a state senator who is running Mr. Conyers’s campaign. Mr. Conyers, who is 85 and running for his 26th term, was “pretty happy” with the outcome, Mr. Johnson said.

Just hours earlier, the Michigan secretary of state, Ruth Johnson, had rejected an appeal from the campaign.

But after Judge Leitman’s decision, Mr. Conyers “had a nice smile,” Mr. Johnson said. “We believe it’s a very big win for the voters. It puts one of the more ugly parts of the campaign process behind us.”

The battle for Mr. Conyers began weeks ago, when it was discovered that of the more than 1,000 signatures his campaign had collected, hundreds of the names belonged to people who were not residents of his district or were not registered to vote.

Even more damaging was the revelation that at least two petition circulators were not qualified under state election law because they were not registered voters. In the end, Mr. Conyers was left with only 592 valid signatures.

That put Mr. Conyers in a precarious position. He quickly appealed to the Wayne County clerk, Cathy M. Garrett, a Democrat, who reviewed the signatures and reluctantly confirmed that he was not eligible to be on the ballot.

Ms. Garrett’s decision left Mr. Conyers with several options. He promised that if necessary, he would begin a write-in campaign, banking on his widespread name recognition in Detroit. There was some precedent for success by that route: Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, was elected last year in a write-in campaign after he failed to win a place on the ballot because of an invalid registration.

Mr. Conyers’s lawyers mounted a challenge in federal court, saying Wednesday that the judge should throw out a state law requiring petition collectors to be registered to vote, arguing that the law violated the First Amendment. They cited an appeals court decision from 2008, Nader v. Blackwell, that struck down a similar law in Ohio.

On Wednesday, Judge Leitman seemed to struggle with the decision, calling it “an exceptionally difficult case.”

A lawyer for Mr. Conyers, John D. Pirich, said during the hearing on Wednesday that it would be “pretty outrageous” to make Mr. Conyers pay for technicalities involving the voter registrations of two signature collectors.

Experts in election law said Judge Leitman’s favorable ruling was not surprising considering the case’s similarities to Nader v. Blackwell, in which a panel of judges agreed that imposing voter registration requirements on signature circulators in Ohio was an impermissible restriction on political speech.

The primary will take place Aug. 5, with Mr. Conyers by far the most recognizable name on the ballot in a heavily Democratic district that includes Detroit. His most significant challenge comes from the Rev. Horace Sheffield, the pastor of New Destiny Christian Fellowship Church, whose family is well known in Detroit.

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Re: The electoral process, vote fraud, SEIU/ACORN et al, etc.
« Reply #449 on: May 24, 2014, 09:55:13 PM »
Some animals are more equal than others.