October 2010

Why Bother?

ArchPundit October 13, 2010 No Comments

GOP promotes Isaac Hayes:

GOP gains traction in Jesse Jackson Jr.’s district
10/12/2010 10:51:46 AM

By SOPHIA TAREEN
The Associated Press
Monday, October 11, 2010; 7:35 PM

SOUTH HOLLAND, Ill. — Isaac Hayes, a conservative Republican challenging U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., is getting more attention lately – and not just because he shares a name with the soul legend known for the “Shaft” theme.
More revelations about Jackson’s links to the corruption case of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and a relationship he had with a female “social acquaintance” have given Hayes an opening in the reliably Democratic and largely black district that Jackson won with nearly 90 percent of the vote two years ago.
Hayes suddenly is getting notice from national Republicans and is being mentioned often on black radio stations. While political experts see him as unlikely to score an upset in November, he could benefit from voter sentiment about Jackson’s troubles.
“There has to be a change,” Hayes said. “People are saying ‘enough is enough.'”
Emma Pouncy, a 66-year-old retiree in the 2nd Congressional District, which covers Chicago’s South Side and south suburbs, voted for Jackson over the years because of his work for a third area airport and because of his family’s civil rights legacy, namely his father the Rev. Jesse Jackson. But now she says she won’t vote at all, citing the Blagojevich corruption allegations and affair.
“He was dependable, everybody thought he was a nice guy,” she said. “But things change. We can only take so much.”

The AP reporter needs to be asked to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

A new poll conducted in Illinois 2nd Congressional District finds that incumbent Democratic Congressman Jesse Jackson has a 47-point lead over his closest challenger, and 48 percent of the voters view him unfavorably.

According to the poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners, and paid for by Jackson’s reelection campaign, 58 percent of voters support Jackson, compared to 11 percent supporting Republican Isaac Hayes and 6 percent supporting Green Party candidate Anthony Williams. Twenty-five percent of the voters were undecided a month before the election.

According to the poll, 67 percent of the voters believe Jackson cares about people like them; 63 percent say he gets things done; 58 percent say he has worked hard to make the economy stronger in the district and 54 percent say he shares their values.

If I lived in the District, I’d vote Green for the record.  However, this let’s write a story about how some crappy candidate has a chance against  an incumbent who is in every reasonable mind going to crush the opponent is bad journalism.  See also, too, Jonathan Pollack.

Terry Cosgrove Points Out Bill Brady’s Plans for the Uteruses of Illinois

ArchPundit October 13, 2010 No Comments

At HuffPo Chicago (HuffPo is still on the shit list)

In my 30 years in Illinois politics, I have never seen a nominee for Governor who is more anti-woman and more anti-family than Bill Brady. Bill Brady is not your garden-variety downstate conservative. He is an extreme right-wing candidate and an activist leader in the fight to make abortion illegal, even in the case of rape or incest. He aims to set back women’s rights not just one generation, but several generations.

Where does Bill Brady stand on women’s issues?

• Brady supports a law in Illinois to ban abortion, even in cases of rape or incest.
• Brady supports amending the U.S. Constitution to make abortion illegal with no exceptions.
• Brady supports a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on moral or religious objections, denying patients medicine for birth control, emergency contraception, HIV medications, anti-depressants for post-partum-depression, etc.
• Brady was one of only two legislators to vote against stopping “Drive-Thru Deliveries,” when HMOs were throwing women out of hospitals, against their doctors’ advice, less than 24 hours after delivering a baby.
• Brady was one of only four legislators to vote against the voluntary check-off on the Illinois income tax form for cervical and breast cancer research.
• Brady voted against requiring insurance companies to pay for prescription contraceptive drugs, even when these same companies cover male enhancement drugs.
• Brady has voted against Family Medical Leave, equal pay for equal work for women, and stem cell research.

Brady likes to talk about limited government and small government. Is outlawing abortion for a rape victim, or any woman, limited government intrusion? Is regulating our personal lives, limiting our access to birth control (or to any medication), and dictating under what circumstances we have children limited government? Not in my book, Senator Brady.

Personal PAC is running great commercials as well:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeKThixxYS4[/youtube]

DNC Counsel on Kirk’s Effort

ArchPundit October 13, 2010 No Comments

Exactly:

A ‘voter integrity’ program? However he tries to dress it up, it sounds to me like Mark Kirk is talking about a coordinated campaign of voter suppression in some of Illinois’ best known African American neighborhoods. Indeed, although Republicans continually claim that such voter suppression campaigns are merely intended to prevent voter fraud, conclusive evidence of any systemic fraud in any recent American election has never been found. In fact, a five-year investigation by the Bush Administration into the matter found “virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections.”

The simple truth is this: in Illinois’ neck and neck Senate race, Republicans are trying to pull out a victory not by bringing their supporters to the polls, but by preventing Democratic voters from casting their ballots. The climate may be a little cooler, but this could be Florida 2000 all over again.

The tactics that George Bush and Karl Rove used to steal that election were devastating – not just to our country’s future but also to every voter who cast their ballot in good faith that their voice would be heard, only to have that voice silenced. That a candidate for Senate would explicitly embrace Rove’s brand of dirty politics, and would go so far as to openly endorse and fund the largest voter suppression effort in Illinois in 15 years is shockingly despicable.

The goal of American elections is not to send the candidates who are most willing to play dirty to Washington – it is to enable the American people to exercise their political will by choosing their own leaders. When Republican candidates set out to prevent that from happening, it is not only a perversion of the democratic process, it is an explicit threat to our democracy.  We cannot allow Mark Kirk to profit by undermining our Democratic process. And the way to ensure that he does not is to guarantee that every vote is counted in Illinois.

Unfortunately, Mark Kirk’s attempt at voter suppression is not the first since Florida – there are documented accounts of Republican intimidation of African American voters in Virginia and Hispanic voters in New Mexico, and Republicans illegally removed thousands of qualified minority voters from registration rolls in Ohio, Colorado, and Montana, among other states – but we can help to thwart their attempts at voter suppression by bringing their shady tactics into the light of day.

Mark Kirk’s Budget Disaster

ArchPundit October 12, 2010 No Comments

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDVM4u-53Ow[/youtube]

Let me point out that Kirk’s ‘plan’ involves giving some committee power to cut the budget and to make some small tinkerings around the edge of the federal budget while giving away $700 Billion in tax cuts to the wealthy.

The Vote Fraud Cannard

ArchPundit October 12, 2010 No Comments

A lot of outlets didn’t run with the Kirk audio for good reason–I couldn’t provide many details about the recording so they chose not to go with it. I fully understand and frankly if I hadn’t been able to confirm details I would have done the same.  However, it’s a bit much to give ABC 7 credit (something ABC 7 didn’t do) for breaking the audio—looking at you Huffington Post.

ABC 7  have confirmed the tape is authentic with the Kirk Campaign.

Giannoulias’ campaign has released a list of Republican vote fraud cases over the last few years.  An excerpt:

Voter intimidation in Virginia and New Mexico: In 2006, Virginia legally qualified and registered voters received calls from people claiming to be working for the Board of Elections or Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Webb’s campaign telling them that they were ineligible to vote, their polling place had changed or giving incorrect dates for the election.  [CNN, 11/7/06]  In 2008 the New Mexico GOP sent private investigators to the homes of Hispanic voters to determine whether they were eligible to vote.  [New Mexico Independent, 10/23/08]

Republicans sent to jail for phone jamming: In 2002, Republican Congressman John Sununu won the U.S. Senate race in New Hampshire by just a few points over Governor Jeanne Shaheen after the state GOP hired a Republican firm to jam the Democrats’ GOTV phonebanking efforts on election day.  The Republican culprits were ultimately caught and sent to jail, but John Sununu was still sworn in as Senator anyway.  [Washington Post, 5/17/06]

Illegally purging qualified voters from the registration rolls: In 2004, in several states, most notably Ohio, the RNC orchestrated “voter caging,” the proven unreliable practice of purging voters from the rolls after attempting to send mail to their residences and having it returned.  Republicans used voter caging to challenge the eligibility of tens thousands of voters in urban, heavily Democratic areas.  [Washington Post, 10/29/04; Brennan Center for Justice, 6/29/07]  In 2008, Colorado Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman was sued for purging 16,000 to 30,000 names off of the voter rolls for reasons including confirmation mail being undeliverable.  Many of the names were removed within the 90-day period protected by the National Voting Rights Act.  [Colorado Independent, 10/26/08]  Also in 2008, Montana’s lieutenant governor Republican John Bohlinger lashed out at the state GOP for a scheme to purge thousands of voters from Democratic-leaning counties, and called for the removal of the policies and the people responsible.  Voters targeted for the purge even included decorated veterans, members of the law enforcement and senior citizens, just because they lived in blue counties.  [John Bohlinger Op-Ed, Montana Standard, 10/4/08]

As I pointed out, most of the vote fraud today isn’t double voting or such, but tied to different forms:

• Voter Registration fraud linked to voter registration efforts where individuals are paid by the signature and fake signatures to get paid (i.e. Mickey Mouse).  This is almost always caught by local election authorities and even if it isn’t–someone has to produce an ID of somesort along the way. While you don’t have to produce ID at the polling place, you do before then or if it’s your first time voting.
• Absentee ballot fraud–I mentioned this the other day and provided some examples
• Voter intimidation–note, you actually have to intimidate someone and having the assclowns from the New Black Panther party at a black precinct is stupid and silly, but not intimidation
• Phone jamming and other forms of interference with other campaigns
• Purging voter rolls illegally

I’m sympathetic to saying not all election fraud is by one party, but the ongoing effort to claim large scale fraud at polling places is a joke and has no evidence to support it.

Placing poll watchers is an age old practice and legitimate, but to target black areas to the degree as Mark Kirk announced he was doing is both unproductive given that’s not were fraud happens and telling that the concern is about minority voters and precincts.  Putting people in place to object to voters in areas that are heavily minority is entirely predictable and terribly depressing.  If one believes in rationality of political actors, it makes no sense unless you are trying to do something else.

Freudian slips of jiggering are, of course, English, but also hysterically funny.

And Kirk’s Spokesperson Proves My Point

ArchPundit October 8, 2010 No Comments

So the Wall Street Journal got Kirk’s people to respond to the audio from the other day:

The Kirk campaign denied any racial basis for the program.

“Congressman Kirk supports statewide efforts to combat machine politics and voter fraud that is well-known in Illinois,” read a statement Thursday issued by Kirk spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. “Just this week, two individuals pled guilty to vote fraud in Metro East. Voter fraud dilutes votes and disenfranchises citizens.”

And how would voter integrity at the polls work for Mark Kirk to combat that vote fraud? It wouldn’t.  Why not?

The four men were indicted by a grand jury in September 2009. Allegations in the charges include perjury, marking the absentee ballots of other people, soliciting others to apply for absentee ballots, falsifying applications for absentee ballots, unlawfully observing voting and mutilating election materials.

Suspicions were raised when an unusually large number of absentee ballots were cast in the election.

It’s not at the precinct level that fraud happens when it does happen. It’s in two areas.  First, voter registration fraud is relatively common, though rarely leads to actual vote fraud.   This is most often the result of canvassers being paid by the registration and without a quality control check.  This seldom leads to actual voters voting since the names don’t match credentials or even addresses often.  Second, as was in this  case, absentee ballot fraud still occurs and even though it’s a problem, it’s didn’t even affect the outcome in the election mentioned.  We should find better ways to watch out for absentee voter fraud, but when Mark Kirk talks about precincts, he’s not talking about that. And the only case I’m aware of in Metro East where someone voted twice was when they voted in both Missouri and Illinois.

So when Kirk’s spokesperson says:

The Kirk campaign denied any racial basis for the program.

She’s lying or stupid.  Take your pick.

If Mark Kirk wanted to fight vote fraud he’d be worried about absentee vote fraud–something that happens most often in local elections and is more evenly distributed across the state.

Berrios Not So Loyal

ArchPundit October 8, 2010 No Comments

Actually that isn’t true–he’s very loyal to the idea Royko suggested for the Chicago Motto-Ubi est mea?  Where’s mine.

Lectures about party loyalty are especially hypocritical coming from a guy like Berrios who twice jumped party lines, crossing over to the Republican side to support former Govs. Jim Edgar and George Ryan. Was it principle that made him abandon his party’s nominees, as it is in the case of those supporting Claypool? Sorry, no principles involved. He got some patronage jobs — and he was not the only Democratic committeeman to cut similar deals.

Compare this to when David Hoffman attacked SEIU.  SEIU wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing, yet Hoffman decided to attack a reliable progressive ally as corrupt when there was no evidence of such.  Hoffman was attacking SEIU on a false premise.

Rose sums up the underlying problem with Berrios:

This year’s assessor’s race is comparable to that dramatic year — a battle for the soul of the local Democratic Party, if it can be said to have one. If those who cross over for Claypool help him win, the Democratic Party will ultimately be better off without Berrios, whose venal conflicts of interest reflect the very worst aspects of the machine.

That would be real party loyalty.

Zell On Earth Continued

ArchPundit October 6, 2010 No Comments

The Legendary Fiscal Prudence the Chicago Tribune Ed Board lectures everyone about

Mr. Michaels, a former radio executive and disc jockey, had been handpicked by Sam Zell, a billionaire who was the new controlling shareholder, to run much of the media company’s vast collection of properties, including The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, WGN America and The Chicago Cubs.

After Mr. Michaels arrived, according to two people at the bar that night, he sat down and said, “watch this,” and offered the waitress $100 to show him her breasts. The group sat dumbfounded.

“Here was this guy, who was responsible for all these people, getting drunk in front of senior people and saying this to a waitress who many of us knew,” said one of the Tribune executives present, who declined to be identified because he had left the company and did not want to be quoted criticizing a former employer. “I have never seen anything like it.”

Mr. Michaels, who otherwise declined to be interviewed, said through a spokesman, “I never made the comment allegedly attributed to me in January 2008 to a waitress at the InterContinental Hotel, and anyone who said I did so is either lying or mistaken.”

On our dime:

Mr. Zell’s first innovation was the deal itself. He used debt in combination with an employee stock ownership plan, called an ESOP, to buy the company, while contributing only $315 million of his own money. Under the plan, the company’s discretionary matching contributions to the 401(k) retirement plan for nonunionized Tribune employees were diverted into an ownership stake. The structure of the deal allowed the Tribune to become an S corporation, which pays no federal taxes, making taxpayers essentially silent partners in the deal.

The $8 billion in new loans used to finance the deal left the company with $13.8 billion in debt. But Mr. Zell was convinced that by quickly selling the Chicago Cubs and other assets while improving operating margins, the company could emerge as a valuable property. It was typical Zell: a risky approach to gain control over a large, distressed asset while minimizing his own exposure, something he acknowledged in a company newsletter:

And the trial lawyers are rightfully lining up after reading this:

The new permissive ethos was quickly on display. When Kim Johnson, who had worked with Mr. Michaels as an executive at Clear Channel, was hired as senior vice president of local sales on June 16, 2008, the news release said she was “a former waitress at Knockers — the Place for Hot Racks and Cold Brews,” a jocular reference to a fictitious restaurant chain.

A woman who used to work at the Tribune Company in a senior position, but did not want to be identified because she now worked at another media company in Chicago, said that Mr. Michaels and Marc Chase, who was brought in to run Tribune Interactive, had a loud conversation on an open balcony above a work area about the sexual suitability of various employees.

“The conversation just wafted down on all of the people who were sitting there.” She also said that she was present at a meeting where a female executive jovially offered to bring in her assistant to perform a sexual act on someone in a meeting who seemed to be in a bad mood.

Where The Other Side Might Be Tempted to Jigger the Numbers Somewhat

ArchPundit October 6, 2010 No Comments

Southwest Side of Chicago South and West Side of Chicago (Update)

Rockford

Metro East

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-PMQm_mB1M[/youtube]

You see, only black people try and cheat.

Repeatedly it has been demonstrated that there is no appreciable vote fraud in terms of people voting twice or for someone else so there is one purpose to such an effort–trying to suppress black voters.  That he is only concentrating on areas with significant African-American voting population is pretty telling and disturbing.  There’s your moderate Mark Kirk playing the same old doq whistle politics.

Well, He’s Being Honest

ArchPundit October 4, 2010 No Comments

Brady sticking with Heartland Community College being his only accomplishment in office. It opened two years prior to him taking state office.