Bad Time: the Wee Hour Speed Vote in Wisconsin - the Hard Questions

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
Theophrastus (372 BC - 287 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

UPDATE:  I'm adding the video for the voting, so that readers can view it for themselves, and see how extraordinarily brief the actual few seconds of the vote were. It seems probable that the Republicans had decided between themselves to do this in this way, to deprive Democrats of voting.


On Friday, February 25, 2011 the Republican majority in the Wisconsin State House of Representatives passed a bill at 1 a.m. in a manner of seconds, cutting off some Republicans and most of the Democrats in an effort to prevent them from voting. Twenty-eight representatives were present, and attempting to register their vote, most of them Democrats.  All of those twenty-eight were elected to represent Wisconsin citizens, who were denied that representation by Republicans and Tea Partiers.

Let me be clear - it was not fair for Democrats to rush through legislation in previous years without time for discussion and debate.  To your credit Republicans, you did allow that.  But the Democrats did allow everyone present to vote in a reasonable and properly declared time, and by that measure, they were far more fair than you were, by a large margin.

Why do it? What was the purpose of such a move?

A New Era of Dirty Tricks by the Right Wing - Nixon Era Redux?

The more things change, the more they remain... insane.
Michael Fry and T. Lewis,
Over the Hedge,
05-09-04

According to the American Bar Association, in their Law Journal in an article

Law Firms
E-Mails Suggest Law Firm Considered ‘Dirty-Tricks’ Plan to Discredit Chamber Critics
Posted Feb 15, 2011 7:40 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The Hunton & Williams law and lobbying firm considered proposals from three data security contractors to undermine opponents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, according to e-mail released by hackers angered by the CEO of one of the security firms. 

The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have stories on the e-mails, first revealed last week by the liberal blog ThinkProgress. According to the Post, the e-mails reveal plans for a “dirty-tricks-style campaign” against Chamber critics. The security firms, which called themselves “Team Themis,” hoped to win a $2 million Chamber contract with their proposals.

Hunton & Williams declined to comment when contacted by the Washington Post. According to ThinkProgress, the law firm earned $1.1 million from the Chamber in 2009.

It OUGHTA Be A Crime!

Yesterday, our press-hungry, tea-party-base-pandering, 2012 Presidential-candidate-wannabe Governor, Tim Pawlenty, proclaimed that he "suspected" that felons would more likely have voted for Al Franken than Norm Coleman.

Panther, Panther Burning Bright, in the Politics of the Night

collegiate Bill and Hillary;

the logo of the original Black panthers, founded 1966

"The force of what was called Panther rhetoric or word mongering resided not in elegant discourse but in strength of affirmation (or denial), in anger of tone and timbre. When the anger led to action there was no turgidity or over-emphasis. Anyone who has witnessed political rows among the Whites will have to admit that the Whites aren't overburdened with poetic imagination."
- Jean Genet

French political activist, wanderer and petty criminal,

poet, author, avant-garde playwrite, essayist
1910 - 1986
I came across this little gem on politifact.com earlier today:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/feb/15/chain-email/she-did-not-help-the-black-panthers/

It turns out, this is not the first time someone has tried to use a false accusation linking the Black Panthers to a powerful political figure as a discrediting tactic.

It was also tried with Hilary Clinton, back on January 24th, 2008.

I offer this in support of my claim about racism and racist fears, and attempts to manipulate an unwitting or too-trusting political base on the right with it. This time the story was about the original Black Panthers; Hillary was their contemporary, a law school student at Yale.

The intentionally-false-story went:

"Hillary's main extracurricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent," ......

The Right Words

"If words are to enter men's minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men's defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds."
- J. B. Phillips
British Biblical translator, writer, clergyman
1906 - 1982

"In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better."
- Edward de Bono
Maltese physician, inventor, professor, author and consultant; originator of the concept of lateral thinking
1933

"Deception is a cruel act... It often has many players on different stages that corrode the soul."
~ Donna A. Favors


On Thursday evening March 4th comedic genius Stephen Colbert presented an especially cogent mini 'Tip of the Hat' segment on the Colbert Report in which he demonstrated the kind of extreme editing and outright fakery used by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles in creating the false and misleading 'ACORN' sting videos. That it also made fun of the folly of Sean Hannity of Fox News on Hannity's own set added to the effectiveness of the send up, while emphasizing the underlying truth of Colbert's criticism of both O'Keefe and Hannity.

www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/265498/march-04-2010/tip-wag---james-o-keefe---sean-hannity

Saturday evening, March 6th, at the California Republican Assembly Convention, an event that the late President Ronald Reagan called "the conscience of the Republican Party", James O'Keefe and his partner in crime, Hannah Giles, were to be presented with the Ronald Reagan Freedom Fighter Award for their videotape 'stings' of ACORN. This can reasonably be construed as a 'right wing' gala event, the 'right' of the title of this essay 'Right Words', which is all about wrong words, lies, deceptions, fraud and misrepresentations.

So, why reward O'Keefe and Giles, not only with this award, but with wider spread right wing adoration?

For the same reason that so many other right wing prominent political figures have come out against ACORN. They hate ACORN for having been effective in registering voters from lower income and disadvantaged areas who vote largely Democratic, and for the support of associated causes.

The criticism of ACORN for a number of problems, both with internal issues including embezzlement of funds, and with a very small percentage of their voter registration drives, criticism by both the left and the right, is well deserved. Some of the ACORN voter registration drive efforts were badly supervised, and I personally have a serious objection to funds going to an organization that has a past of covering up embezzlement. But I don't believe that ACORN has been proven to have altered the outcome of elections, or many of the other claims against it.

Overall, about 5 to 7% of ACORN's voter registrations have had to be further checked, with about 1% actually being rejected as either duplicate or false. That percentage is higher than the success rate for other voter registration groups, but not excessively so. Those 'bad' voter registrations are caught through the various cross referencing methods used to validate the voter registration data base in every state. Anyone who wants to know exactly what the validation methods are in their state can determine that with a quick phone call or email to their own state administration for that data base. It is a matter of public record, and I encourage people to make their own inquiries.

The RNC has sent out many fund raising solicitations over the signature of chair Michael Steele, both by email and snail mail, incorrectly claiming voter fraud, not just voter registration fraud or failures by ACORN. The RNC and a number of prominent conservative politicians, media talking heads, and bloggers all claim an unprecedented and unprosecuted theft of elections from the right by this voter fraud. They specifically blame ACORN, they specifically target ACORN because they need someone, something, to blame for their losses.

This is a claim even more loudly advanced by Minnesota 6th District Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has elevated hatred for ACORN into an obsession as unique in intensity as it is inaccurate factually. ACORN is a frequent icon for terrorizing her doner base in Bachmann's fund raising efforts, and a regular target for Bachmann's legislative efforts on behalf of the right. Hannah Giles has included similar completely false, unsupported allegations in the three page solicitation letters she sent out to raise money for her legal defense. There is a lot of money to be made in peddling fear, and anger, and the sting of losing majority power. Further, the right needs a distraction from their own years of bad government when they had that majority power.

Even the December 22, 2009 Report to the Congressional Judiciary Committee prepared by the Congressional Research Service, determined that ACORN has not had a single instance of actual voter fraud resulting from their voter registration efforts (page 1, item number 3).
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/CRS-ACORN091222.pdf
The CRS report was only one of the more recent examination of the charges of voter fraud to find no evidence to support the charges against ACORN by the right; it is not the only report to do so.

So, while there may be a few jokers who fill out a voter registration card as Minnie Mouse or Donald Duck, or even Goofy, none of those people have tried to vote under those registrations. An equal or greater proportion of the problem registrations have been simple duplicates, where there was no attempt to use a fictitious identity. None of the investigations to date have found any pattern of deliberate fraud to alter elections. Problem voter registrations are a nuisance, in some instances they are a crime, but they have never EVER been demonstrated to be significant in the outcome of elections.

But that hasn't stopped the continuing efforts of the right against ACORN. Readers may recall that the New Mexico US Attorney, David Iglesias, lost his job for refusing to prosecute ACORN in that state because there was insufficient evidence of any crime, during the Bush administration attempt to politicize the Department of Justice. The efforts by O'Keefe and Giles are only the latest attack on ACORN by the right.

The latest award to O'Keefe and Giles comes at the end of the week that saw the announcement by the Brooklyn, New York District Attorney at the conclusion of an extensive investigation that there was no basis for any prosecution of ACORN. This despite the attempts by O'Keefe and Giles to portray the Brooklyn ACORN office, and a number of other ACORN locations, as engaging in not just any criminal activity, but child prostitution, in a calculated attempt to engage the emotions of the public. Mere voter registration issues are too boring to get a reaction. They needed to 'sex up' the perception of problems with ACORN.

Except that like the false accusations of voter fraud, there do not appear to, have been any instances of criminal activity, either aiding prostitution or money laundering, by ACORN identified to date. There are other investigations into the activities of both ACORN AND O'Keefe and Giles, resulting from these videos, including one by the California Attorney General. There is a very real possibility of criminal felony indictments resulting from those investigations - charges against O'Keefe and Giles.

There has been a huge media smear of ACORN, but no charges, no proof. To date, only O'Keefe and Giles, and now the Brooklyn, NY District Attorney have seen the uncut, unedited version of the events. O'Keefe and Giles, and their boss Andrew Breitbart have insisted across the internet, and across pretty much the entirety of Fox News and some mainstream media, and social utilities like Youtube through their videos and interviews that their heavily altered and partially faked videos portrayed ACORN assisting them to try to set up a brothel providing the sexual services of underage illegal immigrant girls.

In response to the investigation by the Brooklyn DA, the right has tried to fly the accusation of conflict of interest, along with the usual factual errors they resort to with ACORN claims. One of the best analyses of New York prostitution and money laundering laws explaining factually why the Brooklyn DA did not prosecute ACORN was written by prominent New York attorney Michael J. Gaynor at www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=100305 where he breaks down the applicable statutes line by line as they apply to what ACORN did - and did not do.

There have been multiple investigations, and now there are law suits against O'Keefe and Giles being filed. There may be criminal indictments as well resulting from their videos of ACORN, and appropriately so as they appear to have possibly violated not only the laws of a number of states including Maryland and California, relating to recording without consent, but also possibly the federal statutes against recording people for either tortious or criminal purposes. Some states make a particular point of singling out for penalty not only recording people with or without their consent with the intent of then making the recordings public after altering them to reflect false and negative images, which would seem to be a big problem for O'Keefe and Giles.

Fox News which promoted O'Keefe and Giles is suddenly very quiet on the subject. Andrew Breitbart who employed O'Keefe and Giles, accepted awards with them, and widely promoted them across the media is now claiming he never saw the unedited 'raw' footage, and that he was deceived by O'Keefe and Giles.

I wonder when more of the right is going to catch on that the jig is up. I wonder if the California Republican Assembly will eventually try to take back their Ronald Reagan Freedom Fighter Awards.

I wonder what the Right words on ACORN, O'Keefe, and Giles will be then.

James "the Pimp" O'Keefe

I have one question for conservative fans (or other admirers) of James O'Keefe, the man who stands accused of engineering an attempt to interfere with the lawful conduct of business at Senator Landrieux's office in Baton Rouge, LA.

If you revile liberal bias in the media, if you thought Dan Rather was grossly unprofessional for failing to second source a document which appeared genuine but was in fact was forged (but not by Rather) ...

how do you admire O'Keefe?

How do you reconcile admiration for the fake news he created by doctoring videos, by using distortion and entrapment to put people in the worst possible light, deliberately editing out to exclude allof the exculpatory details, with your anger and antagonism towards Rather?

Rather put his life in harm's way in Vietnam and Afghanistan, in the latter dramatically aiding the Mujahadeen's cause to expect the Soviets. He served as a journalist for 50 years, adhering (generally) to this standard of second sourcing for almost all of it.

O'Keefe, conversely, is the epitome' of bias, is the epitome' of creating a fiction and calling it news, is the epitome of dishonesty and cowardice.

I get that some in the right-wing world of crazies (a very large world indeed), and even a few in the left-wing world of crazies (a sizable enough chunk too), think that bias is unavoidable. But if you think that, then what was your issue with Rather? And if you resent Rather, who didn't CREATE anything fake, simply because he's from the left, rather than the right, i.e. the left version of Fox News, then isn't your issue simply that Rather used what you perceived as dirty tricks. It wasn't the tricks that bothered you, it was simply that it wasn't YOUR dirty trick!

The rest of us look at O'Keefe and see a punk and a thug, perpetrating ugly, fictionalized video.

He apparently intended to disrupt Sen. Landrieux's staff from being able to take calls, so that HE COULD SHOW THEY WERE IGNORING CALLS. That is a setup, it is dishonest. It is what has turned off the rest of the country to your particular brand of screed. It is utterly craven, in this case, criminally so. Bluntly, this little boy fancies himself some sort of savior - journalistic -vigalante. The truth doesn't matter, to him or to the righties who think like him, who reward and employ him, and who celebrate him - so long as his side 'wins' in some way. The intent is to harm others for their benefit; nothing else, nothing less.

The bottom line here is that 31 Republican Representatives backed a House Resolution applauding O'Keefe's craven dishonesty when he produced a doctored up distortion about ACORN. He intentionally failed to report on the OTHER, well intended, professional people he encountered; those who told him to 'get lost' when he asked stupid questions about prostitution in a state where prostitution is legal. He FAILED to report the OTHER comments from those he filmed, video which would have painted their comments in a more meaningful and truthful light.

O'Keefe ommitted that footage, and has refused to allow anyone else to see his original recordings, because he never had any interest in the truth.

O'Keefe is scum, but the Republican representatives and their staffers ALSO didn't care. THAT makes them complicit in propping up this pompous would be pimp.

Now as they run for the hills distancing themselves from their pet scumbag's latest work, I have several questions for them.

WHERE was YOUR outrage when he reported about ACORN?
WHERE was YOUR fact checking?
WHERE was YOUR zeal for journalistic professionalism?

You know, like the professionalism you cried foul over, as you chased Dan Rather out of his job?