LOL...good point.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Incumbent Republican Norm Coleman conceded defeat in the mother of all recounts in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race after the state's Supreme Court unanimously rejected his lawsuit.
Arguably, his seat may have been lost the day in 2006 when Democrat Mark Ritchie defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary Kiffmeyer to become Minnesota secretary of state.
It was Ritchie who orchestrated the recount that gave Democratic challenger Franken a lead some six weeks after Coleman appeared to win by 725 votes on Election Day. Ritchie has extensive ties to the Acorn organization now under federal investigation for vote fraud and was endorsed by the community activist group in 2006.
In 2006, the Minnesota Acorn Political Committee endorsed Ritchie and contributed to his campaign. Other contributors to his campaign included George Soros, along with the likes of Deborah Rappaport, a Saul Alinsky disciple who co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical Acorn clone.
"Mark Ritchie as we all know is a hard-core liberal who was endorsed by Acorn and funded by Acorn," Matthew Vadum, senior editor of CapitolResearch.org, a nonprofit think tank, recently told NewsMax. "It is not surprising that he has a permissive attitude toward the recount process."
Also contributing to Ritchie was James Rucker, the former director of grass-roots mobilization at MoveOn.org and reportedly a co-founder of the Secretary of State Project that played a critical role in this and other elections and will do so in the future.
Ritchie gave partial credit for his 2006 election to the liberal 527 political organization, the stated goal of which is to replace conservative secretaries of state with liberal Democrats.
"I want to thank the Secretary of State Project and its thousands of grass-roots donors for helping to push my campaign over the top," Ritchie said in a posting on the project's Web site.
After recounts in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, both of which were key to Bush victories, the left realized that who is secretary of state is as important, if not more so, as which candidate got the most votes. Control the election process and you control the future.
The Secretary of State Project Web site holds up Katherine Harris of Florida and Ken Blackwell of Ohio as the type of people they want to defeat. Naturally, Ritchie is the sort they want to elect. It was ruling after ruling by the Ritchie-led State Canvassing Board that went against Coleman that put Franken in the Senate.
In 2006, along with Minnesota's Ritchie, the SOS project endorsed and helped elect Jennifer Brunner in Ohio. Democrats supported by the group also won that year in the key swing states of New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa.
In 2008, the group helped fund Democratic victories in Montana, West Virginia, Oregon and Missouri, spending some $280,000, according to the watchdog group Center for Public Integrity.
Brunner will be remembered for refusing in October 2008 to hand over to county election boards some 200,000 names on voter registration forms in which the driver's license or Social Security number on the form did not match the name.
Shortly before the 2008 election, Vadum observed in the American Spectator: "Brunner, a Democrat, has declined to enforce the provisions of the Help America Vote Act that requires her to use a database to allow the verification of 600,000-plus registrations from new Ohio voters." Vadum added: "It's a recipe for disaster, but that's exactly the way her allies at Acorn like it."
If this trend continues, our elections may soon be no more honest than the one recently held in Iran. If the Secretary of State Project and Acorn are allowed to so manipulate the process, there will be more "victories" like Al Franken's to come.
Incumbent Republican Norm Coleman conceded defeat in the mother of all recounts in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race after the state's Supreme Court unanimously rejected his lawsuit.
Arguably, his seat may have been lost the day in 2006 when Democrat Mark Ritchie defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary Kiffmeyer to become Minnesota secretary of state.
It was Ritchie who orchestrated the recount that gave Democratic challenger Franken a lead some six weeks after Coleman appeared to win by 725 votes on Election Day. Ritchie has extensive ties to the Acorn organization now under federal investigation for vote fraud and was endorsed by the community activist group in 2006.
In 2006, the Minnesota Acorn Political Committee endorsed Ritchie and contributed to his campaign. Other contributors to his campaign included George Soros, along with the likes of Deborah Rappaport, a Saul Alinsky disciple who co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical Acorn clone.
"Mark Ritchie as we all know is a hard-core liberal who was endorsed by Acorn and funded by Acorn," Matthew Vadum, senior editor of CapitolResearch.org, a nonprofit think tank, recently told NewsMax. "It is not surprising that he has a permissive attitude toward the recount process."
Also contributing to Ritchie was James Rucker, the former director of grass-roots mobilization at MoveOn.org and reportedly a co-founder of the Secretary of State Project that played a critical role in this and other elections and will do so in the future.
Ritchie gave partial credit for his 2006 election to the liberal 527 political organization, the stated goal of which is to replace conservative secretaries of state with liberal Democrats.
"I want to thank the Secretary of State Project and its thousands of grass-roots donors for helping to push my campaign over the top," Ritchie said in a posting on the project's Web site.
After recounts in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, both of which were key to Bush victories, the left realized that who is secretary of state is as important, if not more so, as which candidate got the most votes. Control the election process and you control the future.
The Secretary of State Project Web site holds up Katherine Harris of Florida and Ken Blackwell of Ohio as the type of people they want to defeat. Naturally, Ritchie is the sort they want to elect. It was ruling after ruling by the Ritchie-led State Canvassing Board that went against Coleman that put Franken in the Senate.
In 2006, along with Minnesota's Ritchie, the SOS project endorsed and helped elect Jennifer Brunner in Ohio. Democrats supported by the group also won that year in the key swing states of New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa.
In 2008, the group helped fund Democratic victories in Montana, West Virginia, Oregon and Missouri, spending some $280,000, according to the watchdog group Center for Public Integrity.
Brunner will be remembered for refusing in October 2008 to hand over to county election boards some 200,000 names on voter registration forms in which the driver's license or Social Security number on the form did not match the name.
Shortly before the 2008 election, Vadum observed in the American Spectator: "Brunner, a Democrat, has declined to enforce the provisions of the Help America Vote Act that requires her to use a database to allow the verification of 600,000-plus registrations from new Ohio voters." Vadum added: "It's a recipe for disaster, but that's exactly the way her allies at Acorn like it."
If this trend continues, our elections may soon be no more honest than the one recently held in Iran. If the Secretary of State Project and Acorn are allowed to so manipulate the process, there will be more "victories" like Al Franken's to come.
There are a few things that are important to note that this artice only glosses over and I think some are in need of a history lesson.
The "Help America Vote Act" came into being as a result of the congressional black caucus demanding a remedy for the disgraceful actions by Katherine Harris' office that denied tens of thousands the right to vote in the 2000 election by (intentionally) erroneously labelling them as felons. Of course the majority of those that were (illegally) denied ballots were black and not going to vote for George W. Bush. This intentional action is what allowed the Florida vote to even be close and why most honest people call that a stolen election. Since most news organzations weren't aware of this devious plan at the time, their model for projecting the result showed Gore would win (Of course Fox news never did that, presumably because they knew what was really going on).
HAVA was written in 2002 by a group of Republicans (that included Jack Abramoff) and included the introduction of the "provisonal" ballot, which was designed to appease the congressional black caucus and remedy the scenario where a legal voter is denied a ballot (for whatever reason). However, a "provisional" ballot is a 2nd class ballot and is not required to be added to the count. It can be rejected on the flimsiest of technicalities at the discretion of the office of the Secretary of State and there is no uniform standard. Anyway, the congressional black caucus thought the worst case scenario would be 100,000 "provisional" ballots in 2004 an they signed off on it.
So what happened in the 2004 election? Over 3 million provisional ballots were handed out nationwide. A staggering figure. One thing that pumped up this number was another despicable (and most likely illegal) tactic employed by the RNC called "voter caging" (look it up if you need to know what that is). It's a tactic to supress votes under the completely bullshit guise of protecting the integrity of the election. On election day, Republican operatives would have voter caging lists and challenge voters on their list as they came to the polls, under a claim that they didn't live at their address (because they weren't home when a piece of registered mail came for delivery). As a result, these "voters" were made to vote "provisionally". Of the 3 million plus "provisonal" ballots, over 1 million were never added to the count. The RNC knows that the more "voters" they can make vote "provisionally", the more votes that can supressed and they don't give a fuck about election integrity (as evidenced by Florida in 2000).
In 2006, while the Republicans still had the majority, they added the part about names and numbers perfectly matching information in the databases. Of course clerical errors aren't uncommon, especially with names from certain ethnicities. It's just another way to force legitimate voters onto provisional ballots. Election integrity has nothing to do with it.
I haven't seen the provisional ballot figures for 2008. I'm guessing it's going to be more than double the 3 million in 2004. The Republicans got their asses handed to them anyway.
Also, for those that believe all the propoganda about ACORN and election fraud, there's been numerous investigations since 2004 and there's never been any evidence that anyone attemped to vote fraudulently or that anyone ever conspired to try to do so. There's been problems with temp workers falsely filling out voter registration applications in order to fool ACORN into thinking they did the work they were being paid to do. In most cases, these people were fired and their names were turned over to the authorities. A number of these individuals have been convicted and some have been ordered to repay to ACORN the pay that they collected. These are the facts. There's been a coordinated effort to distort the facts and con people into believing that election results are being tainted by fraud.
When your name gets tarnished, what do you do?
Change it…
When the term "liberal" became too big an albatross around the necks of the leftists among us, they decided to use the "progressive" moniker. But no matter what they call themselves, most people understand them to be garden-variety socialists.
Now comes word that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is changing its name. But no matter if it's ACORN or COI -- Community Organizations International -- it can run but it cannot hide.
ACORN is under investigation in at least 14 states, Pennsylvania included, for allegations of voter registration fraud. The FBI is involved. ACORN is responsible for 400,000 fraudulent voter registrations nationwide, says Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. And the Obama administration and Democrats want ACORN to have a role in next year's census?
ACORN also played no small part in the subprime mortgage mess, championing loans to those who could not afford them.
And ACORN is involved in a nasty internal mess. An embezzlement scandal of a decade ago, long kept silent, spawned whistle-blowers to act. They're now being threatened with a lawsuit, The Washington Examiner reports. An ACORN affiliate has filed a lawsuit against the voter registration whistle-blower, it says.
So, ACORN is changing its name -- Community Organizations International, or COI. Remember that new name. Remember that new acronym. And beware.
Change it…
When the term "liberal" became too big an albatross around the necks of the leftists among us, they decided to use the "progressive" moniker. But no matter what they call themselves, most people understand them to be garden-variety socialists.
Now comes word that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is changing its name. But no matter if it's ACORN or COI -- Community Organizations International -- it can run but it cannot hide.
ACORN is under investigation in at least 14 states, Pennsylvania included, for allegations of voter registration fraud. The FBI is involved. ACORN is responsible for 400,000 fraudulent voter registrations nationwide, says Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. And the Obama administration and Democrats want ACORN to have a role in next year's census?
ACORN also played no small part in the subprime mortgage mess, championing loans to those who could not afford them.
And ACORN is involved in a nasty internal mess. An embezzlement scandal of a decade ago, long kept silent, spawned whistle-blowers to act. They're now being threatened with a lawsuit, The Washington Examiner reports. An ACORN affiliate has filed a lawsuit against the voter registration whistle-blower, it says.
So, ACORN is changing its name -- Community Organizations International, or COI. Remember that new name. Remember that new acronym. And beware.
It's a misstatement of the facts to intimate that 400,000 fraudulent voters effectively got registered. As far as I'm aware no false registration applications that were submitted turned into actual registrations. In addition, it's my understanding that when ACORN turns in applications to the election officials, they seperate those that are deemed suspect and let them know that they a questionable.
The attempt to get people to believe that there's widespread "voting" fraud is a complete scam.
All good CAS. The few folks pitching that rap are the same ones who are so bored with national politics in summer 2009 that they even make a monthly peep about President Obama being a native Kenyan.
Slot them with the Flat Earthers and the 6500-year old Earthers and get on with your otherwise enjoyable life.
Slot them with the Flat Earthers and the 6500-year old Earthers and get on with your otherwise enjoyable life.
I never read anywhere BO was a native Kenyan, but his Kenyan roots are undeniable & his policies have a 3rd world tinge to them. If Obama continues
on this path who would be surprised in a year or so Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat" could surplant "The Star Spangled Banner" as the National Anthem. Not me!
That the fraudulent voters may or may not have voted is not the issue. That fact that ACORN or COI or whatever they call themselves tried to get the names registered is the issue, thus the investigation in at least 14 states.
Also the fact that Conyers was told by the “powers that be” (his own words) to back off says it all. They are a corrupt organization, there can be no denial.
Just curious, are by chance a card carrying member?
It's an assumption (or misrepresentation) on your part to say that they tried to get these names registered. ACORN claims that on the advice of their attorneys, they submit every single registration application that each of the people they hire to do canvassing turns in. One reason is that it is illegal in some states not to do so. As stated earlier, they supposedly seperate the suspect ones for the election officials that are in charge of actually turning these applications into registrations.
There are certain lying pieces of shit within the hierarchy of the Republican party that deny the public the actual facts for their own purposes of conning others into thinking there's massive fraud taking place and they send out their willing minions in the media and on message boards to advance the lie (and never question it).
As for Conyers, he knows what's going on. I'd be interested in knowing why he's willing to waste resources on investigating something that he knows is a massive right wing lie (and has already been investigated multiple times since 2004). Perhaps it's to expose the lie for all to see.
I've had the offer out for months that anyone can take me up on. If any of those FBI investigations conclude that there was effort to turn any bogus applications into actual votes, I'll not post in this forum for 6 months. If none of them do, those that accept the offer, won't post in this forum for 1 month. I'm going to ammend that offer. Instead of me not posting for 6 months, I'll make it one year. If 5 people take the offer and any of those FBI investigations arrive at that conclusion, I won't post in this forum for 5 years (I actually might as well make it a 100 years since it's one of the biggest lies anyone ever tried to sell).
To date, noone has accepted. Of course, it's possible that those investigations are over and the FBI is too embarrassed that they ever got roped into looking into it to even say they're over.
Both ACORN and MoveOn.org have also been heavily involved in supporting Secretary of State candidates, thus placing allies in a position where they can help swing close elections in their favor.
This strategy has apparently paid off handsomely in Minnesota, where ACORN supporter and former community organizer Mark Ritchie ran the election recount that saw pro-gun incumbent Senator Norm Coleman's slight lead on election night evaporate into a win for supposed funnyman Al Franken. Over 25 voting precincts recorded more votes than there are registered voters, votes that "happened" to be overwhelmingly in favor of Franken.
Mark Ritchie was supported in 2006 by the Secretary of State Project, a so-called "527" organization co-founded by MoveOn.org's director of grassroots mobilization.
http://gunowners.org/op020209.htm
This strategy has apparently paid off handsomely in Minnesota, where ACORN supporter and former community organizer Mark Ritchie ran the election recount that saw pro-gun incumbent Senator Norm Coleman's slight lead on election night evaporate into a win for supposed funnyman Al Franken. Over 25 voting precincts recorded more votes than there are registered voters, votes that "happened" to be overwhelmingly in favor of Franken.
Mark Ritchie was supported in 2006 by the Secretary of State Project, a so-called "527" organization co-founded by MoveOn.org's director of grassroots mobilization.
http://gunowners.org/op020209.htm
What question? I don't see anywhere where you asked me a question. I do see a ridiculously unimportant and irrellevant question that you asked "SmallDaddy". In retrospect, I probably should have cut it out of the quote since it had nothing to do with the part of your post that I was replying to.
I think a legitimate question to ask is if you are intentionally part of the con and know that these Republican talking points are designed to fool the public? Or are you just one of the unknowing saps that they count on to advance the lie on message boards like this?
To answer the irrellevant question that you posed to SmallDaddy, I have nothing to do with ACORN, although I don't see what difference that makes. I'm an independent voter with no allegiance to any political party. I do have an interest in preserving the concept of democracy and have a particular level of disgust for right wing lies that are aimed at suppressing votes under the laughable notion that they are protecting the system from fraud (that doesn't exist).
As shown in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004, It's obvious that a Secretary of State has a great deal of influence on how an election is conducted and counted. It's a harsh reality than many, including myself, don't like. There's too much potential for partisanship trumping fairness. However, this is not new news. As I recall, I predicted that Ohio would go Democrat in the 2008 presidential election in large part because Republican Ken Blackwell (who did everything he could to thwart minority votes in 2004) would be out, and a Democrat would be in charge. One who would make the effort to stop all of the vote supression techniques Blackwell and his cronies used in 2004. My recollection is that you laughed that analysis off.
As far as there being more votes recorded in a number of precincts than registered voters, this could be another attempt to decieve the public of the actual facts. The fact is that Minnesota has what's called "same day registration". Unregistered voters can go to the polls and register and vote on the spot. It would be just like the most devious elements of Republican party to try and fool people with this statement by only counting those that were registered prior to election as "registered" voters.
