Nevada isn't the only place where Chavez-style tactics were used to influence the elections. The New Black Panther Party apparently repeated their thuggish 2008 voter intimidation tactics again this year in Philadelphia and expanded their theater of operations to Houston as well.
It's not just Las Vegas, Philly, and Houston. Disturbing stories of vote fraud, chicanery, and intimidation have come out of North Carolina and numerous other places as well. And this administration's Justice Department has made it clear that they're not interested in protecting the voting rights of anyone except those they look upon with favor.
Mark my words, it will only get worse in 2012. Democracy in America is under attack by people with the ideology, tactics, and goals of Venezuela's Chavistas. Before all you Republicans, constitutionalists, libertarians, and other freedom advocates get too giddy about the electoral turnaround that took place this year, think about all the places and ways that the will of the people was undermined, with varying degrees of success. And start seriously worrying about the next two years. If we don't act to ensure fair and free elections in the future, …
Among the good news in tonight's election returns is the defeat of three true scumbag congresscritters:
Wife beater Charlie Wilson (SD) lost to Bill Johnson (R) in Ohio's 6th district. As SusanAnne Hiller said, "No one likes a wife beater."
Phil "I don't worry about the Constitution" Hare (SD), a total leftist maroon, appears to have been spanked by Bobby Schilling (R) in Illinois' 17th district.
And perhaps most satisfying of all, Alan Grayson (SD), probably the most hate-filled, abrasive, and looney member of Congress, suffered a crushing, humiliating defeat at the hands of Daniel Webster (R) in Florida's 8th district.
Townhall.com has all the House race results live here.
If Harry Reid manages to hang onto his seat, it may be because of Chavez-style politics like this. Contemptible and outrageous.
Just how much strong-arm pressure was there? This much:
On Friday, Western Regional President Tom Jenkin sent out a follow-up email showing a total vote count for Harrah’s properties along with the percentages of employees who had voted at each property. Attached to the email was a spreadsheet showing employee names and at which property they worked. Supervisors were asked to fill in codes explaining why their employees had not yet voted.
The Harrah's employee who forwarded the emails asked not to be identified due to fear of reprisal. The employee said the pressure from upper management was "disturbing."
"We were asked to talk to people individually to find out why they had not yet voted and to fill in these spreadsheets explaining why," the employee said. "I did not feel comfortable doing that."
"It put me in a very awkward position," the employee added, saying the level of coordination between Harrah's upper management, the culinary union, and the Reid campaign was "disgusting."
Add to these thuggish tactics the earlier reports of voting machines controlled by SEIU technicians "pre-selecting" Harry Reid's name, and it's clear that Nevada is politically a banana republic, where instead of free and fair elections, they have a sham democracy.
A few years ago, Hugh Hewitt wrote a book called If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat. Although tonight is shaping up as a powerful nation-wide repudiation of the Socialist Democrat agenda, there are still many close races. And it's a pretty safe bet that the Socialist Democrats will win some of those — because they cheat.
Perhaps you’re having a tiny last minute qualm about voting Republican. Take heart. And take the House and the Senate. Yes, there are a few flakes of dander in the fair tresses of the GOP’s crowning glory—an isolated isolationist or two, a hint of gold buggery, and Christine O’Donnell announcing that she’s not a witch. (I ask you, has Hillary Clinton ever cleared this up?) … Better to have a few cockeyed mutts running the dog pound than Michael Vick.
I take it back. Using the metaphor of Michael Vick for the Democratic party leadership implies they are people with a capacity for moral redemption who want to call good plays on the legislative gridiron. They aren’t. They don’t. The reason is simple. They hate our guts.
They don’t just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody’s guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.
Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.
Whence all this hate? Is it the usual story of love gone wrong? Do Democrats have a mad infatuation with the political system, an unhealthy obsession with an idealized body politic? …
No. It’s worse than that. Democrats aren’t just dateless dweebs clambering upon the Statue of Liberty carrying a wilted bouquet and trying to cop a feel. Theirs is a different kind of love story. Power, not politics, is what the Democrats love. Politics is merely a way to power’s heart. … And politics comes with that reliable boost for pathetic egos, a weapon: legal monopoly on force. If persuasion fails to win the day, coercion is always an option.
…
This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.
You heard the man. If you haven't voted yet, you know what you have to do. Go to the polls. File that restraining order.
I wish I'd learned sooner about Operation Black Storm. I've already donated to several of their 16 candidates individually. Now, belatedly, I've donated to the organization. Why? Because I think more Frederick Douglass Republicans is exactly what this country needs. I'd love to see a bunch of these candidates win tomorrow, go to Washington in January, and form the Frederick Douglass Caucus of the Black Congressional Caucus. Just imagine — ideological diversity in the BCC!
Click the link above. Or watch the video below, and then click the link.
If you can spare a few bucks, help out Operation Black Storm. I don't think they're going away after this election. In fact, I think this organization may have a bright future. I certainly hope so.
On Friday, President Obama appeared at a rally in Charlottesville, VA, for Rep. Tom Perriello. Americans for Prosperity volunteers were on hand to offer free "Socialism Isn't Cool" bumper stickers to the Obama/Periello fans waiting to get in. They didn't have any takers. It seems that most (if not all) Obama/Periello fans think socialism IS cool. Watch the video.
The next day, there was a rally for Perriello's challenger, state Sen. Robert Hurt, and AFP volunteers putting up signs drew the ire of some Perriello supporters. To put it mildly. Watch the video.
There are few things less appealing in a person than the combination of arrogance and stupidity. This morning, appointed Senator Michael Bennet (SD-CO) called into the popular Peter Boyles Show on 630 KHOW and demonstrated this fact for a sizable Denver drive-time audience to hear.
I'm guessing that in less than three minutes, Bennet cost himself hundreds, maybe thousands, of votes. Have a listen.
Crowd estimates are notoriously problematic, typically all over the map, and ultimately not very meaningful. Especially when you're comparing estimates for two very dissimilar events. For instance, an event where people came at their own expense from all over the country to hear Glenn Beck and a few others speak versus essentially a rock concert featuring big-name bands to which Arianna Huffington, Oprah Winfrey, several big unions, and numerous colleges and schools provided free transportation from numerous East Coast locations — those are pretty dissimilar events.
The reporting of crowd estimates, however, can sometimes be interesting. For instance, in August CBS News claimed that 87,000 people attended Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally (by far the lowest estimate). Today, they breathlessly proclaimed that 215,000 attended the Stewart/Colbert "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" and pointedly made the comparison to the Beck rally.
OK, let's compare a couple of pictures. Freeper keypro has shots of each crowd side by side. They're not at the same location, which complicates the comparison. But he or she has put a map below them with ovals outlining the area covered by each photo, and that helps. Go ahead, take a look. Compare the pictures. Compare the area covered by each. Zoom in, if your browser permits.
I'll wait until you get back.
. . .
Now you tell me — does the crowd in the Stewart picture (on the right) look 2.5 times as big as the crowd in the Beck picture? Heck, does it even look as big? Even close? (OK, maybe close. Like I said, it's problematic.)
Personally, I think CBS is still operating from the Dan Rather playbook. "Fake but accurate."
Lisa Murkowski is a full-fledged member of the bipartisan ruling class that Angelo M. Codevilla described so well in his critically important American Spectator article. As such, she believes not only that she's entitled to rule, but that her subjects don't even have the right to make fun of her. Free speech be damned.
Murkowski doesn't have access to SEIU goons to do her dirty work, so she relies on $1000/hr. lawyers to intimidate and silence her critics. On Friday, Sarah Palin told the tale on her Facebook page (emphasis added):
Yesterday, Lisa Murkowski’s hired guns threatened radio host Dan Fagan, and more importantly, the station that airs Fagan’s show, with legal action for allegedly illegal “electioneering.” The station, unlike Murkowski, who is flush with millions of dollars from vested corporate interests, does not have a budget for a legal defense. So it did what any small market station would do when threatened by Beltway lawyers charging $500 to $1000 an hour – they pulled Dan Fagan off the air.
Does all this sound heavy handed? It is. It is an interference with Dan Fagan’s constitutional right to free speech. It is also a shocking indictment against Lisa Murkowski. How low will she go to hold onto power? First, she gets the Division of Elections to change its write-in process – a process that Judge Pfiffner correctly determined had been in place without change for 50 years. She is accepting financial support from federal contractors, an act that is highly questionable and now pending before the FEC. And today, she played her last card. She made it clear that if you disagree with her and encourage others to exercise their civic rights, she’ll take you off the air.
The concept of “electioneering” involves several issues, but typically refers to campaigning at the polls, which is appropriately banned. Under federal law, it can also mean paying for advertising on broadcast media during a federal election cycle, and it requires disclosures if done by groups and corporations. Fagan used satire to mock Murkowski’s write-in efforts and encouraged Alaskans to run as write-in candidates. That is not illegal. That is free speech.
Individuals like Dan Fagan have a fundamental right to speak their minds without threats from the incumbent Senator from Alaska. It is hard to find a constitutional right Americans cherish more than the right to free speech. This was a right Joe Miller, as a decorated combat veteran – a tank commander tested in battle, was willing to die to defend. Dan Fagan has not always agreed with me, but I will gladly defend his right to speak freely on his radio show, which he has often used to criticize me. In fact, Fagan has actually used his radio show to attack and insult me, my husband, my children, and my family in just about every way possible. He was especially insulting to my son, who left for a war zone to defend Fagan’s right to attack our family. But when I was his governor, I never would have dreamed of threatening his right to free speech. I support him in this fight because this D.C. Beltway thuggery, as exemplified by Lisa Murkowski’s latest threat, is ruining our country. The powers that be want ordinary Americans to sit down and shut up and let the ruling class ride us right off the debt cliff we’re heading towards with Obama, Pelosi, and Reid steering the nation’s car. We can’t let them. Now is the time to put aside our past differences and stand up to the establishment powers.
This whole episode confirms again why we need to elect Joe Miller. Lisa, you can sue me if you want (you won’t be the first). But I will not be intimidated from speaking my mind. Your intimidation just empowered us liberty-loving Alaskans. Are you really that out of touch?
Fortunately, Murkowski's thugs in pinstripes were too late. With some help from Dan Riehl's post at Big Government (which tells the story of the shameful election law subversion that led to this effort) and various bloggers, Fagan's call for more write-in candidates had the desired effect before he could be silenced. Riehl has the complete Alaska Division of Elections list of candidates for Senate and the story of how it came to be so large in a matter of hours just before the deadline.
Murkowski may have succeeded in getting election workers to distribute a list of write-in candidates to voters, but her name will be one of 148 on that list. Heh, indeed.
A month ago, Vice President Joe Biden, who always seems to know the wrong thing to say and then says it, uttered my favorite quote from this election season:
This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is the Republican Tea Party, no this is a different deal, guys. This is not Bob Dole. This is not Howard Baker.
No doubt the silver-tongued Biden intended that as a dire warning, a wake-up call to his troops. But I’ll bet that millions of Americans reacted with a grin and thought, “I sure hope he’s right!” I know I did.
Recently, Dick Morris affirmed Biden’s point and expanded on it (emphasis added):
A fundamental change is gripping the Republican grass roots as they animate the GOP surge to a major victory in the 2010 elections. No longer do evangelical or social issues dominate the Republican ground troops. Now economic and fiscal issues prevail. The Tea Party has made the Republican Party safe for libertarians.
There is still a litmus test for admission to the Republican Party. But no longer is it dominated by abortion, guns and gays. Now, keeping the economy free of government regulation, reducing taxation and curbing spending are the chemicals that turn the paper pink.
It is one of the fundamental planks in the Tea Party platform that the movement does not concern itself with social issues. At the Tea Parties, evangelical pro-lifers rub shoulders happily with gay libertarians. They are united by their anger at Obama’s economic policies, fear of his deficits and horror at his looming tax increases. Obama’s agenda has effectively removed the blocks that stopped tens of millions of social moderates from joining the GOP.
There is an "otherness" about Mr. Obama, the sense that he is somehow not truly American. …
But Barack Obama is not an "other" so much as he is a child of the 1960s. His coming of age paralleled exactly the unfolding of a new "counterculture" American identity. And this new American identity—and the post-1960s liberalism it spawned—is grounded in a remarkable irony: bad faith in America as virtue itself, bad faith in the classic American identity of constitutional freedom and capitalism as the way to a better America. So Mr. Obama is very definitely an American, and he has a broad American constituency. He is simply the first president we have seen grounded in this counterculture American identity. When he bows to foreign leaders, he is not displaying "otherness" but the counterculture Americanism of honorable self-effacement in which America acknowledges its own capacity for evil as prelude to engagement.
…
Among today's liberal elite, bad faith in America is a sophistication, a kind of hipness. More importantly, it is the perfect formula for political and governmental power. It rationalizes power in the name of intervening against evil—I will use the government to intervene against the evil tendencies of American life (economic inequality, structural racism and sexism, corporate greed, neglect of the environment and so on), so I need your vote.
"Hope and Change" positioned Mr. Obama as a conduit between an old America worn down by its evil inclinations and a new America redeemed of those inclinations. There was no vision of the future in "Hope and Change." It is an expression of bad faith in America, but its great ingenuity was to turn that bad faith into political motivation, into votes.
But there is a limit to bad faith as power, and Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party may have now reached that limit. …
According to researchers at UCSD and Harvard, people "with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults." But only if they were also "socially active during adolescence." So there's a gene variant that predisposes people to liberalism.
Rush Limbaugh calls it a genetic defect. I'd have to agree. It clearly seems to impair reasoning ability and higher cognitive functions. 🙂
Famed Hollywood director David Zucker (Airplane, Naked Gun, Naked Gun 2.5, Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4, An American Carol) has created a hilarious spoof of Barbara Boxer's "call me Senator" moment. Enjoy, and then share it with your friends in California. After Nov. 2, I hope we'll soon be calling her "ex-Senator."
HT: Patterico, who also has some good commentary on those lopsidedly Democratic polls out of California — and David Aitken, who passed along the Patterico link.
