Where are the Federal charges? José Antonio Ramirez-Velázquez, 47, is expected to be formally charged Friday with making a material false statement when registering to vote, a 90-day misdemeanor, in 39th District Court in Roseville, state Attorney General Bill Schuette and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson say in a Thursday press release. “The right to vote is sacred and must be protected for all American citizens,” Schuette says in the release. “Strict enforcement of state election laws preserves the integrity of our democratic system.” The fraud came to authorities’ attention in December when Ramirez-Velázquez told police and U.S. Border Patrol agents that he had voted in federal elections, officials say. Investigators confirmed Ramirez-Velázquez’s status as a Mexican citizen, officials say. His alleged illegal registration allowed him to vote in elections in November 2004, 2006 and 2008.”
“A Roseville man who is a Mexican citizen has been charged with voter fraud for registering to vote here, according to state officials.
Author Archives: J Christian Adams
Invoking “blood libels”, Rep. Jim Cooper proposes “right to vote” constitutional amendment
Tennessean reports: Convinced that the right to vote for all citizens isn’t fully protected
under law, U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, is planning a long-shot
proposal to add a 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
However, so distressed by voter ID and other election integrity issues, one of the few remaining Blue Dog Democrats resorted to racial epithets and murderous blood libels in his speech. This demagoguery was used in an apparent attempt to raise the racial temperature of the audience and justify the need for this Amendment. He compared the current environment to the “blood libels” of the past which raised the specter of false accusations against religious minorities, usually the Jews, that led to arrest, torture and murder of people by mobs.
Candor was on full display when he read off the lexicon of derogatory words to prove a point on hate speech and protection. “As civilization advances, the list of protections grow,” Cooper said. “We need protection against blood libels like…”
He
concluded the sentence by uttering eight epithets, including the n-word
and derogatory terms for women, Mexicans, homosexuals, Native Americans
and the disabled. Then he added: “Equality under the law is the slow
triumph of hope over history.”But some in the audience were taken aback by Cooper’s word choices.
Poll: 1 in 3 Voters Say Armed Revolt May Be Needed
This is why free and fair elections that are untained by fraud are so essential: “Poll: 29% of Registered Voters Believe Armed Revolution Might Be Necessary in Next Few Years.” Free and fair elections are essential to establish the consent of the governed and act as a steam valve for these unsettling views captured in the poll.
“ACU: Senate Campaign Finance Bill Kills Free Speech”
Newsmax reports on the reaction of the American Conservative Union to the latest campaign finance bill filed in the Senate.
The American Conservative Union Thursday called for the Senate to reject
a bipartisan campaign finance bill introduced this week, saying it
“infringes on freedom, privacy, and free speech” and “inhibits political
discourse.”
The legislation was introduce Tuesday by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron
Wyden and Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The two wrote in a Dec. 27 Washington Post
piece that the bill’s intent would be to prevent the American people
being from “forced to suffer through another election cycle filled with
anonymous sleaze and innuendo.”
Murkowski is a new believer to campaign finance “reforms” after her near death experience in her last Alaska race. The Senate seat that she believes belongs to her family name was actually competitive where she was **gasp** challenged in the primary and general election.
At the Huffington Post, Murkowski was quoted as saying:
We’ve all had to go through an election,” Murkowski said. “Some of us
have been the beneficiary of some of this independent expenditure
activity. Some of us have been on the receiving end of some pretty
directed campaigns.”
She was on the receiving end. That sort of challenge to incumbency must stop!!
The ACU response?
The American Conservative Union Thursday called for the Senate to reject
a bipartisan campaign finance bill introduced this week, saying it
“infringes on freedom, privacy, and free speech” and “inhibits political
discourse.”
The legislation was introduce Tuesday by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron
Wyden and Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The two wrote in a Dec. 27 Washington Post
piece that the bill’s intent would be to prevent the American people
being from “forced to suffer through another election cycle filled with
anonymous sleaze and innuendo.”
A press release from the ACU, however, said the bill “deprives every
American citizen of the rights to support causes of their choice without
fear of retribution from their bosses, neighbors, or government
officials.”
Chairman Al Cardenas said every time government tries to solve a problem
that doesn’t exist it makes matters worse. “ The McCain/Feingold bill
promised to do away with large sums of money in politics, but the
opposite occurred,” Cardenas said in the release.
“Group wants states to rid voter rolls of the dead and ineligible”
Front page, Washington Times today: On behalf of the nonpartisan American Civil Rights Union, three former U.S. Justice Department attorneys filed lawsuits last week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi seeking an injunction to compel election officials in the two counties to purge all people no longer eligible to cast ballots. . . . Mr. Adams accused the Obama administration’s Justice Department and the attorney general of failing to properly enforce federal voting rights law, which “forces private parties like ACRU to go in and do the job Eric Holder ought to be doing.” Mr. Adams said Jefferson Davis County was targeted because of voter violations there, including at least one case where a ballot was cast by a dead person. In Walthall, he said, the gap between registered and eligible voters was too big to ignore. . . . Mr. Adams pointed to Virginia, which he says has an aggressive and effective voter purging policy, as an example for others to follow. “Malice is not an element to a [voter] violation,” he said. “What matters is whether or not you’re doing your job keeping the rolls clean, and it’s pretty obvious to anyone who can do math, the answer is these places have failed.”
“While the Obama administration pushes to stop people from being purged from voter rolls, a conservative-leaning group is pressing localities to clean up their lists — including suing two Mississippi counties where more names appear on the rolls than there are eligible voters.
But the ACRU says Mississippi, as well as counties and states across the country, can be doing much more to fix their voting roll problems.
Hans Bader Responds to Gary May in Wash Post
Hans Bader has this letter to the editor responding to crackpot University of Delaware Professor Gary May about the Voting Rights Act.
18 Months in Prison for Voter Fraud
Indiana: “A longtime politician was sentenced to 18 months Tuesday for pleading guilty to voter fraud. . . . Michael R. Marshall, 61, of North Vernon, pleaded guilty to three counts in Jennings County and in return, was given half his sentence and nine months suspended. He was a state representative and a longtime Jennings County Democratic Party worker. He was originally charged in October 2011 with 20 counts of voter fraud, 12 counts of forgery and 13 counts of perjury.”
Left Wing Plan to “Scoop Jews” in Florida Redistricting
“A liberal group involved in a lawsuit to make Florida’s congressional districts less partisan engaged in its own partisan efforts by drawing Democratic-heavy Hispanic seats or trying to “scoop” Jewish voters.” United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Wilson
Miami Herald.
This is another example of groups posing as neutral fair redistricting advocates (they even name themselves as such) acting as partisan agents in the process. It demonstrates further that purported nonpartisan redistricting efforts never really are.
But Republicans note that the emails involving Fair Districts leader Ellen Freidin and the consultants show that the plaintiffs’ proposals were drawn to strengthen Democrats, in general, and Wasserman Schultz in particular.
“I just got off the phone with Ellen,” consultant Brad Wieneke wrote in a Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, email to members of the team in discussing Wasserman Schultz’s district.
“They want to scoop as many Jews out of Tamarac and Sunrise as they can,” Wienke said.
Could this be evidence of impermissable racial intent behind the redistricting plan? I suppose it might turn on whether the behavior involves a race. Perhaps United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh speaks to this question. Found at 510 F.2d 512 (2nd Cir. 1975).
Billionaire son of George Soros creates SuperPAC to limit free speech
USA Today reports that once again those with a whole bunch of money to spend on political speech (i.e. Billionaire Soros and his “Harvard educated” son), are now spending a lot of their hedge fund profits on political speech fighting to prevent others from spending their money on political speech. That is the logic of progressive campaign finance reformers. Just so happens 99% of the money will go to Democrats.
The super PAC that Soros co-founded in April last year, Friends of Democracy, plans to double the number of House races — from eight in 2012 to 16 in 2014 — in which it will spend money backing candidates who support stricter campaign-finance laws. And it hopes to double the amount it raises, from $2.5 million last year to $5 million for the 2014 elections.
Breitbart on Section 8 Lawsuits in Mississippi
Breitbart link here. The two lawsuits filed in in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi are part of the ACRU’s Election Integrity Defense Project. The architects of the project include Edwin Meese III, who was U.S. Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and a board member of the ACRU, and J. Kenneth Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State and a member of the ACRU’s policy board.”
“Two Mississippi counties are facing lawsuits filed by the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) that seek injunctions to compel election officials in Jefferson Davis and Walthall Counties to clean up their voter rolls. The two cases could have a nationwide ripple effect if the plaintiffs prevail. . . .
Former U.S. Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams and former DOJ Voting Section Chiefs Christopher Coates and Henry Ross filed the lawsuits on behalf of the ACRU; they claim U.S. census data shows both counties have more active registered voters than there are voting age-eligible residents. . . .
According to the lawsuit filed against Walthall, the county has 14,108 registered voters but only 11,368 age-eligible citizens. This would mean that 124 percent of Walthall’s eligible voters are registered to vote. . . .