bertha lewis – Moe Lane

WFP/ACORN Voter Fraud in Troy, NY.

Not voter registration fraud – which is, by the way, voter fraud – but actual, no-fooling, they-forged-absentee-ballots voter fraud:

Affidavits: Ballot abuse rampant

Dozens of forged and fraudulent absentee ballots from people registered to vote on the Working Families Party line were filed in the Sept. 15 primary elections in Troy, the Times Union has learned.

[snip]

Documents at the county Board of Elections show the fraudulent ballots were handled by or prepared on behalf of various elected officials and leaders and operatives for the Democratic and Working Families parties. A Troy housing authority employee, Anthony Defiglio, who sources said oversees vacant properties for the Troy Housing Authority, also handled many of the fraudulent ballots, according to public records and interviews with voters who said they were duped.

Via Big Government, which helpfully points out that the Working Families Party is another facet of ACORN, to the point where they share current officers like Bertha Lewis and former affiliates like Patrick Gaspard (who is actually working even now with the WFP in local NY politics). This should surprise fewer people than it will; it’s long been an open secret that most of these groups live in each other’s pockets.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Patrick Gaspard = ACORN = SEIU = White House political affairs director.

Just to repeat some of the things alluded to in this article (with some additions):

We know that Patrick Gaspard is the White House political affairs director.
We know that Patrick Gaspard enjoys the trust of the White House to perform sensitive tasks.
We know that Patrick Gaspard is in fact one of the most quietly powerful people in this administration.
We know that Patrick Gaspard was formerly an ACORN higher-up.
We know that Patrick Gaspard was also formerly affiliated with SEIU.
We know that Patrick Gaspard was seen by Big Labor as being a payoff for SEIU’s support.
We know that Patrick Gaspard’s brother Michael represents ACORN (and that ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis kept contact information for Patrick Gaspard).
And we know that links between ACORN & SEIU and ACORN & the White House have been minimized, downplayed, and outright sanitized recently.
What we don’t know yet is whether the White House is going to do the same thing with the ties between SEIU and the White House.

Or whether this administration has ‘full confidence’ in Patrick Gaspard. Which is Dizzy City-speak for ‘He’s cleaning out his desk right now.’

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Rejoice, oh state Democrats: the White House will be interfering in your races.

With all of the delicacy, charm and raw political skill that they showed in trying to get Gov. David Paterson of NY to quit.

White House Is Taking a More Aggressive Role in State Races

WASHINGTON — The White House’s intervention in the race for New York governor is the latest evidence of how President Obama and his top advisers are taking an increasingly direct role in contests across the country, but their assertiveness has bruised some Democrats who suggest it could undercut Mr. Obama’s appeal with voters tired of partisan politics.

[snip]

More than anything, though, the interventions reflect a controlling style of this White House and of Mr. Emanuel, who employed similar hard-ball tactics to recruit candidates when he was running the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In addition to Mr. Emanuel, the White House political director, Patrick Gaspard, and deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, keep close watch on all political races.

Via @PatrickRuffini: bolding mine, and reflective of Erick Erickson’s recent first look at ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis’s Rolodex. One may be forgiven for wondering whether… input on this was sought.

Moving along, disapproving quotes from affected Democrats like Joe Sestak (running against the untrustworthy opportunist Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania), Andrew Romanoff (running against the rather uninteresting appointee Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania (who may or may not have to run away from eventually being named as ‘Governor X’) show up in the article, for all the good that it’ll do them. The President simply must micromanage, you understand; and, given that he’s been told time and again by his own party that his is a political genius not seen since FDR, Otto von Bismarck, and Martin van Buren there’s little incentive for him to stop. Besides, this all comes back to what’s best for the White House, not the individual state Democratic parties. Having Paterson on the ballot guarantees a politically embarrassing loss in New York in 2010; and the White House’s primary interest in Pennsylvania and Colorado is keeping their Senate seats in Democratic hands. If that means signing off on a turncoat and a nonentity, so be it.

I would be sympathetic, but then this is what the Democratic party signed up for. Well, sort of: it was probably expected that the President would be better at it.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.