Tag: corruption

Notorious Democratic Big Data shop Catalist accused of violating election law.

Regretfully, I need to add an important caveat to this quote:

[It is alleged that – ML] [a]n influential demographic analysis firm founded and run by Democratic operatives with close ties to Hillary Clinton repeatedly violated federal law in 2014 by coordinating its work with dozens of congressional Democrats and the party’s three major national campaign committees.

The charge was described in a 29-page complaint filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission by the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a right-leaning nonprofit watchdog. Fifteen pages of the complaint were required to list all of the entities the accountability foundation alleged were involved in multiple violations of the Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1971.

…because while I think that of course Catalist vigorously broke the law here,  I happen to be a partisan Republican hack, remember? I’m not exactly what one might call objective, in other words. You could tell me that Catalist was sacrificing baby harp seals to Cthulhu, and my immediate response would be to solemnly call for a special prosecutor in order to get to the bottom of this.

Now, that being said… federal election law is not Byzantine. The Byzantines built bureaucracies that worked for almost a thousand years, thank you very much. No, federal election law is a hot mess that is pretty much designed to look like it’s doing something all reform-like, while still allowing political operatives to run merrily through the ramshackle edifice; while both picking up, and throwing away, money as they go. So, no, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that Catalist might be provably dirty. And neither does it surprise me that Catalist might have gotten sloppy, either.  This Thing Of Ours has a history rich in instructive stories about reasonably smart people who did some very stupid things over campaign contributions. Or with them. Continue reading Notorious Democratic Big Data shop Catalist accused of violating election law.

Former Oregon ‘First Lady’ Cylvia Hayes fights to keep her emails out of the public record.

Protip: when your attempt to block the courts from letting news organizations see your public-service-related emails makes people on the other side of the political spectrum immediately rub their hands and gleefully wonder, Ooh, what’s in the emails? – well, OK. I don’t know what the victory condition could be there, either. The mere fact that you’re fighting a judgement like that will suggest to pretty much everybody that you have something to hide, win or lose.  In other words: it’s a quandary, and no mistake.

Former Oregon first lady Cylvia Hayes declared Wednesday that she will go to court to block a state order requiring her to turn over emails related to her public service… Hayes is under an order issued last week by Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum to turn over to The Oregonian/OregonLive emails dating back three years pertaining to state business. Rosenblum concluded that Hayes was subject to the state public records law.

Continue reading Former Oregon ‘First Lady’ Cylvia Hayes fights to keep her emails out of the public record.

Massachusetts state legislature starts up process for the 2019 Democratic corruption scandal season.

I do not see how this could possibly end badly: “House leaders are preparing a set of new internal rules for floor debate Thursday that would abolish term limits for the speakership, unfettering House Speaker Robert DeLeo of the current restrictions that require him to step down in 2017, two people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.”  According to the Boston Globe, Speaker DeLeo was both a) behind the establishment of term limits (the previous Speaker was, shockingly, convicted for corruption charges) and b) unavailable for comment.  …Imagine my surprise.

No, really, my ability to cope with the universe is now in question.

Via

…and note his expectations, as well. Ryan and I have seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. Entertainingly, if you don’t live in the state in question…

:shaking head: Real shame about Bob McDonnell.

But the man shouldn’t have broken the damn law.

Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison for taking bribes to promote a dietary supplement.

The punishment was far below the 10 years prosecutors initially wanted, but still more than the community service the former Republican governor, his defense team and hundreds of supporters argued for.

Continue reading :shaking head: Real shame about Bob McDonnell.

How Bruce Rauner (R, GOV-ELECT, Illinois) can instantly become a Republican rock star.

I certainly hope that that gets his attention. Or that of his staff. Either will do.

Anyway… once upon a time, in the far-off year of 2004, there was a Republican candidate for Illinois Senator called Jack Ryan. Ryan was widely considered to be an excellent replacement for retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald… right up to the point that the Chicago Tribune got tipped off to some juicy bits in Ryan’s divorce records. The Tribune petitioned to get the records unsealed; a compliant judge complied; Ryan had to withdraw from the race in disgrace, because frankly those bits really were kind of juicy.  Barack Obama went on to win that Senate race.

All of this is relevant because this was not the first time that the Chicago Tribune had gotten divorce records unsealed; during the Democratic primary the paper similarly petitioned to have then-frontrunner Blair Hull’s records unsealed. Blair Hull ended up losing that nomination… to, hey, Barack Obama! Continue reading How Bruce Rauner (R, GOV-ELECT, Illinois) can instantly become a Republican rock star.

Sen. Kay Hagan (D, NC) shows us how to pocket $115K of taxpayer money! YOUR money!

This is almost impressive.

JDC Manufacturing, a company co-owned by Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan’s husband Charles “Chip” Hagan, lowered the total cost of a 2010 stimulus-funded energy project…

Yeah, let me interrupt this, really quickly: turns out that Kay Hagan is materially profiting from that trillion-dollar raid on the Treasury that the Democrats staged in 2009.  Like you do.  Or, more accurately, like cash-obsessed Democratic Senators do when the money is just sitting there, right out in the open.

…but kept all of the savings, sending none back to taxpayers who had funded the stimulus grant.
The company’s original application stated the total project would cost $438,627, and said JDC would contribute “leveraged funds” amounting to $187,983, or 43 percent of the total. As the project reached completion, however, JDC revised the total budget downward by $114,519 and applied all the savings to its share, keeping all the taxpayer funding.

Continue reading Sen. Kay Hagan (D, NC) shows us how to pocket $115K of taxpayer money! YOUR money!

Senator Mary Landrieu (D, Louisiana) flew high on the hog – with YOUR tax money.

I’d love to know what an independent investigation found. Because if Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu’s internal investigation found this…

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu on Friday released the findings of an internal investigation into her travel that found more than $33,700 in campaign flights were charged to her Senate account.

The report found 136 campaign functions were conducted during 43 trips paid for by the Senate office dating back to 2002.

…imagine what total somebody who wasn’t hired by the Senator might have come up with.  Note, by the way: I am explicitly not giving Mary Landrieu the benefit of the doubt over whether she has come up with a full list of all the times her campaign embezzled money for travel… excuse me: ‘engaged in sloppy book-keeping.’  In fact, I will explicitly say this: I expect that she has not, not least because her investigation was truncated: Continue reading Senator Mary Landrieu (D, Louisiana) flew high on the hog – with YOUR tax money.

Possible voter fraud involving Covered California. DEFINITE incompetence in handling it.

For the record, even if this story is true I still do not think that this represents a concerted effort:

A local couple called 10News concerned after they received an envelope from the state’s Obamacare website, Covered California. Inside was a letter discussing voter registration and a registration card pre-marked with an “x” in the box next to Democratic Party.

The couple – who did not want their identity revealed – received the letter and voter registration card from their health insurance provider Covered California, the state-run agency that implements President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Continue reading Possible voter fraud involving Covered California. DEFINITE incompetence in handling it.

Quote of the Day, SIT DOWN And SHUT UP, Washington Post edition.

You don’t get to complain.

IT’S HARD to think of a more tone-deaf political move lately than Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s unveiling of his Common Good Virginia PAC, which peddles dinners and sit downs with Mr. McAuliffe, a Democrat, his wife and unnamed “policy experts” for fat cats with a policy agenda for fees reaching $100,000.

This is what the Washington Post actively connived to get, so live with it.  And nobody gives a [expletive deleted] whether you’re upset or not. Continue reading Quote of the Day, SIT DOWN And SHUT UP, Washington Post edition.

Pennsylvania AG Kathleen Kane (D) threatens to sue newspaper for committing… journalism.

I was going to do a background paragraph on the story, but the first line of this article makes it redundant: “State Attorney General Kathleen Kane has hired one of the most feared litigators in the region, Richard A. Sprague, to represent her in possible defamation suits arising from accounts of her decision to end an undercover investigation that taped at least five Philadelphia Democrats accepting cash or gifts.” Basically, AG Kane shut down the sting operation after being elected in 2012: there is a big brouhaha over whether this was politically motivated.  Well, actually, no: there is a big brouhaha over whether people can prove that shutting down the investigation was politically motivated.  AG Kane is certainly acting like somebody who is nervous about a subpoena.

Yeah, I know: a heck of a thing to say about a state Attorney General. Mind you, as Hot Air points out, this escalated quickly from racism accusations to threatening lawsuits, which is the real reason why people are raising their eyebrows. The problem here is that apparently they’ve got hard evidence that people took bribes: relatively modest ones, but bribes nonetheless. That is not acceptable behavior for politicians. Neither is shutting down an investigation that has this kind of evidence.  Kathleen Kane has a good deal to answer for, including precisely why she is trying so hard to shut down this story…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: The paper is certainly treating this… “During the meeting, Sprague suggested that The Inquirer may have been used by the sources of its stories – “wittingly or unwittingly” as a “weapon” to attack Kane to defend themselves from potential charges of wrongdoing in the management of the probe.” …as a personal threat against them. So would I, frankly.

PPS: Tom Corbett may be, by the way, the luckiest governor in the US right now.  Assuming that he has the mother-wit to come down upon this story like a hammer from orbit.