Credit Where Due

April 9th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker

Yesterday, I wrote a piece on the right wing's callous double standards regarding election fraud. I stand by my arguments and my critique of their tactics immediately following the apparent victory of the Democrat in Wisconsin's Supreme Court Race. Although I am not walking back any of my statements on arch-conservative John Fund's history of fear-mongering nor letting him off the hook for his still despicable April 7th WSJ column written prior to the stunning discovery of "uncounted votes" favoring the Republican, I need to make a clarification.

Mr. Fund has written a piece in today's WSJ that demands he not be grouped with the other conservatives I went on to expose as crass opportunists in the wake of the "magic vote" affair. He has very clearly stated what so many of his fellow travelers will not.

"Ms. Nickolaus {Waukesha, WI County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus} ought to resign her position out of a sense of shame. An independent investigation is called for, if for no other reason than to clear the air and to recommend procedures to ensure such errors don't happen again. Just as many Wisconsin officials have ignored or downplayed evidence of vote fraud (see the Milwaukee Police Department's 2008 detailed investigation) so too have sloppy election procedures been allowed to fester in some counties.

If the mistake was innocent, it resulted from a lack of transparency. Ms. Nickolaus has long been criticized for keeping her county's election data on private office computers that are not part of the county network. But of equal concern is her decision to no longer report the individual breakdown of results from cities in her county on her office's website. If she had, everyone could have seen that the city of Brookfield was listed as reporting that no votes had been cast. In addition, Ms. Nickolaus's office never reported what percentage of the county's vote had been counted at any point on election night.

Ms. Nickolaus still hasn't provided a full explanation of what happened, but the public deserves answers. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel says she ended the prior clerk's practice of reporting election results for individual cities because it was "not her responsibility" and she didn't "have the staff to enter all the data that's required for such reporting." That is an absurd excuse. Many smaller Wisconsin counties are able to post such data on their websites and provide proper transparency."

Hear hear. I think, as he goes onto posit, it may well be true that there is no actual fraud. Perhaps, the candidate I supported with much passion has indeed legitimately lost this race. I might not like it, but that's not germane. Which was my whole point yesterday. The only reasonable American response is to shine a whole lot of light on Wisconsin. Then certify a result that is confirmed to be true. Either way.

Again, John Fund has argued for justice and fairness. I challenge all the members of the right who have been mocking calls for a full investigative review to grow up. And join him

Impeach Scalia

Jan 5th, 2011

There is a great danger in the casual way the term "impeachment" has been thrown around over the last few years. What's more, to propose impeaching a Supreme Court Justice is and should be almost unheard of. 


It's time to seriously pursue it now. Justice Antonin Scalia has so overstepped the bounds of propriety and into the realm of activist politics that he must be removed from the Court. He is a clear and present danger to the established separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary.


From The L.A. Times:

"Reporting from Washington — 

The decision by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to accept an invitation from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, to speak to incoming House members about the Constitution is drawing fire from some who worry the court is injecting itself into partisan politics.

The meeting "suggests an alliance between the conservative members of the court and the conservative members of Congress," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, who said Scalia had shown "exceedingly poor judgment."

"Poor judgement?" That's a little like saying of someone who has intentionally run over a dog that they "hit the brakes too late." Impeachment is more than justified.

rePUBLICan ENEMY #1, part 3

Jan 3rd, 2011

Rep. Darrell Issa is embroiled in some very recent allegations of financial impropriety out west. Perhaps even bribery...

"Last summer, Issa went on a property-buying spree. In the span of two months, he bought industrial complexes in Oceanside and Carlsbad and a condo overlooking Oceanside Bay. Even his son picked up a home in Vista. 




The Carlsbad complex, however, is at the center of a lawsuit playing out in Los Angeles County Superior Court. A bank lender in Ventura County is accusing a bank of selling Issa the building for at least $3 million less than it should have.

The property is a series of five brand-new buildings near McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. Currently, all but one unit is empty, but they can be rented through Greene Properties, a company that employs Issa’s wife and son. The project was dreamed up by Orange County “new urbanism” developer David Dirienzo, who defaulted on a $36-million construction loan in January 2009. 

The main lender, East West Bank, put the property up for auction but decided not to sell, instead filing a $12-million “credit bid” to hang onto it. Two weeks later, the bank sold the property to Issa’s company, DEI LLC, for $8.5 million"

Rep. Darrell Issa in Washington, D.C.

202-225-3906

Rep. Darrel Issa in Vista, CA.

760-599-5000