Archive for October 24th, 2008

Two years ago, Crystal Gail Mangum fabricated allegations that she was “raped” by members of the Duke University lacrosse team at a house party where she performed as a stripper. The case was charged with issues of race and class, but quickly unraveled when it became clear that Mangum’s allegations had no credibility.

With her fabrications, Mangum entered into a criminal conspiracy with disgraced, disbarred ex-prosecutor Mike Nifong in raping the reputations of young men who had committed no crime. With his malicious and unethical prosecution of this case, Nifong burned his name into the history books and the picture of corruption in government. But Nifong’s crimes would not have been possible without the fabrications of Crystal Gail Mangum.

This is not what the McCain campaign needed.  Nor did the Obama campaign need this kind of distraction.  What this girl did was wrong.  That last thing we need is someone deliberately trying to make a campaign, their volunteers or their supporters look like ruthless thugs.

Again, what Ashley Todd did was wrong and she should do the time for committing the crime!  That said she also needs to get whatever mental or emotional help.  Things like this should not be tolerated, but the person committing the crime obviously needs help.

Via Breitbart.com

A McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter “B” scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false and was being charged with making a false report to police, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department’s investigations division. Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.

Todd, who is white, told police she was attacked by a 6-foot-4 black man Wednesday night.

She now can’t explain why she invented the story, Bryant said. Todd also told police she believes she cut the backward “B” onto her own cheek, but did not provide an explanation of how or why, Bryant said.

Todd initially told investigators she was attempting to use a bank branch ATM when the man approached her from behind, put a knife with a 4- to 5-inch blade to her throat and demanded money. She told police she handed the assailant $60 and walked away.

Todd told investigators that she suspected the man then noticed a John McCain sticker on her car, became angry and punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground and telling her “you are going to be a Barack supporter,” police said.

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Found an interesting website on early voting numbers. Dr. Michael McDonald, an associate professor at George Mason University, has compiled information on early voting across the nation. Some interesting stats, and he includes in person early voting numbers for Marion County (unfortunately no other Indiana county is listed)

As of the 23rd, 12,647 in person early votes were cast. This number is likely to dramatically increase as the numbers from the Northside and Southside early voting centers is added to the total and the absentee votes by mail numbers start to flow in. This is 4.3% of the total number of votes cast in 2004 for the general election of which 8% of the ballots in that election were early votes.

Keeping this number in perspective, the 12,647 number is only in-person early voting and does not count absentee by mail votes. Each precinct in Marion County averages roughly 1000 to 1500 total registered voters. So this is the equivalent of about 10 voting precincts voting at 100% turnout. Spread out among all 590 Marion County voting precincts this is about 22 early votes per precinct. In years past, many precincts received maybe 10 or less absentee votes. The GOTEV efforts by both sides in 2008 is likely to double or triple the number of early/absentee votes precincts will receive on Election Day.

Mine and Josh’s favored candidate for President, Fred Thompson, has released this online video today with his thoughts on what an Obama presidency would mean to the United States.

Thanks to Nathan Brindle for the heads up for the YouTube video.

Honestly, Joe Biden is the gift that keeps on giving.  First he says he doesn’t think Barack Obama is prepared to president as “the job” doesn’t lend itself to “on the job training”.  Now he backs it even though he’s Obama’s Veep.  What was Obama thinking when he picked Biden?  Oh, that’s right.  He just wanted McCain to stop pointing out the obvious that he’s not ready to be President.  Turns out McCain doesn’t have to.  Biden does it for him.

I was interested in the numbers released by FSSA regarding the emergency relief that they put together for those Hoosiers affected by the flooding.

FSSA has:

• Provided over 40,000 food stamps

• Processed over 20,000 FEMA applications.

• Utilized over 400 employees, 17,000 hours, 15,000 overtime hours.

• They’ve been working 8am-8pm in many parts of the state.

I am thoroughly impressed. Good thing they have those new fangled things called computers. And thank goodness it looks like Mitch Daniels will be re-elected. Jill Long Thompson and her lackey John Cardwell (or is it the other way around?) have vowed to end this modern process and return to the days of handwritten applications and the typewriter.

Congressman Steve Buyer released his campaign fundraising results revealing he continues to hold a huge 800 to 1 cash advantage. Yeah, 800 to 1.

The report showed that Steve Buyer has $816,625 in cash on hand compared Nels Ackerson who had $1,446 for the period between October 1st and October 15th.

According to the FEC report filed October 23, 2008 which covers the period of October 1 – October 15, 2008:
Cash on Hand:
Ackerson: $51,446 (also shows $50,000 in debts)
Buyer: $816,625

Congressman Buyer’s campaign manger, Jon Clark had this to say:

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A while back, I blogged about the interesting pile of money Baron Hill seemed to come into according to his 2007 personal financial disclosure statement.

Recently, with all of the talk about millionaires in the campaign ads, I went back to look again at Baron’s financial disclosures and his tax returns. Credit where due; Baron has disclosed his tax returns for the time he has been in Congress (Sodrel has not, but that’s immaterial here).

I started out intending to nitpick one of the DCCC ads attacking Mike Sodrel and somehow ended up looking at personal finance reports and then tax returns for Baron Hill instead.

What’s interesting, though, is when you place Baron’s tax returns side-by-side with his personal financial disclosure statements for those same years.

They don’t match up.

That’s a big problem, because it means that one or the other would have to have been falsified by very definition for them not to match. Assuming that the personal financial disclosure statements were falsified (because I doubt that Baron would put the wrong information on his tax returns), that subjects him to all manner of penalties under the House ethics rules and various laws.

The forms themselves, signed by Baron Hill, note that a violation of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 results in a fine of more than $10,000 (likely) or even jail time (unlikely).

Anyway, onward to the issue at hand.

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Via Hot Air:

The vote on SB2165 and Obama’s continuing efforts to keep laws in place to prosecute victims demonstrate that Obama has tried hard to mislead voters on his hostility towards gun ownership.  He was in the minority of his own party on this issue.  That makes him an ideologue, not a post-partisan moderate.

Obamassiah, indeed:

At a Barack Obama rally in Indianapolis today, U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, D-9th, called Indiana the “Moses of national politics.”

“We’ve been wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years,” he told a crowd of more than 20,000 people. “Now is our time. Now is our place. Barack Obama will be the United States president and Indiana will take him over the top.”

Hill also said it was the biggest crowd he’d ever spoken to and it made him “a little nervous.”

What a wonderful, and very public, way to help roll out Mike Sodrel’s newest ad:

I’m sure video of Baron’s remarks about his own personal prophet will show up on YouTube before long.

I’ll post them when they do.