Ohio Nun Pleads Guilty to Voter Fraud; Voted Absentee On Behalf of Deceased Nun
Imagine if you will that in last fall's presidential election -- in a crucial swing state no less -- that the widow of an evangelical pastor voted for her late husband via absentee ballot, committing voter fraud and arguably also violating federal mail offenses in the process. While the story of her prosecution would probably not be headline news, it's hard to imagine a complete or near-total media blackout on the story.
And yet that's exactly what happened in the case of Sister Marguerite Kloos, a Cincinnati nun who pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a Hamilton County, Ohio, court of voter fraud. While the charge carried a maximum 18-month prison term, Kloos was instead remanded to a "diversion program" and if she maintains good behavior, her record will be wiped clean, Cincinnati.com's Kimball Perry reported.
In Cincinnati, Three ‘Improper Voting’ Charges Include a Poll Worker and a Nun
It will be interesting to see how much national play this story gets. My guess is: "little."
Following up on a matter on which I initially posted last month, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported yesterday that the prosecutor for Hamilton County, Ohio, where the county seat is Cincinnati, is bringing charges related to improper voting against three people – including a longtime poll worker and a nun. In connection with the poll worker, reporter Sharon Coolidge notes something that should earn today's prize for inadvertent deadpan humor (in bold):
Imagine That: Voter-Fraud Allegations Against Hamilton County, Ohio Woman Who May Have Voted Six Times
UPDATE: The post has been revised from its original presentation to reflect the fact that the Cincinnati Enquirer covered the story but chose not to identify the person involved, even though her name is a matter of public record.
On Wednesday, local Cincinnati TV station WCPO did a report (HT John Fund at National Review via Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's blog) on how "The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud" (Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County).
The most potentially outrageous case involves Melowese Richardson, who "admits to voting twice in the last election." Even though "she has worked the polls since 1988," she offered a hopelessly lame excuse for the multiple vote. She may also have voted four additional times under others' names, and also appears to have helped her granddaughter vote twice. Excerpts concerning Ms. Richardson's alleged voter fraud, which the left insists never, ever happens, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Not News: Federal Judge Tosses Sore Loser Former Congressman’s Claim Against Susan B. Anthony’s List
It's not very often that a federal judge begins a ruling by saying that "Sometimes even a person with excellent vision does not see the forest for the trees." That happened yesterday in a case involving former First District Democratic Congressman and sore loser Steve Driehaus, whose district mostly comprised the western two-thirds of Cincinnati's Hamilton County. Yet it's not news at Gannett's Cincinnati Enquirer -- or anywhere else, for that matter.
After his 2010 defeat at the hands of Republican Steve Chabot, Driehaus sued the Susan B. Anthony List in federal court for defamation and -- get this -- "loss of livelihood." Why? Because, during that campaign, SBAL told Driehaus's constituents -- correctly, it has since been proven -- that his vote for ObamaCare was a betrayal of his pro-life principles. Yesterday, despite his obvious conflict of interest as former president and director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati, Judge Timothy Black, a Barack Obama appointee, found a way to do what he should have done in the first place, and rejected Driehaus's nonsense.
Gannett’s Journal-News in New York Defends Publishing Gun Permit Holders’ Names and Addresses
Here's another entry for the "They can dish it out but can't take it" file.
Jammie Wearing Fool is reporting, with supporting links, that Editor CynDee Royle at the Journal News headquartered in White Plains, New York, which on Saturday, as noted on Monday at NewsBusters, published an interactive map showing the names and address of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland Counties, has taken down her Facebook page and made her Twitter account private (the latter may have been the case before the article was published). The paper has also recognized the outrage the published map cause, is offering a truly lame defense, and claims it didn't get everything it wanted (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
MSNBC & Others Hype PolitiFact’s ‘Lie of the Year’ Award For One of Romney’s Accurate Campaign Ads
There has been no shortage of deceptive ads, factually-distorted statements, and outright fabrications from the political left over the campaign year to choose from, but leave it to the Tampa Bay Times's PolitiFact to give its "Lie of the Year" award to the Romney campaign. The now infamous "falsehood" in question was Romney's claim that Jeep was planning on moving production of some of its vehicles to China. This was in fact technically true, but PolitiFact trademarked it as its "Lie of the Year."
In a fit of glee, multiple left-leaning news outlets have promoted the proclamation, including of course, MSNBC. [video below, MP3 audio here ]:
Monster Sinkholes An Indication That Major Earth Changes Are Coming Along The New Madrid Fault?
The most powerful earthquakes in the history of the United States happened along the New Madrid Fault in 1811 and 1812. Those earthquakes were reportedly felt more than 1,000 miles away. Scientists assure us that one day we will once again see very powerful earthquakes along the New Madrid fault. It is only a question of when it will happen. Today, the New Madrid fault zone covers portions of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. However, a major earthquake of magnitude-8.0 or greater would likely have a dramatic effect all the way from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. When most Americans speak of the “big one”, they think of what may happen along the coast of California someday, but the truth is that a New Madrid earthquake could potentially do far more damage. So is there evidence that the New Madrid fault zone is waking up? Yes, there is. According to Bloomberg, there has been “a sixfold increase in the number of earthquakes that have shaken the central part of the U.S. from 2000 to 2011″. Much of that increase is being blamed on human activity such as mining, drilling and fracking. So could human activity aggravate the fault zone so much that it could set off a truly history-making earthquake at some point? Well, the potential is certainly there. That is why so many people are so concerned about the monster sinkholes that have appeared in the region in recent months. For example, a massive sinkhole down in Louisiana is now over 8 acres in size and it has forced hundreds of people to flee from their homes. You can see video of the Louisiana sinkhole right here. Over in Ohio, a giant sinkhole has suddenly formed that is more than 30 feet deep and that is the size of four football fields. That sinkhole caused part of State Route 516 to collapse and authorities say that it will likely be closed for many months. You can see video of the gigantic sinkhole in Ohio right here. Are these monster sinkholes an indication that major earth changes are coming along the New Madrid fault? Has reckless human activity awoken a sleeping giant that we should never have messed with?
The sinkhole down in Louisiana is of particular concern because it has been venting natural gas. A few days ago it reportedly “burped” which sounds kind of ominous. Could we see some kind of an “explosion” at some point?
Many of those living in the area may not be able to return to their homes for quite a long time. The following is from a recent Huffington Post article…
At the eight-acre, Bayou Corne sinkhole in Assumption Parish, owners of slab houses are waiting for methane-gas monitors to be installed in December. The sinkhole deepened in November and coughed up debris and hydrcarbons late in the month. Cypress trees fell into the gap. Residents are watching natural gas being flared from the site and are ventilating homes while bayous around them bubble.
But if human activity is capable of producing sinkholes that are 8 acres in size and capable of causing a “sixfold increase” in the number of earthquakes in the middle part of the country, is human activity also capable of setting off the New Madrid fault?
Sadly, even most Americans that are living in that part of the country don’t really understand how incredibly massive and how potentially destructive this fault zone actually is. The following is from a recent report from WREG in Memphis, Tennessee…
Many people don’t realize that north Alabama lies in the impact zone of the New Madrid fault line, a sleeping giant that is approximately twenty times larger than California’s famed San Andreas fault.
The biggest earthquake in U.S. history happened in the New Madrid seismic zone in 1812, and in just the last few weeks, activity along the fault line is starting to heat up.
If the earthquakes that happened along the New Madrid fault zone in 1811 and 1812 happened today, the devastation would be unimaginable. Back then, there were not that many people living in the area. But even so, the destruction was incredible…
Accounts of the 1812 quake vary since there were no measuring instruments at the time, but most geologists say evidence shows it was at least a magnitude 8 earthquake, and possibly a 9 or higher.
The shaking was so intense that church bells started ringing as far away as Boston and New York.
Chimneys toppled from the Deep South to Canada, and President James Madison was awoken by the violent shaking as he slept in the White House.
Eyewitnesses said it even caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards for a time.
Unfortunately, there are now indications that the fault zone is becoming more active as a recent Examiner article explained…
Tuesday evening, two shallow earthquakes, although small, were felt in Mt. Carmel, Ill. as well as five miles outside Edmond, Okla. Illinois had the largest at 3.6 magnitude, leaving Oklahoma with a smaller 2.9 magnitude quake as reported by the USGS.
The fact that both of these quakes were shallow and follow on the heels of Kentucky’s 4.3 just 10 days ago makes the questions begin to fly. Is the New Madrid waking up? Is it gearing up for ‘the big one’? When Ky. Experienced a 4.3 two weeks ago, it was felt across 10-12 states. Although it didn’t knock runners off their feet, it did alarm many. Knoxville was among the cities that felt the quake. The shaking was not minor in many areas, and it scared people as walls shook and many began to pray.
This is something that I have written about previously, and we all need to keep our eyes open for more reports about earthquakes in the middle part of the country. When the “big one” does finally hit the New Madrid fault zone, it will be one of the biggest news stories ever.
We are talking about a catastrophe that would be so immense that it would be hard to imagine. According to ABC News, a study by the Mid-America Earthquake Center found that in the event of a major earthquake along the New Madrid fault, “nearly 750,000 buildings would be damaged, 3,000 bridges would potentially collapse, 400,000 breaks and leaks to local pipelines and $300 billion in direct damage and $600 billion in indirect losses would occur.”
You can ready much more about the New Madrid fault right here.
All of this is even more frightening when you consider that there are 15 nuclear reactors along the New Madrid fault zone.
In the event that the “big one” strikes, we could be looking at Fukushima times 15.
We have been blessed to have avoided a major earthquake like that for so long in the middle part of the country, but there is no guarantee that the New Madrid fault zone will always be stable – especially considering how much it is being aggravated by man-made activity.
There are even some that believe that eventually we will see an earthquake of magnitude-9.0 or higher along the New Madrid fault. Such an earthquake could literally change the face of the entire continent. We are talking about an event that could potentially change the course of the Mississippi River and create bodies of water where none existed previously.
We seem to be moving into a time of increased seismic activity on the earth, and many scientists are convinced that the New Madrid Fault zone is definitely overdue for a major earthquake.
So will we see one in the coming years?
Feel free to post a comment with your opinion below…
AP Story on Bridge Bomb Plotters’ Sentencing Fails to Note Their Occupy Cleveland Ties, OWS Support
Continuing his wire service's sadly predictable kid-glove treatment of the Occupy movement which sometimes verges on open romance, Chuck Murr's Tuesday evening story at the Associated Press on the sentencing of three of the five participants in the foiled plot to bomb a major bridge in a Cleveland suburb utterly failed to note the active involvement of the convicted domestic terrorists (the sentencing judge's characterization) with Occupy Cleveland. It also failed to note a supportive tweet sent by Occupy Wall Street (HT Twitchy.com) claiming "entrapment" and linking to a legal defense fund web site.
By contrast, in its coverage of the sentencing today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's James F. McCarty reminded readers, complete with a link back to the paper's May 2 story describing their involvement, that all five were "members of Occupy Cleveland movement."
Election Fraud? Obama Won More Than 99 Percent Of The Vote In More Than 100 Ohio Precincts
Barack Obama received more than 99% of the vote in more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on election day. In fact, there were a substantial number of precincts where Mitt Romney got exactly zero votes. So how in the world did this happen? Third world dictators don’t even get 99% of the vote. Overall, Mitt Romney received 30.12% of the vote in Cuyahoga County. There were even a bunch of precincts in Cuyahoga County that Romney actually won. But everyone certainly expected that Cuyahoga County would be Obama territory. And in most of the precincts that is exactly what we saw – large numbers of votes for both candidates but a definite edge for Obama. However, there are more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County where the voting results can only be described as truly bizarre. Yes, we always knew that urban areas would lean very heavily toward Obama, but are we actually expected to believe that Obama got over 99% of the votes in those areas? In more than 50 different precincts, Romney received 2 votes or less. Considering how important the swing state of Ohio was to the national election, one would think that such improbable results would get the attention of somebody out there. Could we be looking at evidence of election fraud hidden in plain sight?
Perhaps if there were just one or two precincts where Obama got more than 99% of the vote we could dismiss the results as “statistical anomalies” and ignore them.
But there were more than 100 precincts where this happened in the most important swing state in the nation.
Maybe there is some rational explanation for the numbers that you are about to see. If there is, I would really love to hear it.
What makes all of this even more alarming is that there were reports of voting machine problems during early voting in Ohio. It was being reported that some voters were claiming that they tried to vote for Romney but that the voting machines kept recording their votes as votes for Obama…
“I don’t know if it happened to anybody else or not, but this is the first time in all the years that we voted that this has ever happened to me,” said Marion, Ohio, voter Joan Stevens.
Stevens said that when she voted, it took her three tries before the machine accepted her choice to vote for Romney.
“I went to vote and I got right in the middle of Romney’s name,” Stevens told Fox News, saying that she was certain to put her finger directly on her choice for the White House.
She said that the first time she pushed “Romney,” the machine marked “Obama.”
So she pushed Romney again. Obama came up again. Then it happened a third time.
“Maybe you make a mistake once, but not three times,” she told Fox News.
The numbers that you are about to see are quite dramatic. They come straight from the website of the Cuyahoga County board of elections. Once again, I am not alleging that election fraud has actually taken place. What I am saying is that these numbers look very, very strange and that somebody needs to start asking some questions.
Posted below are voting results from the presidential election from various precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. If you wish to verify these numbers, you can do so right here. In each case, the specific precinct is identified first, followed by the number of votes for Obama and then the number of votes for Romney.
In this first set of Cuyahoga County precincts, Mitt Romney received exactly zero votes in each instance…
0154 CLEVELAND -02-Q: 542 - 0
0192 CLEVELAND -04-L: 388 - 0 0204 CLEVELAND -05-E: 597 - 0 0205 CLEVELAND -05-F: 483 - 0 0206 CLEVELAND -05-G: 257 - 0 0219 CLEVELAND -05-T: 386 - 0 0228 CLEVELAND -06-H: 405 - 0 0232 CLEVELAND -06-L: 70 - 0 0233 CLEVELAND -06-M: 419 - 0 0241 CLEVELAND -06-U: 118 - 0 0248 CLEVELAND -07-F: 361 - 0 0273 CLEVELAND -08-J: 472 - 0
0280 CLEVELAND -08-Q: 49 - 0 0285 CLEVELAND -09-B: 414 - 0 0288 CLEVELAND -09-E: 478 - 0 0523 EAST CLEVELAND -04-C: 486 - 0
Are we actually supposed to believe that not a single person wanted to vote for Mitt Romney in any of those precincts?
But wait, there’s more.
In this next set of results we get to see many of the precincts where Mitt Romney received exactly one vote…
0118 CLEVELAND -01-A: 438 - 1 0144 CLEVELAND -02-G: 532 - 1
0183 CLEVELAND -04-C: 548 - 1
0185 CLEVELAND -04-E: 522 - 1 0190 CLEVELAND -04-J: 434 - 1 0200 CLEVELAND -05-A: 364 - 1 0217 CLEVELAND -05-R: 357 - 1
0240 CLEVELAND -06-T: 148 - 1 0272 CLEVELAND -08-I: 473 - 1 0274 CLEVELAND -08-K: 382 - 1
0276 CLEVELAND -08-M: 492 - 1
0279 CLEVELAND -08-P: 378 - 1 0284 CLEVELAND -09-A: 320 - 1
0287 CLEVELAND -09-D: 394 - 1 0289 CLEVELAND -09-F: 468 - 1 0290 CLEVELAND -09-G: 400 - 1 0303 CLEVELAND -10-C: 471 - 1 0312 CLEVELAND -10-L: 363 - 1 0314 CLEVELAND -10-N: 340 - 1 0315 CLEVELAND -10-O: 473 - 1 0512 EAST CLEVELAND -02-D: 437 - 1 0513 EAST CLEVELAND -02-E: 359 - 1 1040 WARRENSVILLE HTS -02-A: 523 - 1 1041 WARRENSVILLE HTS -02-B: 514 - 1
Do these numbers look believable to anyone out there?
Now let’s look at some of the Cuyahoga County precincts were Mitt Romney received exactly two votes…
0120 CLEVELAND -01-C: 531 - 2 0128 CLEVELAND -01-K: 470 - 2 0136 CLEVELAND -01-S: 635 - 2 0147 CLEVELAND -02-J: 541 - 2 0148 CLEVELAND -02-K: 632 - 2 0149 CLEVELAND -02-L: 531 - 2 0153 CLEVELAND -02-P: 564 - 2 0155 CLEVELAND -02-R: 509 - 2
0187 CLEVELAND -04-G: 491 - 2 0188 CLEVELAND -04-H: 508 - 2 0194 CLEVELAND -04-N: 520 - 2 0211 CLEVELAND -05-L: 461 - 2 0213 CLEVELAND -05-N: 324 - 2 0222 CLEVELAND -06-B: 637 - 2 0225 CLEVELAND -06-E: 505 - 2 0226 CLEVELAND -06-F: 342 - 2 0234 CLEVELAND -06-N: 244 - 2 0236 CLEVELAND -06-P: 438 - 2
0249 CLEVELAND -07-G: 446 - 2 0250 CLEVELAND -07-H: 358 - 2 0251 CLEVELAND -07-I: 445 - 2 0253 CLEVELAND -07-K: 429 - 2 0256 CLEVELAND -07-N: 433 - 2 0262 CLEVELAND -07-T: 363 - 2
0269 CLEVELAND -08-F: 463 - 2 0270 CLEVELAND -08-G: 516 - 2 0278 CLEVELAND -08-O: 405 - 2 0302 CLEVELAND -10-B: 452 - 2 0311 CLEVELAND -10-K: 476 - 2 0511 EAST CLEVELAND -02-C: 319 - 2 0515 EAST CLEVELAND -03-A: 359 - 2 0516 EAST CLEVELAND -03-B: 459 - 2 0519 EAST CLEVELAND -03-E: 293 - 2 0526 EAST CLEVELAND -04-F: 517 - 2 0625 HIGHLAND HILLS -00-A: 377 - 2
These numbers look even more bizarre when you start comparing them with the overall results from the rest of Cuyahoga County that you can find right here.
The results from most of the precincts look very much like what you would expect from a competitive national election.
But there are more than 100 precincts where the results look incredibly suspicious. Here are some more precincts where Barack Obama won more than 99% of the vote…
0119 CLEVELAND -01-B: 558 - 4 0121 CLEVELAND -01-D: 452 - 3 0122 CLEVELAND -01-E: 671 - 5 0123 CLEVELAND -01-F: 704 - 6 0124 CLEVELAND -01-G: 543 - 3 0126 CLEVELAND -01-I: 674 - 4 0127 CLEVELAND -01-J: 687 - 4 0130 CLEVELAND -01-M: 781 - 4 0132 CLEVELAND -01-O: 615 - 4 0133 CLEVELAND -01-P: 733 - 5 0134 CLEVELAND -01-Q: 753 - 6 0135 CLEVELAND -01-R: 697 - 5
0142 CLEVELAND -02-E: 434 - 3 0145 CLEVELAND -02-H: 571 - 3 0150 CLEVELAND -02-M: 503 - 4 0151 CLEVELAND -02-N: 601 - 3
0152 CLEVELAND -02-O: 621 - 3 0156 CLEVELAND -02-S: 471 - 4 0157 CLEVELAND -03-A: 489 - 3 0184 CLEVELAND -04-D: 576 - 3
0186 CLEVELAND -04-F: 572 - 3
0189 CLEVELAND -04-I: 503 - 3 0191 CLEVELAND -04-K: 508 - 4 0193 CLEVELAND -04-M: 497 - 4 0195 CLEVELAND -04-O: 599 - 3 0196 CLEVELAND -04-P: 443 - 3 0199 CLEVELAND -04-S: 686 - 5 0203 CLEVELAND -05-D: 569 - 4 0207 CLEVELAND -05-H: 341 - 3 0210 CLEVELAND -05-K: 427 - 3 0212 CLEVELAND -05-M: 340 - 3 0216 CLEVELAND -05-Q: 461 - 4 0218 CLEVELAND -05-S: 515 - 5 0221 CLEVELAND -06-A: 701 - 3 0223 CLEVELAND -06-C: 462 - 4 0227 CLEVELAND -06-G: 401 - 3 0230 CLEVELAND -06-J: 475 - 4 0254 CLEVELAND -07-L: 447 - 4 0261 CLEVELAND -07-S: 449 - 4 0271 CLEVELAND -08-H: 552 - 4 0275 CLEVELAND -08-L: 499 - 3 0282 CLEVELAND -08-S: 517 - 4 0292 CLEVELAND -09-I: 423 - 4 0294 CLEVELAND -09-K: 445 - 4
0307 CLEVELAND -10-G: 428 - 4 0317 CLEVELAND -10-Q: 446 - 3 0320 CLEVELAND -10-T: 654 - 5 0510 EAST CLEVELAND -02-B: 401 - 4 0518 EAST CLEVELAND -03-D: 374 - 3 0520 EAST CLEVELAND -03-F: 457 - 3 0521 EAST CLEVELAND -04-A: 453 - 4 1045 WARRENSVILLE HTS -04-B: 598 - 4 1049 WARRENSVILLE HTS -06-B: 480 - 4
Once again, perhaps there is a rational explanation for all of this.
But I find it really hard to believe that one candidate would get more than 99% of the vote in more than 100 precincts in one of the most important counties in the most hotly contested swing state of the 2012 election.
Unfortunately, we may never know the truth about these election results. We are just told that we can trust the voting machines and that we can trust whatever results they end up spitting out at us.
Look, I don’t know what the truth is, but where there is smoke there is usually fire. Voters reported tens of thousands of voting problems on election day, and it will be an absolute disgrace if those complaints are brushed under the rug now that the election is over.
Setting aside who won or who lost, the legitimacy of our elections if of the utmost importance. If we cannot even trust the ballot box, what do we have left?
I sincerely hope that authorities in Ohio and in the other swing states will investigate some of the voting “irregularities” that are being reported.
Millions of Americans are watching, and if all of this just gets swept under the rug there are going to be a whole lot more people that will lose faith in these voting machines.
I know that I already have.
Toledo Blade Asks: ‘Could Mr. Romney Take Our Coffee?’
In the quadrennially important swing state of Ohio, one of the Toledo Blade's featured front page stories on Sunday wondered if Mormonism would shape Romney's policy. Following an endorsement of Obama last week in which there was no mention of the president's beliefs, religion editor Timothy Knox Barger's penned a 2,500 word piece that resorted to scare tactics and conjecture.
Among them was a seemingly legitimate concern that Romney might try to impose a ban on certain things that he's known to abstain from himself -- like coffee for instance.
Rachel Maddow Taunts: Ohio Republicans Are ‘Pretty Wussy at This Point’
Assessing the presidential race in the Midwest with Chris Hayes on Thursday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow said Ohio Gov. John Kasich may be the "cockiest of all of the cocky breed of the Republican governors right now," but his loss on union bargaining rights was so stinging "I actually think the Republican establishment in Ohio is pretty wussy compared to what they were like in 2010."
That sounds a lot like a taunt that Ohio Republicans may want to tack to the bulletin board. They were discussing how Wisconsin doesn't look as good as they think it should:
Reporter Says Obama/Biden Campaign Tried to Keep Him From Talking to Attendees at Canton, Ohio Rally
Updated below | Not only has the Obama administration failed to live up to its promise of "transparency," it appears the president's reelection campaign shares the same issue. Politico media reporter Dylan Byers noted this morning that "Joe Vardon, a reporter with the Columbus Dispatch, says campaign aides stopped him from speaking to voters at a rally featuring Vice President Joe Biden in Canton, Ohio, today."
"Reporters NOT ALLOWED to talk to voters at Biden/Canton event," Byers quoted a Vardon tweet, "Saddled up to two 'Scotts' — both white, mid-50s — campaign tapped me on shoulder, said I wasn't allowed." In an update subsequently filed a mere eight minutes later, Byers noted that "Amy Dudley, a spokeswoman for Vice President Biden, emails" the following:
Self-Proclaimed Media ‘Fact Checking’ Site Clearly Favors Democrat in Ohio Senate Race
As their circulation numbers continue to decline, the self-described mainstream media has errected a new idol for Americans to worship: so-called “fact checking” websites which ostensibly exist to vet claims from all sides about political disputes.
A review of one such site, PolitiFact Ohio -- an arm of Cleveland's Plain Dealer -- shows that the supposedly non-partisan fact-checkers there have a distinct bias against the Republican running for Senate in the state, Josh Mandel, in comparison to his Democratic opponent, current senator Sherrod Brown.
NBC: Ohio ‘Slipping Away’ From Romney After ‘Damage From That 47% Comment’
Leading off Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, fill-in anchor Savannah Guthrie declared the presidential race in one key battleground state all but over: "Tonight, both candidates are in Ohio as a spate of new polls shows the all-important bellwether may be slipping away for the Republican challenger."
In the report that followed, correspondent Ron Allen reiterated that "new polls show Ohio slipping away" from Romney and quickly asserted the cause: "Romney down by ten points in a new poll out this morning, and nearly that in another recent poll, after that video of Romney talking disparagingly about the 47% who pay no income tax."
Democratic State Senator Charges Racism at Play in Ohio Early Voting Decision; MSNBC’s Lui Fails to Challenge Her
All this week during the 11 a.m. Eastern MSNBC Live program, "we're going to look at the ballot battles that could decide the race for the White House," MSNBC's Richard Lui noted today as he set up a segment with two liberal opponents of voter ID laws -- "wired into the concerns of minority voters" -- Ohio State Senator Nina Turner (D) and Common Cause staff counsel Stephen Spaulding.
Although Lui briefly quoted from two officials for True the Vote, a conservative anti-voter fraud group that supports voter ID laws, he failed to bring on any representatives of the group, even though Turner was there to rail against what she sees as the racist motives behind the Ohio Secretary of State's move to cut back on in-person voting hours.
To the ‘Fact-Checkers’: This Is What Lies About Auto Plant Closings Look Like
This afternoon, NB's Kyle Drennen did a great job of runnng down the pathetic contention by establishment press "fact-checkers" that vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan somehow lied or misled viewers during his speech Wednesday night concerning the closure of the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin and what presidential candidate Barack Obama said at the plant in 2008.
No, WaPo, New York Times, and the Associated Press (called out by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air), the plant didn't close before Obama was elected; it closed in April 2009. But since we're on the topic of lies about auto plant shutdowns, let's look at one from late April and early May 2009 told by President Barack Obama himself with the assistance of his car czars and other apparatchiks. I blogged about this in mid-May 2009. My full post, which also appeared at NewsBusters, includes noting non-existent national press coverage (only the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Stephen Koff and other local reporters in the towns affected raised their voices).
MSNBC’s Roberts Only Features Anti-Voter ID Rep in Segment on Pa. Court Ruling, Also Lets Her Mislead Viewers on Ohio Law
As we at NewsBusters have documented repeatedly, MSNBC has done its level best to hype voter ID laws as a "voter suppression" attempt by the GOP to "disenfranchise" voters who traditionally fall into the Democratic column. Today's MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts was no exception.
Roberts informed viewers of ruling by a judge on the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court yesterday -- read the PDF of it here -- that refused to grant a temporary injunction to block the state's new photo ID law. To discuss the ruling and the decision by opponents of the law to appeal, Roberts interviewed Penda Hair of the liberal Advancement Project, a group opposed to new voter ID laws. However, Roberts both failed to bring on anyone who would defend the law nor did he press Hair with any tough questions. Additionally, Roberts let Hair get away with a misleading argument about early voting in the neighboring state of Ohio.
Bozell Column: Obama’s Stump Speech Myths
Barack Obama has trouble telling the truth.
This is the man who admitted his memoir "Dreams of My Father" was semi-fictional. “For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people, I’ve known, and some events appear out of precise chronology.” Translation: On some pages, I’m taking poetic license with the facts to burnish my image.
The problem is, Obama’s still using poetic license. So where are the reporters to point out where he doesn’t tell the truth? Let’s take just one typical Obama stump speech, on July 5 in Sandusky, Ohio, and look for the fibs and stretches. They’re not hard to find.
1. There are the biographical tall tales. “My grandfather fought in Patton’s army.” In 2009, AP’s Nancy Benac noted that the president’s grandfather, Stanley Dunham, was in a supply and maintenance company, not in combat. That’s noble work, but “fought in Patton’s army” implies something else. Moreover, Benac reported Dunham’s company was assigned to Patton’s army for two months in 1945, and then quoted Obama’s own self-boosting memoir: “Gramps returned from the war never having seen real combat.” Why has Benac been alone in exploring this blatant exaggeration?
2. There are the policy myths. “So when folks said let’s go ahead and let the auto industry go bankrupt, we said no, let’s bet on American workers. Let’s bet on American industries. And now, GM is back on top and Chrysler is moving and Ford is going strong.”
Put aside for a moment that GM being “on top” is a stretch. GM still owes the public $30 billion for the bailout. But the real screamer in that passage is Ford never succumbed to bankruptcy and bailouts, and therefore shouldn’t be included in any boast of any sort of Obama achievements.
Some lines in the speech just sound ridiculous based on the last three and a half years, such as: “I want to balance our budget. I want to reduce our deficit, deal with our debt, but I want to do it in a balanced and responsible way.” This might not be strictly “false” – it’s opinion – but it’s certainly disingenuous. He said the same thing in 2008 and then delivered the biggest trillion-dollar deficits in history.
Obama also refuses to admit the failure of the “stimulus,” claiming in one passage “I do want to rebuild our roads and our bridges” because it would “put a lot of people back to work – and that’s good for the entire economy.” Except it’s demonstrably not true.
3. Then there are the religious myths. "When I first got my job as an organizer for the Catholic churches in Chicago, they taught me that no government program can replace good neighbors and people who care deeply about their communities [and] who are fighting on their behalf."
In how many ways is this deeply insincere? Obama was hired by a Jewish Alinskyite leftist named Jerry Kellman for something called the Developing Communities Project, which did have Catholic support, but Obama’s own memoir described the community organizing work as a chance to “start to build power” – with a “hard-headedness” based on “politics, not religion.”
In his stump speech, Obama’s trying to create two false impressions: (1) that he’s not waging war on the Catholic Church with his HHS mandate to force Catholics to fund contraceptives and sterilization against their conscience, and (2) that he’s some sort of moderate about how government programs couldn’t possibly replace person-to-person private charity. If he were Catholic, he might be excommunicated.
4. Finally there are the campaign myths. Obama bizarrely told the crowd in Sandusky “back in 2008, everybody said we couldn’t do it because we were outspent, we weren’t favored.” Did Obama mean in the primary race? By a slim margin, he outraised Hillary Clinton, who was the early favorite. But this spin is comical if it refers to the general election, where Obama outraised McCain $779 million to $347 million.
Then Obama added: “That first race that I ran as a state senator, Michelle and I, we were going around knocking on doors, passing out leaflets. Nobody gave us a shot. Everybody said, ‘Nobody can pronounce your name, how are you going to win?’” But Obama ran unopposed in 1996 in both the primary and the general election. In a burst of Chicago-style politics, Obama removed his primary opponents (including the incumbent state senator, Alice Palmer) from the ballot by challenging their signatures.
When will the alleged fact-checkers in the news media vet Obama’s stump speech and demand he start telling the truth?
NPR Celebrates Obama-In-Ohio Day By Ripping GOP Senate Candidate For ‘False’ Allegations
As Obama prepared to tour northern Ohio cities by bus on Thursday, NPR's Morning Edition was trying to take apart the Republican challenger to liberal Senator Sherrod Brown. First, correspondent David Welna dismissed 34-year-old GOP state treasurer Josh Mandel as someone "who could easily be mistaken for a teenager."
Then he added that "independent" (read: liberal media elite) fact-checkers think he's throwing false allegations at his liberal opponent, like he was the "deciding vote" for ObamaCare:
WELNA: Mandel says he'll keep reminding voters of Sherrod Brown's vote for the health care law.
MANDEL: Sherrod Brown held in his hands the power to stop this government-run health care act, but instead of stopping it, he cast the deciding vote on the federal government's takeover of health care.
WELNA: The independent fact-checking group PolitiFact has labeled that deciding-vote charge false.
Politifact rated it "false" for several slightly comical reasons: that Brown was so liberal that Obama didn't have to talk him into a Yes vote, and that Brown's name comes up early in the roll call since it starts with a B. Obviously, if it passed the Senate with only the required 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, every vote was essential, if not every vote can be "deciding." But if Brown had tilted right, the bill would not have passed.
NPR also titled the "truth" table on campaign spending:
WELNA: It's not the only questionable claim Mandel's been making. He also says he's the underdog when it comes to campaign spending.
MANDEL: At the end of the day, you know, Sherrod Brown's going to have a lot more money than we're going to have, but this race ain't about money.
WELNA: Not about money? Records provided by the Brown campaign show outside groups backing Mandel have spent nearly five times more than groups backing Brown. Ken Goldstein of Kantar Media Group tracks TV ad spending in the Ohio Senate race.
KEN GOLDSTEIN: You have certainly more money being spent by the Republicans. And most of that is due to the group spending that is being done on Josh Mandel's part.
Once again, can't Mandel be telling the truth if he's merely comparing the Brown campaign to the Mandel campaign?