Bachmann Blasts Obama’s “Economic Marxism,” Calls For “Orderly Revolution” To Save Freedom

Talking Points Memo DC
By Eric Kleefeld - March 27, 2009

Wow. Just plain wow. This past Wednesday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show, and sharply reiterated her calls for revolution in America, warning against the imminent dangers of tyranny under Barack Obama:

“We are headed down the lane of economic Marxism,” said Bachmann. “More quickly, Sean, than anyone could have possibly imagined. It’s difficult for us to even keep up with it day to day.”

And then came this:

At this point the American people - it’s like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution—where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. It won’t be our children and grandchildren that are in debt. It is we who are in debt, we who will be bankrupting this country, inside of ten years, if we don’t get a grip. And we can’t let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer.
“If Tim Geithner is successful under President Obama, and they move us to an international currency,” Bachmann warned, “Then we have no hope of standing on our own as a sovereign nation with our own economic system. It’s over. We can’t do that.”

Bachmann also declared: “Economics works equally in any country. Where freedom is tried, the people rejoice. But where tyranny is enforced upon the people, as Barack Obama is doing, the people suffer and mourn.”

And there was this exchange:

Bachmann: Right now I’m a member of Congress. And I believe that my job here is to be a foreign correspondent, reporting from enemy lines. And people need to understand, this isn’t a game. this isn’t just a political talk show that’s happening right now. This is our very freedom, and we have 230 years, a continuous link of freedom that every generation has ceded to the next generation. This may be the time when that link breaks. And I’m going to do everything I can, I know you are, to make sure that we keep that link secure. We cannot allow that link to break, because as Reagan said, America is the last great hope of mankind. where do we go--

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/bachmann-blasts-obamas-economic-marxism-calls-for-revolution-to-save-freedom.php

Hannity: The last great hope of man on this Earth.

Bachmann: Do we get into an inner tube and float 90 miles to some free country? There is no free country for us to repair to. That’s why it’s up to us now. The founders gave everything they had to give us this freedom. Now it’s up to us to give everything we can to make sure that our kids are free, too. It’s that serious. I hate to be dramatic, but--

Hannity: It’s not—you are not overstating this case, Congresswoman, and you don’t need to apologize for it. And as a matter of fact, it’s refreshing. And I can tell you, all around this country, on 535 of the best radio stations in this country, people are saying “Amen,” “Hallelujah”, “where have you been?”

KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With ‘Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines’

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7001
Posted By Brad Friedman On 19th March 2009

Circuit court judge, county clerk, and election officials among eight indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, 2006

Used popular, unverifiable ES&S touch-screens to flip votes…

[Now updated at bottom with details from the indictments.]

Those of us who have demanded transparent voting systems because we understand that only the ability for complete citizen oversight and transparency can effectively counter those who would game elections, have been disingenuously criticized over the years as somehow questioning the integrity of the hard-working, honest election officials out there.

The fact is, those who know anything about computer security understand that it is the insiders who are, by far, the greatest threat to security on such systems, as even the phony, GOP-operative-created [1] Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission determined [2] in its final report: “There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries.”

The best election officials in the country, however, will underscore that point, and agree that there is no reason any citizen should ever have to simply “trust” them.

Over the years, we’ve detailed the arrests and other unsavory behavior of many of the not-so-good election officials who, we were told, should simply have been trusted (our “favorite” has always been the case of Monterey CA’s Tony Anchundo [3], who told us on air we should “trust” him, just a month or two before being arrested on 43 counts).

Well, now we’ve got a whole passel of still more crooked officials to add to the list. Moreover: The Kentucky officials arrested and indicted today, “including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers” of Clay County, have been charged with “chang[ing] votes at the voting machine” and showing others how to do it!

Hello?!…

From Lexington, Kentucky’s NBC affiliate [4] this afternoon:

Five Clay County officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers were arrested Thursday after they were indicted on federal charges accusing them of using corrupt tactics to obtain political power and personal gain.

The 10-count indictment, unsealed Thursday, accused the defendants of a conspiracy from March 2002 until November 2006 that violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). RICO is a federal statute that prosecutors use to combat organized crime. The defendants were also indicted for extortion, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to injure voters’ rights and conspiracy to commit voter fraud.

According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006.

The article goes on to list some of the criminal actions listed in the indictment. Among them [emphasis added]:

Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 45, allegedly provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes and he also instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine.
...
Election officer William E. Stivers, 56, allegedly marked votes or issued tickets to voters who had sold their votes and changed votes at the voting machine.
...
Paul E. Bishop, 60, allegedly marked voters or issued tickets to voters who sold their votes and he also hosted alleged meetings at his home where money was pooled together by candidates and distributed to election officers, including himself. He was also accused of instructing the officers how to change votes at the voting machine.
In addition to the absurd charge that those of us who believe in transparency are unduly “attacking” election officials, the latest PR line from e-voting vendors, and election officials alike, is that there is no proof that any election has ever been manipulated electronically.

Setting aside that we disagree --- wholeheartedly --- with that oft-used bit of propaganda, the above indictments would seem to give us a very specific allegation of exactly that, manipulation of electronic votes.

Clay County uses the horrible ES&S iVotronic system for all of its votes at the polling place. The iVotronic is a touch-screen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) device, offering no evidence, of any kind, that any vote has ever been recorded as per the voter’s intent. If the allegations are correct here, there would likely have been no way to discover, via post-election examination of machines or election results, that votes had been manipulated on these machines.

ES&S is the largest distributor of voting systems in America and its iVotronic system --- which is well-documented to have lost and flipped votes on many occasions --- is likely the most widely-used DRE system in the nation. It’s currently in use [5] in some 419 jurisdictions in 18 states including Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

We will certainly continue to follow this story as it develops…

UPDATE: Complete indictment now posted here [PDF]… [6]

* * *
FURTHER UPDATE: Having now reviewed the indictment, as linked above, here are some additional details on the alleged conspiracy which included election fraud though the buying and selling of votes to be cast in a certain way, with the aid of one of the defendants who served as a poll worker during the Early Voting period. Also, at the polling place on Election Day with aid of poll workers, drafted as both Democratic and Republican judges, to elect a slate of candidates --- some of them bribed --- the conspirators would manipulate the votes of “qualified voters” at the voting machines themselves.

Many of the voters, it seems, had no idea that their votes were manipulated after they’d left the touch-screen voting machine. While the Early Voting scheme involved finding voters who might wish to be paid to have their vote cast a certain way, the Election Day scheme, carried out in primary and general elections in at least 2004 and 2006, was accomplished by taking advantage of a “feature” on all DRE (usually touch-screen) voting systems and “voter unfamiliarity with new voting machines.”

Essentially, they tricked voters into leaving the ‘booth’ after pressing the “Vote” button on the ES&S iVotronic. That button, does not actually cast the vote, as one might think (and as these voters were told), but instead, it brings up a review screen of the voter’s “ballot.”

Instructing the voters that they were done, the conspirators then, after the voter had left, would change the voters’ votes as they saw fit, before finally pressing the “Cast Ballot” button.

Here’s the explanation of how they did this on Election Day, according to the indictment:

3. It was part of the conspiracy that the Defendants and their co-conspirators agreed to take advantage of voter unfamiliarity with new voting machines by misleading voters as to the mechanics of casting their votes once they were selected.

4. It was part of the conspiracy that WW serve as the Democrat election judge in the Manchester Precinct. It was further part of the conspiracy that CW serve as the Republican election judge in the Manchester Precinct. Both WW and CW were instructed by Defendants Freddy W. Thompson and Charles Wayne Jones to tell voters that when they had pushed a button labeled “Vote” that their votes had been cast, when, in fact, that function merely provided a review screen of the voter’s selections in each race, and that the further step of pushing the “Cast Ballot” button was required. This review screen gave the voter the opportunity to change any candidate selections prior to casting the ballot.

5. It was part of the conspiracy that when the misled voters left the voting booth after pushing the “Vote” button, WW and/or CW entered the booth, changed their votes to candidates selected in part by Defendant Russell Cletus Maricle and cast the ballot by pushing the “Cast Ballot” button.

As mentioned, the voters in question were all “qualified voters”. The fraud could not have been accomplished without the conspiracy carried out with the aid of the insiders at the polling place, who changed election results on the voting machines, as needed.

“Many of the qualified voters duly voted for one or more of the aforesaid candidates and their votes were counted and certified as part of the total number of votes cast for such candidates,” the indictment reads. “Other voters had their votes destroyed by the Defendants and their co-conspirators.”

The Early Voting scheme, which included vote buying and selling, also required the aid of insiders, stationed at the early voting location:

8. It was part of the conspiracy that the Defendants discussed and agreed to buy votes also during the early voting of absentee voters in favor of “the slate.” This plan involved having Defendants William E. Stivers, William B. Morris, and Debra L. Morris pay absentee voters for their vote and then sending them to Defendant Charles Wayne Jones who was acting as operator of the voting machine at the Clay County Clerk’s Office. Voters who sold their votes were given a mark or otherwise told to signal to the Defendant Charles Wayne Jones by Defendants William E. Stivers, William B. Morris, or Debra L. Morris and, based upon the mark andior signal, Defendant Charles Wayne Jones would cast their vote for “the slate.”

9. It was part of the conspiracy that the Defendants discussed and agreed that in order to implement the method of corrupting the voting process described above, it would be necessary to cause to be appointed as precinct workers for both major parties persons who were in the conspiracy. It was further necessary that their assignment to respective precincts be coordinated so that no one outside the conspiracy would be in place to observe their actions.
...
11. Over numerous days during on or about a date in January 2006 to on or about November 7,2006, a list of voters who agreed to sell their votes was compiled by Defendants Russell Cletus Maricle and William E. Stivers and other co-conspirators made
arrangements with these persons for voting and payment. On numerous occasions, voters were brought to the courthouse during normal voting and the early voting period for absentee voters and paid to vote for candidates on “the slate” by Defendants William E. Stivers, William B. Morris, and Debra L. Morris.

12. On or about May 16,2006, and November 7,2006, Defendants William E. Stivers, William B. Morris, and Debra L. Morris paid voters to vote for members of “the slate,” as described above. They informed these voters to ask for assistance from selected precinct workers who then took them into the voting booth and selected the votes for them.

Of course, to accomplish all of this, the defendants had to be able to draft poll workers who would do what they needed. Three of the named defendants, circuit court judge Russell Cletus Maricle, Clay County Superintendent of Schools Douglas C. Adams, and election officer Charles Wayne Jones, all had among their powers on the election board the ability to “exert influence over the selection of precinct workers” for local elections.

Election officer Jones, it’s alleged, is the one who “instructed other election officials...how to change votes at the voting machines.”

“Part of the scheme to defraud,” according to the indictment, also included that “defendants instructed election officers to assist the voters who sold their votes and to destroy voter assistance forms which may have resulted so as to not report the number of people they assisted at the voting polls as required by law.”

So will the voting machine company representatives out there (and that includes many election officials who have forgotten for whom they work) continue to report that no election has ever been manipulated via an electronic voting system?…

The BRAD BLOG [7] has covered your electoral system, tirelessly, fiercely and independently for years, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work, which only you help to fund, with a donation [8] to help us continue the work so few are willing to do. If you like, we’ll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here… [9]

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Article printed from The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com

URL to article: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7001

They Got the Wrong Guy - Why Congress’ confrontation with AIG’s CEO was a failure

http://www.slate.com/id/2214107/
By Daniel Gross, 03.18.09

Edward Liddy, chairmain and CEO of AIG The appearance by AIG CEO Edward Liddy before Congress on Wednesday was billed as an epic confrontation between the angry tribunes of a furious public and an arrogant Wall Street. Chris Matthews hyped it on MSNBC as “Watergate Redux.” But the actual hearing—Liddy’s appearance and questioning lasted barely longer than the two-hour preliminaries—was disappointing and misguided.

Watch Edward Liddy at a congressional hearing on AIG:

The proximate cause of the hearings was the revelation that AIG had paid $165 million in “retention businesses” to executives at AIG’s Financial Products division, the tiny unit whose reckless bets and issuance of insurance on financial products blew up the whole company. Liddy acknowledged that it was “distasteful to have to make these payments” and explained that they were made not to people who sold credit-default swaps but to employees who were winding down other components of the business, some of which were profitable. He had asked employees of the division who received at least $100,000 to return at least half of their bonuses, he said, and some had offered to return all of it.

Aside from revealing congressional ignorance of all things financial, the hearing showed Liddy to be the wrong man at the wrong place—and it was yet another example of misplaced anger. There’s no denying the horrific symbolism of these bonuses. But it would be nice if members of Congress—Republican and Democratic alike—displayed as much attention and outrage over the $80 billion-plus wound that AIG’s implosion has already inflicted on the American taxpayers instead of grandstanding over a mere (irony intended) $165 million.

The failure of leadership at AIG was immense and catastrophic. But Liddy wasn’t leading AIG when it blew up. He didn’t get paid to make the disastrous trades, or to oversee the disastrous traders, or to oversee the people who oversaw the disastrous traders, or even to oversee the people who oversaw the people who oversaw the disastrous traders. It wasn’t his idea for AIG Financial Products to insure billions of dollars in mortgage bonds, or to engage in “regulatory capital trades” or “balance-sheet rental"—insuring assets of European banks to allow them to move assets off their balance sheets. Liddy noted that at its height, AIG had between $350 billion and $370 billion of “balance sheet rental” insurance in force. (The figure is down to a mere $230 billion.)

The relevant story behind AIG isn’t the bonuses. It is how a single unit of a huge company managed to threaten to blow up the entire financial system, and how the bailout is keeping all sorts of large financial institutions afloat. But Liddy isn’t the person to ask about that. I’d like to hear from Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, who built AIG into an international empire and claims the whole thing fell apart after he left. I’d like to hear from Martin Sullivan, CEO from 2005 until June 2008, who got a $47 million severance package, and who, in congressional testimony, blamed AIG’s demise on mark-to-market accounting. I’d really like to hear from the many savvy worthies who were on the board of directors: people like Martin Feldstein, the Harvard economist and father of Reaganomics, who has served on the board since 1987 and has collected millions of dollars in fees (the proxy shows that in 2007 alone he received $236,635), and diplomat Richard Holbrooke (2007 fees: $232,865), and Michael Sutton, a former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Did any of them ever raise any questions as to what AIG was doing and the risks it was assuming? And if not, what were they getting paid for?

Congress should have subpoenaed Joseph Cassano, who hauled down a few hundred million dollars while running AIG Financial Products and was the executive with the most direct responsibility (and likely the most legal liability) for the debacle. Or the economist who concocted the models upon which AIG-FP relied. And, for old time’s sake, why not recall Alan Greenspan, who assured the public that credit-default swaps and shadow banks like AIG didn’t need to be regulated.

Oh, and Congress should also hear from the many AIG counterparties who together have received billions of dollars of taxpayer funds so far through AIG. These folks bought insurance from or did business with a company that was unable, as it turned out, to make good on its financial commitments. And yet because the government didn’t let AIG file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, these counterparties have been made whole. I’d like to hear Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein tell Congress why it was appropriate for taxpayers to make a payment to Goldman of $5.6 billion in credit-default swaps, and why Goldman shouldn’t eat at least a portion of the losses it would have suffered had the taxpayers let AIG fail. It would be nice to hear from the half-dozen German banks, including the state-owned Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, who have benefited from one of the biggest transfers of taxpayer wealth to Europe since the Marshall Plan. Or from executives at Citadel, the beleaguered hedge fund that received $200 million in payments from AIG’s securities-lending business. They should be duly sworn in and forced to explain why taxpayers should pay these claims just because their firms bought insurance without determining whether the insurer could pay the claims.

Or maybe Congress can call in CNBC’s Rick Santelli and force him to explain why subsidizing these losers is somehow different than subsidizing losers who are behind in their mortgages. Now that, at least, would be good theater.

Obama Treasury Department pushed to cut language restricting bonuses, senator says

http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=14878
03/19/2009 @ 8:50 am, by John Byrne

The Obama Administration’s Treasury Department pushed to strip language that would have restricted the bonuses paid to staffers of bailed-out companies from the stimulus bill, a Democratic senator revealed late Wednesday.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) disclosed that he was responsible for inserting a clause into the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out firms to continue forward with eye-popping bonuses to executives that may have shared responsibility for some of the companies’ woes in the first place.

In a step further, though, he told CNN that the language was sought by the Obama Administration’s Treasury Department, which feared that the government would face lawsuits by including the provision.

A senior Treasury Department official purportedly confirmed Dodd’s assessment. It remains unclear whether the Treasury Department knew the insurance behemoth AIG planned to pay some $165 million in bonuses to employees at the time.

The Connecticut Democrat appears to have gotten caught on the spot by the cable news network. On Tuesday, he told the network that he had nothing to do with the bonus language—which now seems to have been a lie.

On Wednesday, a Treasury Department official confessed to CNN that the administration had pushed to have the bonus measure nixed, forcing Dodd’s hand.

Dodd, when approached again, said the decision not to include language regarding bonuses “seemed like innocent modifications” at the time.

“I agreed reluctantly,” Dodd said. “I was changing the amendment because others were insistent.”

“The administration had expressed reservations,” he added. “They asked for modifications. The alternative was losing the amendment entirely.”

He further added that the change was made at the urging of Treasury Department staffers, and that he hadn’t been contacted by senior Administration aides.

His account adjoins a report Thursday in the Washington Post, which alleges that neither the White House nor the Treasury Department were told of AIG’s bonuses until just before they were publicly announced, though the Federal Reserve had known for months.

The bonuses were doled out to the AIG division at the heart of the company’s near collapse and whose intricate dealings with banks worldwide helped trigger the global financial crisis.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the Post that he had not been aware of the size of the bonuses and the timing of the payments.

“I was stunned when I learned how bad this was on Tuesday [March 10],” Geithner told the Post. “I shouldn’t have been in that position, but it’s my responsibility and I accept that.”

Geithner met with his staff and considered options, but concluded that the government could not change contracts for work that had already been done.

This article has been modified from its original version.

With McClintock in D.C., why hire lobbyists? Another View

By Charlie Brown

Like many California counties facing huge budget shortfalls this year, the Plumas County Board of Supervisors recently decided, by a 3-2 vote, to spend $25,000 retaining the Ferguson Group to lobby for funds made available by the recently enacted $787 billion federal stimulus package.

In a spirited debate on whether a county that already implemented a 25 percent general fund cut, layoffs and furloughs, could afford to spend its limited resources on such an effort, newly elected Supervisor Lori Simpson — an opponent of the contract — asked, “Well, we have three representatives in Washington now … what are they doing for us, what do they get paid for?”

It’s a fair question.

So in the midst of a steepening recession, rising unemployment and record foreclosures, I looked to see what our newest representative was doing that would necessitate our district’s continued reliance on D.C. lobbyists.

In visiting Tom McClintock’s Web site, I found a lot of no votes, some floor speeches rehashing his favorite sound bytes from 30 years in politics, and only one bill authored — H.R. 54, “Celebrating the Life of Ronald Wilson Reagan on his 98th Birthday.”

Therein lies the answer to Supervisor Simpson’s question.

A larger question remains. Do we expect our representatives in Washington to represent their constituents, or some ideological utopia?

We know that the former tends to produce solution-oriented compromises (imperfect though they be). The latter, almost always produces partisan gridlock — a recurring problem both in Sacramento and Washington that we can point to as a big reason why things have gotten so far off track.

Congressman McClintock has made a career, at taxpayer expense mind you, of choosing the latter. Unfortunately, that’s a choice that comes with costs for the people of California’s 4th District, at a time our region and economy can least afford them.

Last year McClintock opposed reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools & Community Self Determination Act — a bipartisan measure replacing more than $20 million annually in lost logging revenues to seven of District 4’s nine counties — saving local jobs and funding everything from schools to highways, water projects and law enforcement.

On legislation to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) — providing more than 12,700 4th District kids who wouldn’t otherwise be able to access health coverage (ultimately increasing health costs for all of us when the emergency room becomes their primary care doctor) an affordable choice of private health plans, he also voted no.

On the recently passed and earmark-free federal stimulus bill — to include a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans, expanded benefits for the 10.1 percent of Californians now out of work, long overdue investments in energy production, forest management and infrastructure, and an estimated 8,300 new jobs here in the 4th District (1,000 more than estimates for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district by the way), he voted no again.

In doing so, he voted no on shovel ready infrastructure projects like Lincoln Bypass, expansion of Interstate 80, improvements to Highway 50 and the Dorsey Interchange.

He voted no on tapping our immense local energy resources to help fuel our national recovery, and against modernized water storage, flood control and prevention of costly wildfires. Anyone who knows our community knows that each of these investments will yield solid dividends for our region, the state and the nation.

In between recent lectures to the California Republican Convention and Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on the merits of reprising the Bush Administration’s recession-inducing economic policies and hoping a different result will trickle down to the rest of us, McClintock suggested to a group gathered in El Dorado County that the county he represents — and one facing a $15 million projected deficit — shouldn’t take nor expect any stimulus funds.

That’s sage advice for a community which spent $130,000 last year alone on federal lobbyists — most of which went to a firm employing the son of McClintock’s top political aide.

In Congress, hard budget choices and a deepening housing crisis will be up next. And with the Center for Responsible Lending projecting that California’s 4th District will be home to the third highest number of foreclosures in the state this year (nearly 10,000), the stakes could not be higher (coincidentally, the 3rd Congressional District, where McClintock currently lives, has the highest projected foreclosure rate).

Unfortunately, if history is any guide, it seems a safe bet that Tom will vote no, and an even safer bet that he won’t offer a viable alternative.

Meanwhile, we can expect our local officials to continue hiring federal lobbyists to do the work of advocating for our region in Washington. Maybe we should call that the “McClintock Tax” on local government.

Charlie Brown is a retired lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Air Force from Roseville. He was the Democratic candidate for the District 4 U.S. Congressional representative in the 2008 general election.