From the Seattle Times: “Reichert, Burner debate over lunch.”
Huh. Surely they must have talked about more substantive issues than that?
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High Noon, eh? Did the sheriff do his Gary Cooper imitation? I hear it’s pretty good.
Expect the trolls to launch another offensive today over the raid of ACORN’s Las Vegas offices yesterday.
As I posted yesterday, if somebody was engaged in illegal election conduct, I’m all for throwing the book at them, regardless of which party they support. But the timing of this raid seems suspicious, so as of yesterday, I was unwilling to draw any conclusions based upon the simple execution of a search warrant.
Looks like today that the raid is looking even more suspicious. In an article in the Dallas Morning News (hardly a bastion of liberal media), the paper has some interesting quotes from the officials involved. It appears that like in Washington, some paid signature gatherers were trying to rip off ACORN by filling out false voter registration forms (possibly from the telephone book) instead of doing the hard work required to get legitimate registrations. ACORN officials discovered the attempts and turned over the information to the authorities (46 attempted registration forms). After all, it’s both fraud with respect to the election, and attempted theft from ACORN.
But the authorities executed a raid against ACORN anyway. The raid was organized by the Nevada Secretary of State (which held a press conference immediatly afterwards), adding that it was acting in concert with “information provided by” the F.B.I. and Justice Dept.
But it appeared that the justification for the raid was rather slim. “”You don’t have to read too many cop novels to know that sometimes people will tell you a grain of truth to try to hide the rest of the truth,” Walsh said. “I’m certainly not suggesting that ACORN is that nefarious, but at the same time just because they handed over 50 to you doesn’t mean there aren’t 150 others out there.” said the spokesman for the Nevada A.G.
Based upon that reasoning, if someone mugs you and steals your wallet and you report it to the Police, the police would then be justified in raiding your home to see if, just perhaps, you were part of a mugging ring yourself?????
This spokesman, who apparantly takes his law enforcement training from reading novels, apparantly doesn’t know the meaning of “probable cause” as it applies to search warrants. If that’s all they’ve got, then a prosecution based upon evidence that was seized would be impossible because it would all be thrown out of oourt. But if all they were looking for was headlines before the election, and not an attempt to actually win a case, then I guess it might be good enough.
Of course, we can’t discount the possibility that some of the signature gatherers were Republican plants in order to discredit ACORN and the Democrats in general. It wouldn’t be that far outside of Karl Rove’s playbook. I’ve learned that anytime you think there’s a level below which even he wouldn’t go, I’m invariably wrong.
But more importantly, it’s pretty clear that the false registrations reported by ACORN could not, in any way, influence the election. It appears that a good portion of them included the names of the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys. Obviously, since the Dallas Cowboys aren’t going to attempt to vote in Nevada, then it isn’t going to make a difference in the actual election.
Source: Nevada authorities claim voter-fraud scheme used names of Dallas Cowboys
Again, if anybody was engaged in illegal conduct to influence the election results, I say throw the book at them, regardless of which party benefits. But it’s looking more and more that this raid is either (at best) a PR stunt to try to make ACORN and the Democrats look bad, or at worst a smokescreen to conceal other conduct by the Republicans which is already in the works (caging, voter suppression, etc.).
The printed edition used, “Reichert, Burner debate war, taxes”
” Vegan is the only way to go.”
“No, Darcy, the only diet worth eating is to only eat raw meat.”
Reichert was channeling Sarah Palin yesterday, not answering questions. Why is so hard for politicians to answer the questions at these debates? Has Reichert forgotten he was elected to represent people and these debates are a forum for the people?
Reichert’s pro-deregulation policies are what have got this nation in the economic and financial mess we are in. His anti-Choice policies go against his constituents. His Iraq war stance goes against his constituents. These are fundamental partisan Republican positions.
We’ve had enough of that in the 8th. It is time for a change.
“Vegetables…
What Food eats.”
# 6 I was going to say that.
Dave Reichert: “Darcy Burner has been palling around with chipped beef on toast”.
Since Ditzy, I mean Darcy, is a qualified waitress, she would win that “lunch” debate for sure.