I have sat by quietly over the past couple weeks as our friend Stefan over at (un)Sound Politics has tried to spin the tribulations of former King County Superintendent of Elections Julie Anne Kempf into some sort of Democratic conspiracy to silence a whistle blower. I have had several pleasant emails with Julie on unrelated subjects, and did not want to add on to her troubles. But when Stefan starts making his Zimbabwe comparisons again, he goes too far… and so I just can’t resist pointing out his intellectual dishonesty (or laziness… your pick.)
Stefan, who has previously slurred King County Executive Ron Sims by calling him “the Robert Mugabe of Washington politics” (thus comparing the most powerful African American elected official in the state to a brutal, African dictator), is now accusing Sims and Elections Director Dean Logan of having Kempf arrested on “trumped up” charges.
It appears that Kempf’s “arrest” … may have been timed to deflect from the bad news that the truly independent members of the task force are about to deliver.
Um… “trumped up” and “timed” by whom? Investigations like this are normally conducted by the Sheriff’s office under the direction of the County Prosecutor… but Prosecutor Norm Maleng (a Republican) was so concerned about any perceived conflict of interest, that he passed on control of the investigation to state Attorney General Rob McKenna (an uber-Republican.) So for this to be a conspiracy, you’d have to believe McKenna is now going around arresting innocents to protect his pals Ron and Dean.
Yeah… like that’s gonna happen.
The real question is, why is Stefan going out of his way to champion a long time Democratic operative? Why? Because during the election contest she refuted statements and assertions made by King County Elections officials… and Stefan finds that rhetorically useful. This is all about trying to impugn Sims and Logan at whatever cost… even the truth.
To imply that Ron Sims is behaving like an African dictator — arresting innocent people for political ends — is not only shameless and disgusting… given the facts, it’s totally nuts. And nobody but a hardcore, whacko nut-case should believe it.
I agree Ron “osimisic” Sims is not smart enough to orchestrate a conspiracy, Wow we finally agree.
All Tools @ 1
“I agree Ron “osimisic” Sims is not smart enough to orchestrate a conspiracy, Wow we finally agree.”
But apparently Bush is smart enough to orchestrate a conspiracy, if the SCOTUS nomination of Roberts is truly supposed to be a distraction from the outing of Valerie Plame controversy.
ConservativeFirst @ 2
“But apparently Bush is smart enough to orchestrate a conspiracy, if the SCOTUS nomination of Roberts is truly supposed to be a distraction from the outing of Valerie Plame controversy.”
What. Did Rove finally resign? I mean, when did anyone here attribute anything requiring actual thought to Shrub? It should be obivous that the timing of the SCOTUS nomination was planned by Shrub’s handlers. Did someone claim otherwise?
Given that Miller is still in jail, I wonder if the Press will be able to leave LeakerGate alone.
Charmin @ 3
“I mean, when did anyone here attribute anything requiring actual thought to Shrub?”
Yep.
Goldy (from his “ethics of outing” blog):
“It is safe to say that when it comes to the politics of personal destruction, nobody leads the way more boldly than President Bush… and thus Republicans nationwide should be prepared to reap what they have sown.” (my emphasis)
ConservativeFirst @ 4
Geee. . . you got me there.
I wonder if Goldy actually thinks Shrub is the architect behind the “politics of personal destruction,” or whether his statement was more about being the Chief dispenser of it? The former requires brains; the latter requires thought processes slightly above those of a reptile.
hey, reuters is quoting GOP strategists as saying Bush hurried the nomination to “take Rove off the front page for a week,” so don’t blame the Dems for that conspiracy theory.
And I was going to call Goldy out for being wrong, since the word is spelled “wacko”–but just to make sure, I checked. Turns out “whacko” is an accepted alternate spelling. Viva la internet!
When do they fire your boy Dean Logan? Conspiracy of fools, to borrow a great book title.
torridjoe @ 6
“hey, reuters is quoting GOP strategists as saying Bush hurried the nomination to “take Rove off the front page for a week,” so don’t blame the Dems for that conspiracy theory.”
Where’d you see that? I checked reuters site and didn’t say anything that made that claim.
Charmin @ 5
“I wonder if Goldy actually thinks Shrub is the architect behind the “politics of personal destruction,” or whether his statement was more about being the Chief dispenser of it? ”
I’ll take the man at his word, unless he wants to retract or modify his statment. The second option you propose seems like it’s easily verifiable. I can’t recall Bush “dispensing” any destruction of people’s personal lives. I think it would be interesting to see some examples of this. Can you provide some? If not I guess your first option must be the reality of the situation.
Torridjoe,
Welcome back!
ConservativeFirst @ 9
Ask I can’t recall Bush “dispensing” any destruction of people’s personal lives.
Oh??? Ask the relatives of 100,000 or so dead Iraqi’s.
I’m NEVER surprised when a right wing blowhard (like Stefan, fer instance) waxes a bit racist. After the ex-Democrat southern segregationists are in the GOP now. And given their white-male superiority complex, I think it just comes naturally them.
And, of course, I’m no longer surprised by Stefan’s dishonesty after that shit he pulled over the list of voters whose ballots weren’t counted — he tried to take credit for KING 5 TV’s public records request. Watch out for this guy, he’s a bullshitter.
It sounds to me that Mrs. Kemp chose the wrong proffesion. She was too honest and yet chose to work with a den of vipers known as KCRE. It just goes to show you that honesty and democratic politics dont mix. That is why I dont feel sorry for any King county election worker. Over 60% said they were embarrassed to work for KCRE…well duh. You should have thought about that before you took the job you dumb donks. If you havent figured it out yet we have two media’s now.. you cant hide the truth anymore.
I meant Mrs Kempf
Rufus @13,
Let me just say that you are totally talking out of your ass. You have absolutely no idea who Kempf is, or what she is like, or what actually transpired in KC Elections under her watch. You really have no idea.
dj, you giving up the moniker “charmin”?
Don’t let the “special people” like PM and puddle rattle you.
Goldy- I am not saying Kempf is bad. I am saying she was too good to work for KCRE. Mrs Kempf was the whistle blower who got fired for saying that overseas absentee ballots were being mailed late out of KCRE. Her bosses name was Bob Roegner who was the KCRE elections director.
Roegner later resigned after ballots were mailed late in a May 2003 special election.
That is how the current liar… I mean director Dean Logan got his job.
You could compare Stefan to Meyer Kahane.
I have spent a while looking at news stories about Julie Anne Kempf in the past, as well as thinking this matter over. I believe the charges against her are either (1) unwarranted, (2) trumped-up, or (3) selective prosecution.
Pretending to be someone else (impersonation) is generally a crime only if done for purposes of fraud. Otherwise, it is no worse than the investigator who pretended to be a 17 year old boy in order to “out” (and seriously disgrace) Spokane Mayor Jim West.
Maybe stopping payment on a check issued for a public records request could be “theft”, but almost no one is prosecuted for writing a bad check in King County. Certainly not for what is likely an extremely small amount of money.
As for “assaulting” the officer, maybe some plainclothes detective stood behind her vehicle as she was backing out of her driveway. Probably, she didn’t see him at all. If she did, how could she know he was a cop, as opposed to some who might have been trying to rape or assault her? The detective was foolish to put himself in danger simply to interview her. Next time, he should try knocking on someone’s door or calling them on the telephone.
As for the forgery charges, there could be some basis for these, if it relates to the following topic:
http://www.thestranger.com/sea.....t?oid=1894
This deals with some 33rd District Democrat campaign finance reports from 1998 which magically appeared in King County Elections in the summer of 1999. (Kempf’s mother was 33rd Dist Dem treasurer and responsible for timely filing the reports.) I won’t get into any details, but this story was well reported in the MSM in September 1999 or perhaps a bit sooner, and very well known to all the relevant government authorities — AG, PDC, prosecutor, KC Executive, etc.
I think a felony committed by a public servant in relation to their official duties can be prosecuted for up to 10 years. Still, why is there suddenly being interest taken about six years later in the matter? And why didn’t Ron Sims fire Kempf in 1999 when this was discovered, instead of forcing her to resign three years in 2002 over another matter?
If Rob McKenna is going to prosecute Kempf for falsifying campaign finance report filings in 1999, then he needs to prosecute ALL the King County Elections personnel who falsified election reports related to the November 2004 general election.
It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I for one don’t believe anything from either side of the blog table. I’ve been around long enough to know that all you have to do is push someone a bit and they will get themselves in trouble. Then all you have to do is stand back and say “See, I told you they were unstable!”.
Donnageddon @ 16
“dj, you giving up the moniker “charmin”?”
Oh. . . I don’t know. I was thinking of changing my handle when I learned that there was a DJ (in caps—I always use lower case) who posted to HA and uSP in late 2004. Charmin is as good as any name, except that the origin of the name is the word “Charming”, which definitely doesn’t apply to me! :-)
“Don’t let the “special people” like PM and puddle rattle you.”
Actually, I think it is fun that the puritans stoop to potty humor. :-)
What is amazing is that in the posts over at the ss minows site, there are only two mentions of Rob McKenna, one from myself and one from Richard Pope (Richard, I don’t agree with you, but you are at least honest in comparison to the company you keep). There is only one mention of Maleng other than the post I just added.
Sheesh, you think some one over there would notice that their grand conspiracy is not headed by Democrats, but by Republicans.
And,to those who doubt Bush hustle his court nominee to try to cover Rove’s ass, Here is the money quote from a bloomberg article today ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....WRAX1A74E9 ):
“Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of a CIA agent’s name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy. ”
And that is hardly a conspiracy. It is just desperate politics. Sadly it didn’t work that well, as the Washington Post leads with another Rove Scandal story tomorrow.
Perhaps the best way to look at it is the Onion’s headline:
“Bush Awaits Orders From Rove On Handling Of Rove Scandal”
Talk about inane conspiracy theories … (u)SP takes the cake!
** Julie Anne Kempf was the scapegoat for Bob Roegner, never worked for or with Dean Logan.
** When Roegner continued to screw up, and had no Kempf available to pass off as the perp, he was fired.
** Why in the world would Logan draw attention to the woes of his department? If anything, this (non)story is being pushed by opponents of Logan.
** As Goldy points out, the driving forces behind what the delusional Mr. Sharkansky sees as a dictatorial Sims/Logan conspiracy are the Republican County Sheriff, the Republican County Attorney, and perhaps the Republican Attorney General.
N in Seattle @ 23
The King County Sheriff, Susan Rahr, is apparently a Democrat.
The King County Democrats website lists only candidates who publicly identify themselves as Democrats. This means (1) people who file for a partisan office as a Democrat and (2) people who file for a nonpartisan office and additionally publicly state that they are Democrats.
Susan Rahr is listed as a Democrat on this website (even though the election for Sheriff is nonpartisan):
http://www.wuxx.com/kcdems/tem.....dates.aspx
I would note that neither of Rahr’s two announced opponents for Sheriff calls himself a Democrat. Neither of them are listed. Nor are several Port of Seattle candidates who don’t call themselves Democrats.
Therefore, it appears that Susan Rahr is a Democrat.
As for Norm Maleng’s office, they have simply recused themselves and referred the matter to the Attorney General. The King County Prosecuting Attorney has represented Dean Logan, Julie Anne Kempf and other players in a variety of related civil matters, and obviously felt that recusal was wise (regardless of whether it is absolutely necessary).
It remains to be seen what Rob McKenna’s office does with this matter. I would note that no charges have been filed. If any advice has been given by the AG’s office, it apparently was to have Kempf released immediately, instead of being detained in jail.
Having dealt with King County Elections on a number of initiatives and other election matters, I think I can safely say that my impression of Julie Anne Kempf is that she is a pathalogical liar. Her “revelations” sound a lot more like a perp making stuff up to cover their ass than the grand conspiracy theories being espoused by Snark, et al.
KC Elections has a host of structural and competence problems, but you wingnuts really need to let go of the notion that they were solely responsible for the election errors in the 2004 governors race. How is KC Elections (or Dean Logan, who actually seems a lot brighter and more honest than Kempf to me) responsible for the isolated acts of individual felon voters or people who voted for their recently deceased spouses? They aren’t of course, but keep on snivelling anyway you Rethug crybaby losers.
Xman, nice try. KCRE is all messed up, otherwise they could tell us how many people voted, how many ballots there were, etc. Even if you take away fraud, you are still left with accuracy no bank would ever tolerate.
So my vote is cancelled out cuz the double counted some provisional voters, and if they really cared, they’d only count legit, verified votes, even if that means fewer votes get counted.
I’m on the side of count only legit. Kind of like the Bars won’t serve you unless they are triple sure you are >21 (you know, the signs now that say under 35 yrs gets carded etc)
Righton @ 26
“So my vote is cancelled out cuz the double counted some provisional voters, and if they really cared, they’d only count legit, verified votes, even if that means fewer votes get counted.”
Not true. Each invalid vote against your candidate in a race only canceled a tiny fraction of your vote (equal to 0.000001th of a vote). But, in the 2004 gubernatorial race, each invalid vote for Gregoire was offset by an illegal vote for Rossi.
(The Judge determined that Gregoire still would have prevailed if proportional deduction had been used, meaning that she had the most legal votes.)
Righton @ 26-
Your point is totally irrelevent – except to point up the fact that you are a crybaby loser (you Rethugs are perfectly happy to disenfranchise legitimate voters who happen to live in majority Dem areas – ala the Florida voter roll purge – so spare me your sanctimonious BS about every vote counting!)
Oh and Charmin, I think expecting these punks to do basic math like you did in your response is probably wishful thinking (grin)
Richard Pope @ 24:
Perhaps you’re right … I was basing my suggestion that the Sheriff is GOP on the idea that when a sitting official (e.g. Dave Reichert) resigns, that person’s party gets to choose the successor. Since Sheriff is non-partisan, I suppose that unwritten(?) rule of Washington politics wouldn’t apply.
OTOH, the KC Dems listing to cite refers only to candidates who have submitted questionnaire responses to KCDCC, who would like to be considered for endorsement. Although question #1 on page 1 is “Are you a Democrat? Are you known as a Democrat?”, and questions #1 and #2 on the second page also seek information on party identification and support, there is no certainty that a candidate submitting a response to the questionnaire is actually a Democrat. For instance, I don’t think Christal Wood would consider herself a Democrat. On the other hand, Port Commission candidate Richard Berkowitz certainly identifies as a Democrat, but apparently has not yet filed a KCDCC questionnaire (I’m not sure how John Kane, also running for Port position #3, self-identifies, though he did ask to speak briefly at our 43rd LD Dems meeting on Tuesday).
BTW, Richard, is your May C1 form filed with the PDC still accurate? Are you still seeking Port Commission position #4? For the record, every other Port candidate — including Republican John Creighton — accepted the 43rd LD Dems’ invitation to participate in our Port Commission candidate forum last month, but you didn’t even have the courtesy to decline.
Are you really running a contribution-free campaign? The only PDC form I can find is that C1.
Oh we wouldn’t want to slur Ron Simms – the man who defends James Ujama – the convicted terrorist.
Reply@28,
Your point is totally irrelevent – except to point up the fact that you are a crybaby loser (you Rethugs are perfectly happy to disenfranchise legitimate voters who happen to live in majority Dem areas – ala the Florida voter roll purge – so spare me your sanctimonious BS about every vote counting!)
There we go again with the talkin points. The only one disenfranchising voters are the Democrat thugs.
Exhibit one (Speaking of Ohio):
A Mr Chad Staton is hired by the Ohio Democrat party to gather fraudulent voter registrations. Mr Staton does so with great abandon and gets creative. He registers Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse for the Democrats party. And the Democrat taskmasters are so grateful, they reward Mr Staton with crack. Sound to far out to be true?
Here is the link:
http://www.toledoblade.com/app...../410190343
Exhibit Two (Vote Fraud- the good old fashioned Democrat way):
All five defendants in the vote fraud trial in East St. Louis were convicted by a jury today after five and a half hours of deliberations.
The defendants showed little response when the verdicts were displayed on an overhead projector in federal court. Defendant Sheila Thomas dabbed her eyes, but the other four stared straight ahead.
Charles Powell Jr., the head of the city’s Democratic Party, three precinct committeemen and an election worker had been accused of buying votes to get prominent Democrats elected in the Nov. 2 election.
And of course the link:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltod.....enDocument
Unlike the unsubstantiated allegations thrown around by lying Democrats, the facts show that Democrats have a long history of vote fraud.
PBJ – the example you cite is of course reprehensible, and the perpetrators deserve what they’re going to get. However, this penny-ante municipal vote fraud case does not change the fact the GOVERNOR Jeb Bush knowingly and deliberately disenfranchised tens of thousands of duly registered voters through voter roll purges one iota. Too bad Rethugs get more worked up over the fact that illegally registered voters water down legitimate votes more than they do over the DIRECT CONSCIOUS DISENFRANCHISEMENT of LEGITIMATE REGISTERED VOTERS. And just who is lying, here?
PBJ @ 32
Funny, you seem to have neglected to include the closing paragraphs of the Toledo story you cite –
“Mr. Staton’s arrest is not the first time someone who is paid to collect voter registrations or petition signatures has been accusing of falsifying them – such accusations have been made across the country.
And the NAACP Voter Fund is not the first group to come under fire.
Among the others are a Republican-linked group, Voters Outreach of America, which has been accused of destroying voter-registration forms its workers had collected from Democratic voters in Nevada and Oregon.”
Boy, you’re dumb!
Among the others are a Republican-linked group, Voters Outreach of America, which has been accused of destroying voter-registration forms its workers had collected from Democratic voters in Nevada and Oregon.”
Anybody can be accused of anything. Bush was accused by 60 minutes of avoiding his last year of service in the national guard. Everyone knows how that ended up. Remember, anytime a donk accuses anyone of foul play it is usually 99% of the time a lie.
Yo Rufus-
According to the cute little old lady secretary, the document was false, but the substance was true. Bush’s service record (rather, lack thereof in many critical areas – ie days served/flight hours/mandatory physicals) has been well documented and would never have been acceptable for anyone less politically well connected. So FOAD.
Yeah you donks use a lot of cute old ladies just like you did in Florida 2000. Speaking of well documented service records did anyone ever hear the explaination of why Kerry was discharged in 1978? Did Kerry ever sign that form for a full release of his medical records yet? He said he was going to do that to refute some of the “so called lies” from the swifties. And you donks want to argue over substance..LMFAO
Shooting you donks down is so much fun. There is so much amunition out there. Its like am I going to rittle this donk with a spray of light amo or am I going to use the big gun. Its almost not fair. You donks only have yourselves to blame though.
pbj, Mr.X, RUFUS…Thanks! Some good ass kickin’!
This is really odd! Julie Anne Kempf is an old friend from high school and Rob McKenna is a friend from graduate school. Now why can’t all my friends just get along.
Bizarre stuff.