Mark Jacoby, head of the firm Young Political Majors that has been implicated in the growing scandal over Republican fraud in voter registrations. The Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit led the inquiry that resulted in the arrest and had this to say in an emailed press release:

The owner of a signature-gathering firm that works across California was arrested in Ontario today on suspicion of committing voter registration fraud, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced.

Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owns the firm known as Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested after allegedly registering himself to vote, once in 2006 and again in 2007, at an address where did not live.  An investigation by the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit revealed that Jacoby twice registered to vote at the address of a childhood home in Los Angeles although he no longer lived there….

“Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud,” said Secretary Bowen, California’s chief elections officer.  “Where there’s a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution.”

This arrest comes on the heels of recent media coverage of YPM’s fraudulent tactics sometimes known as “slamming” – where voters are duped into changing their party registrations, or where their registration is simply changed by YPM without the voter’s knowledge:

The Times randomly interviewed 46 of the hundreds of voters whose election records show they were recently re-registered as Republicans by YPM, and 37 of them — more than 80% — said that they were misled into making the change or that it was done without their knowledge.

Jacoby’s arrest does not stem from those specific charges, which are still under investigation, but the fact that Jacoby himself was fraudulently registered is damning.

It should also lead us to ask why Steve Poizner is funding YPM’s efforts.

But then that’s the modern Republican Party for you – making baseless charges against someone else (i.e. ACORN) to hide their own criminal behavior.

(that’s what I’m talkin’ about! – promoted by David Dayen)

UPDATE2 Monday midnight: Final numbers – $650 raised from 20 donors, and $300 matched by me, as promised.  

UPDATE Monday 11:15pm: So far $625 raised, and I’ve hit my limit of $250 in donation matches (actually, I’ve gone a little beyond it).  I’m looking for one more donor before midnight of $5 or more.  That will bring me to an even $300.  

This will be a short diary – my message is pretty clear.

* Debbie Cook is a great candidate

* Dana Rohrabacher is a bum

* If you give to Debbie here by tomorrow (Monday) midnight

* I’ll match your donation.

* Get bigger bang for your progressive donation – give to Debbie now.  

Thanks

The editors of Redding’s Record Searchlight appear to have done Democrat Jeff Morris an incredible favor by endorsing Republican incumbent Wally Herger in the race for California’s 2nd Congressional District.

Normally, this kind of endorsement would not be something that the challenger’s supporters could cheer about. This time, it appears that the Searchlight‘s action backfired — big time.

Judging by the comments to the editorial and other community feedback, the paper has unleashed a wave of fury and outrage that will likely show itself at the polls, a wave that will carry ol’ Wally into retirement where he belongs.

The Record Searchlight is a typical small-town conservative-leaning newspaper that has endorsed every Republican candidate since Nixon. This year, the editors lost their nerve, refusing to endorse either presidential candidate. The Searchlight claimed that it would be “arrogant” to assume that, with so many other sources of information out there, anything their paper had to say would have any influence on local voters. Readers roundly criticized the paper for that decision, correctly identifying it as the coward’s way out. The paper promised to weigh in on local races, however, because “our newsroom knows more about what’s going on in the north state than anybody else around.”

Their newsroom very well may know what’s going on, because you can see that the enthusiasm for Jeff Morris was clearly communicated up the food chain when it came to the endorsement for CA-02:

In the race to represent the 2nd Congressional District, Republican Wally Herger faces an unusually strong challenger in Trinity County Supervisor Jeff Morris.

A Weaverville native and businessman who’s served one term as a [county] supervisor, Morris has a close-up view of the challenges facing rural Northern California – the economy, forestry, health care – and he’s worked hard in recent years to tackle them.

He points to his experience helping develop the Weaverville Community Forest, which has produced timber and a fire-resistant forest while respecting the environment. He highlights his work to preserve Trinity Hospital, which county residents voted in 2006 to save by taxing themselves, and to keep the county out of bankruptcy. He rightly advocates spreading broadband Internet access to rural areas …

Morris knocks Herger and his fellow Republicans as hypocrites on spending …

Morris brings … good ideas.

They wanted to endorse him. You can see it there, in black and white. They gave Jeff a good hard look, and they really liked what they saw. So what the hell happened?

I think this is how it went down: Some editor had his piece all ready to go, with a headline along the lines of “Jeff Morris brings a strong new voice for Northern California.” He carried it down the hall for final approval, feeling that pride in his gut that happens when you know you’ve written something great, when you know that you’ve done the right thing. But someone, somewhere, in the back office or upstairs or at the boardroom table, didn’t want that to happen. “What will our corporate owners think if we endorse a (gasp!) Democrat? Unthinkable! They’ll fire us all!” So they made the poor schmuck rewrite his piece, falling back into the incredibly weak argument of “Morris is a Democrat, therefore he will vote with the Democratic majority all the time and your taxes will go through the roof.”

Anyone who knows Jeff Morris knows this is bullshit of the highest degree. Time and time again, Jeff Morris has proven that he wants what is best for District 2, and to hell with party affiliation.

The comments to this miserable excuse for an editorial show that the Searchlight‘s readers know what’s going on just as well as — and perhaps better than — the paper’s newsroom:

Herger’s had his chance and blown it. How many chances do you want to give him to screw up Northern California?

-Live2Ride

Talk is cheap and phony hypocrites are to be avoided at all costs. We know Herger is all talk when it comes to lower taxes and smaller government and that he is a phony hypocrite with respect to his stated principles. Morris may prove to be just as bad, but he has yet to default on his word, whereas Wally has broken trust with the people. On that basis, Morris is a better choice.

-johnharris

Wally Herger represents someone in the Northstate, I suppose, but it isn’t me. It’s not the working family … What is ironic is the recommendation of the above editorial states why Jeff Morris is such a strong candidate and makes him more appealing than it does Herger.

-Zebrareader

Aside from the $10 trillion deficit, the editorial does not mention a single thing that Wally has brought to the north state. He consistently supports earmarks for other Republican districts, but not for us. The one issue that I remember he vigorously lobbied for here in Redding was privitization of social security. I’m sure glad he lost on that one.

-Treebones

Herger only puts on his fisical conservative cap when it comes to federal dollars for middle and low income people – which makes up his constituency. Herger is a tool of the rich, and corporate lobbyists in DC. He’s a bad fit for this district in everyway. That’s why I’m supporting Jeff Morris for Congress.

-rewoulfe

Herger is the worst person to represent us. I asked Wally for help with an issue with the VA. All he did is forward VA reports to me. He (or none of his staff) NEVER even looked at the issue or went to bat for me.

-Shasta Vet

During the [forest fires] this last summer, I wrote to Herger three times, asking him to rein in the forest service and stop the burns. Not one answer. Not only did Jeff Morris answer immediately, but he and his wife were putting out community bulletins about the fires on a nearly daily basis. To my knowledge, Herger showed up one time for a photo op with George Bush.

-DanAd

I feel that the people up here have been duped far too long by “rubber stamp” Wally. It’s time that people took an interest in who this man really represents. The average family in the North State get nothing from Wally except a few votes for the flag or prayers but nothing to make life better for us.

-robyport

You gutless, cowardly wonders.

-Studmonkey

And on and on it went. Out of over 50 comments, perhaps 2 were for Herger (although those were more pro-Republican generally than pro-Wally). One fellow even got so worked up that he stole most of the text from one of my recent blog posts and copied into the comments verbatim! Add “incitement to commit copyright infringement” to the charges against the paper.

In all seriousness — I have been watching the comments in the Searchlight for some time, and I can tell you that these folks trend conservative. Any time gay marriage or abortion is mentioned, there is a bloodbath in the comments to the article. Any time Obama and McCain are mentioned, more local warfare in the viewer comments. NEVER have I seen the kind of overwhelming disdain and disgust and — dare I say — UNITY on an issue as I saw in the response to yesterday’s editorial.

Dear Record Searchlight: As one of Jeff Morris’s strongest supporters, I thank you. Thank you for explaining what a great candidate my brother is. Thank you for giving your readers something to unite around. Thank you for providing Jeff with an extra bump as we head toward the polls. Thank you for letting us all know that you care more about your corporate backers than you care about the lives of regular people in Northern California. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Well done.

(cross-posted at DailyKos)

My son (9) likes to watch the Simpsons on DVR.  Yes on 8 ads have blanketed that time slot.  So the “Yes on 8” campaign ad has told my kid many times that Men can Marry men.!!!!

Not that I care.  My son has a very good friend with two dads so it’s not like he’s even shocked.  And we’ve had some discussion about it as elementary school kids still use “Gay” as an insult and so I’ve had to have that discussion – you know, about what it means and why it’s not bad and how some people think it is…etc..etc..etc.

But what about all those millions of parent’s who aren’t necessarily anti-gay or even anti-gay marriage, but weren’t ready to have that conversation with their kids?  And if the anti-gay marriage types let their kids watch the Simpsons, they ought to be pretty pissed off.

And finally, the hypocrisy of it strikes me as particularly egregious…I mean the whole reason they are given to be opposed to Gay Marriage is that your kids might find out about it – and yet they are blanketing the air waves, during a show that kids love to watch, with ads informing kids that men can marry men and woman can marry woman.  

That’s all I have to say about that.

Apparently 37,276,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007) Americans are not considered to be human, have no value and hence unworthy of any consideration in the formulation of policy.  Just as cats and dogs are regulated by the government for unacceptable behavior but are not the recipients of any government transfers, those living in poverty are perpetually mired in a morass of neglect and indifference by all levels of government who often discover that the only free “public housing tract” (Mumia Abu Jamal) available to them, is prison.

Partly to blame for this paucity of government assistance is the neoliberal ideology which dictates that the “invisible” hand of the omnigenerous, omnibenevolent, and omnicompassionate market will distribute sufficient wealth to those who are deserving and hardworking.  Perhaps those who worship at the alter of free markets ought to read The Wealth of Nations more carefully and add The Theory of Moral Sentiments also by Adam Smith to their reading list.  Since poverty is a social construct as demonstrated by those countries who view the poor as people who are victims of the system, both leadership candidates should commit themselves to policies that transcend tokenism.  For example, Barack Obama, arguably the more progressive of the two candidates, should rethink is constant and annoying reference to the middle class when discussing the hardships which Americans are undergoing.

Poverty in the United States is not an inevitable outcome of capitalism as is evident when the poverty rates of Western industrialized countries are compared.  Examining child poverty rates in 26 OECD countries in 2007, based on children living below national poverty lines, reveals that the United States has a rate of 21.9%, second last to Mexico.  Poverty rates in countries who actually believe in egalitarian economic policies include: Demark (2.4%); Finland (2.8%); Norway (3.4%); Sweden (4.2%); Switzerland (6.8%); and France (7.5%).  Egalitarian economic policies are not based on communist ideology but rather on a sense of fairness, decency and compassion.

One of the measures related to poverty is the unemployment rate which is much lower in many OECD countries than in the United States although it is important to bear in mind that the unemployment statistic itself is very flawed, for example treating the working poor as if they earn a sufficient income to support their families.  According to the OECD, in August 2008, the U.S. has an unemployment rate of 5.68% compared to Austria at 3.30%, Denmark at 2.9%, the Netherlands at 2.60%, Korea at 3.2%, Japan at 4.15%, Australia 4.08%, Luxembourg at 4.2%, and the Czech Republic at 4.30%.

Hidden behind these statistics on unemployment are the 75,873,000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007) people who are working at or below the minimum wage.  Since the recent increase to $5.85 per hour, the minimum wage had been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997 which adds up to $10,712 a year or $6,000 below the poverty line.  In fact, the minimum wage lags far behind cost of living increases given that the current minimum is $3.50 lower in purchasing power since 1960.

One of the critical explanations for the depth of poverty in the United States is the ideological opposition to transfer payments for individuals who are struggling.  This opposition is a consequence of the religious commitment to Neoliberalism which encourages each individual to maximize his wealth to benefit society as a whole.  It must be noted that there is no similar anathema to transfers to defense industries or to corporations in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, deregulation, guaranteed loans, and bailouts.  Adam Smith’s invisible hand seems to slap those in need and reward those who are wealthy while applying the dogma adhered to rigidly by the disciples of Milton Freidman.

According to OECD statistics for 2003, the United States ranks 28th out of 31 countries in the percentage of GDP devoted to social spending such as healthcare, education and pensions.  Only Ireland, Korea and Mexico spent a lower percentage of GDP on social spending.  On the other hand, Sweden spent 31.3%, France 28.7%, Germany 27.3% and Belgium 26.5%.   Low social spending explains the high poverty rate in the U.S. as well as the very high infant mortality rate.  Out of 18 European countries, Japan and Canada, the U.S. had the highest number of deaths per 1000 live births (OECD, 2007).  The U.S. had 6.9, Finland 3, France 3.8, Germany 3.9, Norway 3.1, Portugal 3.5 and Sweden 2.4.

Despite the statistics exposing the severity of poverty in the United States and an understanding of the unconscionable mental, physical and emotional consequences of poverty, not to mention the long-term costs to society, past presidents and the two candidates for the next presidency seem to assign a very low priority to this tragic problem.

Obama’s solutions to reduce poverty include raising the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011.  First of all, $9.50 will mean that a minimum wage worker will still be below the poverty line as well as falling further behind the cost of living for three more years.  It seems that when the financial and banking sector are in a state of crisis, it only takes weeks to agree to a $700 billion package but when the problem is poverty there doesn’t seem to be enough money to fund the necessary programs and the poor will just have to wait until 2011 to scrounge around for the few crumbs that Obama can scrape together.

Obama promises to reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit but families that pay almost nothing in taxes because their income is too low will barely benefit.  His promise to give families up to 50% credit for their child care expenses is too vague to offer any hope.  Many European countries and several provinces in Canada pay close to 100% of day care expenses for those who need it.

The real problem is that the government has no real intention to redistribute wealth in any meaningful way.  Redistribution of wealth is well beyond the boundaries of legitimate economic policy in American political culture.  It’s radical, extreme and subversive.  It’s probably a threat to the security of the United States.

State of Darkness: US Complicity in Genocide since 1945

http://www.stateofdarkness.com

Dear friends,

I just received a presumably McCain push poll on my cell phone.  The push poll was as follows:

         * Push Poll (PP): Are you intending to vote in the 2008 presidential election?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  Do you intend to vote for John McCain?

               o Me:  No

         * PP:  Do you intend to vote for Barack Obama?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  Do you want a strong President who will manage the economy?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  Did you know about Barack Obama’s affiliations to Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac and that most of his contributors are Washington lobbyists representing the corrupt firms that caused the financial crisis?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  Does this make you less likely to vote for Barack Obama?

               o Me:  No

         * PP:  Did you know about Barack Obama’s affiliation to terrorist Bill Ayers and to the fraudulent voter registration organizationAcorn?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  Does this make you less likely to vote for Barack Obama?

               o Me:  No

         * PP:  Are the values of the candidates important for you in this election?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  Did you know that Obama is a muslim?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  Does this make you less likely to vote for Barack Obama?

               o Me:  No

         * PP:  We are going to ask you a series of questions about your demographics.  Is this ok?

               o Me:  Yes

         * PP:  What is your age?

               o Me:  34

         * PP:  (Inaudible)

               o Me:  (Silence)

         * PP:  Thank you ver much for taking time to answer the survey of the Political Action Committee for Change (not sure, if this was the name or not).  This is an independent survey and is not affiliated with the political campaigns of John McCain or Barack Obama. (End of call)

The number was registered on my caller ID as the following:  703-263-2155

Let’s call this number and shut it down!  🙂

Thanks,

Yosem

UPDATED NEWS:

You should read the comments on my blog entry in dailykos.com at http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

  * Someone named NH Flaming Moderate (http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:154372) claimed to have been called from that number today, but she was unable to answer because she was at a soccer game.

  * Another person named Ballerina X (http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:97334) claims the caller ID read “Perry Elaine.”

  * Another person named jgilhousen (http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:108731) claimed the location was “Herndon VA” and said that “there are several marketing/political research companies there, any of whom could be the culprit.”  Another person says the caller ID read:  PUBSRV 2008.

  * Someone named Msanger (http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:85832) received the same exact call in Georgia at 4.30 pm Saturday.

  * If you google Elaine Perry, she does voice overs:  http://voice123.com/elaineperry

Also, there have been twelve complaints registered against this phone number online:

  * http://www.callercomplaints.co…

AND

  * http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Nu…

On these lists of complaints, one person who answered the calls said they were repeated calls by the Huckabee campaign.

The Mormons for Obama on Yahoo Groups have organized a concerted effort to call the number en mass.  They said they were initially getting a voice mail but now are actually getting a busy signal.  

Leslie Jackson in the Feminists for Obama Yahoo Group wrote:

Yosem,

All I could find out about that number is that it is a verizon phone and it is in Centerville, VA. If you want to find out the persons name and

address, you have to pay 40 bucks. I tried calling and it just kept ringing. You may want to check with verizon though. Les

A fellow Truman Scholar or Harvard alum named Brett Keller wrote me 15 minutes ago to say:

Yosem,

Based on other comments I’ve found online, I think this is the organization that pays for those calls:

http://www.americansincontact….

My family (grandmother, mother and aunt) were on the phone via phone conference, while I answered the questions.  So they serve as witnesses.  I could not figure out in the nick of time how to record a cell phone call.