Conservative Down – Yet Another Con faces Criminal Charges

So far this week we have seen one Republican Governor indicted in Va for taking bribes…

A Republican Governor in New Jersey under Federal investigation, in what started as a case of political payback, and has now expanded to corruption charges, and even meetings with a purported Mafia Capo…

And now, one of the formerly shining voices of the right, Dines D’Souza being indicted for election fraud.

I mean…It’s only January, and you have two guys formerly touted as potential Presidential material, and a highly influential voice on the Christian Right potentially looking at jail time.

How bad is it? You even have Glen Beck apologizing!

This should be a TV reality show.

The latest conservative icon to face charges is Dinesh D’Souza. Author of “Illiberal Education“, the controversial “The End of Racism“, and the Anti-Obama hate Movie

“2016: Obama’s America” which was a major hit with the racist conservative sector.

Dinesh D’Souza’s Series of Unfortunate Events

Author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was indicted for encouraging fraudulent campaign donations—just the latest in a spiral that has all but sunk his career in the conservative movement.

Conservative author, filmmaker and provocateur Dinesh D’Souza was indicted Thursday on charges of using straw donors to make illegal contributions to a college classmate’s 2012 campaign.

The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, accuses D’Souza of “willfully and knowingly” surpassing the $5,000 limit for individual campaign donations by directing others to donate to the campaign of Wendy Long, who unsuccessfully challenged New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand in 2012. According to the document, D’Souza and his then-wife, Dixie, each contributed $5,000 to Long’s campaign, and he reimbursed others for $20,000 he had encouraged them to donate.

D’Souza worked with Long on the infamousDartmouth Review, an edgy conservative newspaper at Dartmouth College known for launching smart young right-wingers to prominence. In 1990, the pairapologized for printing an anti-Semitic quote from Hitler’s Mein Kampf in an edition of the publication distributed on Yom Kippur—an antic typical of theReview’s ethos of deliberate provocation. Long went on to become an attorney at several conservative institutions, including the Claremont Institute. She made her first run for office in 2012, and lost in a landslide to Gillibrand, New York’s incumbent Democratic senator.

According to the New York Times], Long raised about $785,000 in the race, with D’Souza hosting one of her fundraisers. D’Souza’s lawyer denied any criminal intent in the apparent plot to reimburse donors to Long’s campaign, saying it was “at most … an act of misguided friendship.”

The indictment is just the latest in a tangle of personal and professional difficulties that swarmed around D’Souza at what was arguably the height of his success: the popularity of his 2012 anti-Obama documentary 2016: Obama’s America. The film, which was released in the summer of 2012 and became a slow-burn hit with conservatives in the run-up to the presidential election, earned over $33 million at the box office and was the highest-grossing documentary since 1982. But just a couple of months into the film’s promotion, D’Souza was out of a job: he resigned his lucrative position as president of the King’s College, a small evangelical Christian school in Manhattan, over reportsthat he was engaged to a 29-year-old woman while still being married to his wife of 20 years.

D’Souza’s departure from the King’s College was the symbolic end of his career in the institutional conservative movement, which had grown increasingly exasperated with his string of conspiratorial books that failed to live up to his reputation as a star of conservative scholarship. (One advanced the notion that America’s moral decadence led to 9/11; another launched the meme, which has long since become a political punch line, that Obama was a “Kenyan anti-colonialist.”) D’Souza’s tenure at the King’s College was fraught with conflict, as some faculty members viewed him as a name-brand hire who lacked appropriate academic credentials and who was more interested in his own money-making projects than in fundraising for the college.

The conflict came to a head in October, when the evangelical magazine Worldalleged that D’Souza had shared a hotel room with Denise Odie Joseph, a young woman who had written a fawning blog about about him, and introduced her as his fiancée despite still being married. The college had apparently been aware of D’Souza’s marital problems, but decided to end its relationship with him once news of the scandal engulfed the school.

Despite that flameout, D’Souza’s prospects seemed as bright as ever: his wildly successful documentary was one of the most profitable projects of his career, at least since his hagiographic biography of Ronald Reagan was published in 1999. D’Souza had discovered the lucrative business of hitting the sweet spots of the conservative movement with a mixture of Christian apologetics, celebration of conservative heroes, and paranoid attacks on liberals. Even if it was unlikely he would continue to be given quasi-scholarly positions in conservative institutions, the financial prospects of political propagandizing had never looked better.

But even the glow of his documentary’s success was interrupted by legal headaches. While the King’s College scandal was erupting, D’Souza was sued by Douglas Sain, the producer of 2016: Obama’s America. Sain alleged that D’Souza had mismanaged funds from the movie and kept his partners out of crucial decisions about the film’s marketing and distribution. A judge eventually threw out the suit, concluding that the charges “lacked specificity.”

D’Souza was last seen in an informercial for a friend’s artificial Christmas tree

 

Ex-Republican Gov, Bob McDonnell Charged For Fraud in Federal Court

Looks like Gov Chris Christie may have a Republican roommate waiting for him in the Federal Prison. Headed for the next “Orange Jumpsuit Award for Politicians” is the former (3 days) Governor of Virginia…And is wife.

And since the  former Republican Virginia Attorney General and losing Gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli also accepted “gifts” from the same folks…He may well be next.

The only thing that is missing from this one is Mrs. Mcdonnell stuffing cash in her bra ala Orange Jumpsuited former Prince Georges executive Jack Johnson’s wife… So far. Republicans are just so much more classy with their ill gotten money!

Bob McDonnell, Wife Charged In Gifts Case

Days after he left office, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and his wife, Maureen McDonnell, were charged Tuesday in federal court with illegally accepting gifts, trips, and loans from a Virginia businessman and political donor.

The indictment was filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., charging them each with 13 federal crimes.

Prosecutors had spent months investigating the relationship between the McDonnell family and Jonnie Williams, the now-former CEO of an embattled dietary supplements company called Star Scientific. Williams gave McDonnell and his family more than $150,000 in gifts and payments in recent years, at the same time that McDonnell and his wife took steps to support the company.

When their ties to the businessman became a public scandal in 2013, the McDonnells returned the gifts and repaid the money given to them by Williams.

 

You can read the gory details of the Charging Document here.

 

Orange Jumpsuit Politicians? Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

Seems that Republican Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife have been playing fancy-free with “gifts” from corporate interests in Va. There was the matter of a $6500 Rolex, A $15,000 “donation” to pay McDonnell’s daughter’s wedding expenses at the Governor’s Mansion. $10,000 gift to McDonnells other daughter before her wedding.  Trips on private planes. A family “vacation”. A $1500 catered Thanksgiving Dinner and $3,000 “vacation”…

And that is just the “$125,000” or so McDonnell has admitted taking from one wealthy businessman.

Then there is the issue of McDonnell’s wife using campaign funds as a personal piggy bank to buy clothes, furnish the mansion, and finance a lavish lifestyle. While not exactly illegal under Virginia law – it does raise some questions as to propriety.

Prosecutors are investigating what exactly these many gifts paid for.

McDonnell has been on a lot of the Republican Party potential Presidential candidates “short list” of VP picks. There also is some currency that McDonnell would make a run for a Senate seat or the big Kahuna – the Presidency.

Perhaps even more explosive is the fact that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli also benefitted from the largesse of the same group of business interests. Cuccinelli says Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams didn’t give him the kind of presents that can be returned. Gifts from Williams listed in Cuccinelli’s financial disclosure forms include a $1,500 catered Thanksgiving dinner, private jet trips and vacation lodging. When asked about the list of gifts—totaling $18,000—the attorney general responded by saying that “there are some bells you can’t un-ring.” The “Cuch” just happens to be running for Governor this term.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when the State’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer is taking gifts under the table… The Attorney General of all people in a Government is supposed to conduct themselves within the law to be above reproach.

There is the consideration that the uncovered monies may just be the tip of the iceberg…

Donor Jonnie Williams, Star Scientific are cooperating in probe of Gov. Robert McDonnell

A prominent political donor and his dietary supplement company have been cooperating for several months with federal prosecutors in a fast-moving public corruption investigation of Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, according to three people familiar with the probe.

Jonnie R. Williams Sr., chief executive of Star Scientific, has turned over personal financial records and sat for interviews in which he provided firsthand accounts of luxury gifts andmore than $120,000 given to McDonnell (R) and his family members since 2011, the people said.

Star has given prosecutors access to corporate records and offered information from other company officials. The three spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is in a sensitive stage.

The cooperation is an ominous sign for McDonnell, suggesting that federal prosecutors are focused on trying to build a potential criminal case against him.

McDonnell has not been charged, and prosecutors ultimately must determine whether they have the evidence to proceed against him.

But Williams is a critical witness who can offer investigators insight into the key issue for such a case: whether the governor and first lady agreed to take official actions that could help Williams’s company in exchange for his gifts.

McDonnell has repeatedly said he has broken no laws, insisting that he did nothing to help Williams’s company that he would not have done for any state-based enterprise. He has said he was not required by state law to disclose gifts given to his family members or a corporate loan that he said Williams provided. He has said he properly disclosed $50,000 given by Williams to his wife as a loan.

Still, McDonnell recently apologized for breaching the public’s trust and said he had repaid money he received from Williams, along with interest. Last week, he said he was working to return all of Williams’s gifts to his family.

But the federal probe is ongoing, as is an investigation by a state prosecutor in Richmond into whether the governor followed Virginia’s gift disclosure laws. Star Scientific has also told investors that it faces a securities probe.

Rich Galen, a spokesman for McDonnell, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office and an attorney for Williams.

 

Lighting a Fire – Personhood Bills

The newest group legislation pushed by Republicans across the state legislatures is called Personhood. It is a direct attack on Abortion, by declaring a fetus a person at the moment of conception.

The pushback against this legislation nationwide is just beginning to gain steam… But in Virginia it seems to have gone from zero to 900 MPH in just a few days…

Think maybe Gov McDonnell may be looking at the end of those future political ambitions.

Opposition mounts to Va. personhood bill

A petition opposing two abortion-related bills winding through the Virginia legislature is spreading like “wildfire.” In just over 24 hours, 17,000 people have signed the measure that says the Virginia government is conducting a “war on women.”

The petition is organized by ProgressVA. Most of the signatories say they are Virginia residents and most are women, and the message they give is clear: The government is overstepping its bounds.

“This war on women has got to stop,” the petition reads. “Virginia may be the butt of jokes for late night comedians, but the bills coming out of the General Assembly this year are no laughing matter.”

Catherine from Richmond wrote next to her name: “I say to you men in the Virginia legislature – Leave our bodies alone. This is not your place; this is not your right. What you’re doing is immoral.”

The online petition through signon.org has been spreading quickly, largely through social media. (In the thirty minutes it took me to write this story, 300 additional people added their name.)

“We’re absolutely pleased and frankly a little overwhelmed,” with petition response, Anna Scholl, Executive Director of ProgressVA, said. “It’s been spreading like wildfire.”

The petition is addressed to The Virginia State Senate, Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling and Governor Bob McDonnell as they are instrumental in the future of these bills. (McDonnell is considered a rising star in the Republican Party. He has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate.)

The Virginia House of Delegates passed HB 1, also known as the “personhood” bill, this week. It defines a fertilized egg as a person, and according to the legislation, “provides that unborn children at every stage of development enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the Commonwealth.”

Virginia would be the first state in the nation to define a fetus – and a fertilized egg – as a person. It passed the General Assembly and the Senate could take it up as early as this week, if it chooses.

The second bill petitioners object to is HB 462, which requires a woman receive a transvaginal ultrasound before an abortion. Both bodies of the legislature have passed this measure and only needs Republican Gov. McDonnell’s signature before it becomes law.

Scholl says they will continue to spread the word and hope to deliver the petitions as early as this week.

“These recent policies turn my stomach. I believe in fiscal conservatism. Stop mixing it with my personal rights,” Lisa Schroeer of Charlottesville, Virginia wrote.

 

Va Republican Governor Brings Back Jim Crow…

A little History here of how Poll Taxes and Literacy tests were utilized during Jim Crow to disenfranchise black people –

Va Republican Governor McDonnell, AG Cuccinelli, and Lt. Gov Bolliing Pray to Restore Jim Crow

In 1890, Southern states began to adopt explicit literacy tests to disenfranchise voters. This had a large differential racial impact, since 40-60% of blacks were illiterate, compared to 8-18% of whites. Poor, illiterate whites opposed the tests, realizing that they too would be disenfranchised. To placate them, Southern states adopted an “understanding clause” or a “grandfather clause,” which entitled voters who could not pass the literacy test to vote, provided they could demonstrate their understanding of the meaning of a passage in the constitution to the satisfaction of the registrar, or were or were descended from someone eligible to vote in 1867, the year before blacks attained the franchise. Discriminatory administration ensured that blacks would not be eligible to vote through the understanding clause.

Georgia initiated the poll tax in 1871, and made it cumulative in 1877 (requiring citizens to pay all back taxes before being permitted to vote). Every former confederate state followed its lead by 1904. Although these taxes of $1-$2 per year may seem small, it was beyond the reach of many poor black and white sharecroppers, who rarely dealt in cash. The Georgia poll tax probably reduced overall turnout by 16-28%, and black turnout in half (Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics, 67-8). The purpose of the tax was plainly to disenfranchise, not to collect revenue, since no state brought prosecutions against any individual for failure to pay the tax.

Racially disparate charging and sentencing has had the effect of disenfranchising millions of black people – enabling Republicans to remove millions of Democrat voters from the roles. It would seem that the new Governor of Virginia wants to keep them from voting…

VA Gov McDonnell Institutes Writing Test For Felons Seeking Voting Rights

Virginia’s slide toward extreme conservative governance under Gov. Bob McDonnell continues.

McDonnell wants to change the process by which non-violent felons apply to have their voting rights restored, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. Whereas before, applicants had had to fill out a one-page form, making the process almost automatic, they now will have to submit an essay outlining their contributions to society since their release.

 

Former RNC Chair, Haley Barbour – “Slavery omission didn’t matter for diddly!”

Current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, former RNC Chair, and regular favorite at the Mississippi Council of Conservative Citizen’s annual barbecue…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Mississippi Gov. Barbour Thinks Slave…“, posted with vodpod

Miss. Governor Refers to Himself as ‘Fat Redneck’

First there’s national Republican Party chairman Michael Steele, who has come under criticism for his leadership. Steele says he thinks he’s being held to a higher standard because he’s black.

Then there’s a former GOP chairman, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. He disagrees with Steele’s assessment. Barbour says that’s like saying, “I think I’m held to the higher standard because I’m a fat redneck with an accent like this.”

Barbour, a potential presidential candidate in 2012, says party chairmen have been and continue to be judged by results.

Barbour appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

 

President Obama Weighs In on Confederate Month

Obama: Virginia gov. slavery omission ‘unacceptable’

Virginia’s proclamation of Confederate History Month without any reference to slavery was unacceptable, President Obama said in an interview broadcast Friday.

“Well, you know, I’m a big history buff. And I think that understanding the history of the Confederacy and understanding the history of the Civil War is something that every American and every young American should, should be a part of,” he told ABC in an interview taped Thursday. “Now, I don’t think you can understand the Confederacy and the Civil War unless you understand slavery. And so, I think that was a – an unacceptable omission. I think the governor’s now acknowledged that.”

Obama was referring to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who apologized Wednesday for leaving out any reference to slavery in his recent proclamation designating April as Confederate History Month, calling it a “major omission.” McDonnell also said he would amend the proclamation.

Asked by ABC to weigh in on the dispute, the nation’s first African-American president said, “I think it’s just a reminder that when we talk about issues like slavery that are so fraught with pain and emotion, that, you know, we, we’d better do so thinking through how this is going to affect a lot of people. And their sense of whether they’re part of a commonwealth or part of our broader society.”

First Lady Michelle Obama is a descendant of a South Carolina slave.

Brer Republicans were never too much on thinking…

 

Virginia Governor McDonnell Declares April as Confederate History Month

Confederate History Month was a “tradition” started by Former Republican Governor and Senator George “Maccaca” Allen. Celebrating the confederacy is a big thing in right-wing circles…

As is hanging around with the Council of Conservative Citizens, or th KKK lite.

Looks like the New Republican Governor has come out of this closet as well.

BTx3 thinks it’s time to start seriously considering a recall election in Virginia.

McDonnell’s Confederate History Month proclamation irks civil rights leaders

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, reviving a controversy that had been dormant for eight years, has declared that April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, a move that angered civil rights leaders Tuesday but that political observers said would strengthen his position with his conservative base.

 

Virginia Gubernatorial Race – What it Does and Doesn’t Mean

Republicans are chomping at the bit at the poll numbers indicating that Republican Gubernatorial candidate McDonnell has a large lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia’s off year Governor’s race.

Various pundits are trying to spin a Republican win the Virginia Governors race as having some key relevance to the upcoming 2010 Mid-Term Elections. Unfortunately, much of what is being spun, is just that – SPIN – with little or no relevance to reality. So – let’s deal with a couple of the more popular Republican “Urban” spin myths –

“Virginia is a Blue State”

No – Virginia is a purple state with a penchant for electing moderates. The last time the state elected a conservative ideologue was Governor Gilmore. It took the state 6 years to financially recover from that disaster, as Gilmore slashed taxes and ignored the actual operating costs of the state putting the State in it’s deepest financial hole since the Civil War. As the Republican Party has become more conservative, drifting farther and farther from the State’s ideological center – they have lost election after election to moderate, largely moderate Blue Dog Democrats. McCain, whose Military background should have made him a slam dunk in the state lost for one reason and one reason only…

Sarah Palin.

McDonnell has kept the rancid conservative red meat off the table, and run at the center.

“A McDonnell Win is a Rejection of Obama”

No, it isn’t. While much has been made of the black vote as being pivotal in the state in moving it into the win column for Obama – that is mostly smoke an mirrors. The reason Obama won had to do with young and white middle class suburban voters in Northern Virginia and Southeastern Virginia rejecting conservatism which they felt had become extremist. Creigh Deeds is a Southwestern Virginia boy, with no real roots in either of the urban and suburban areas of Virginia. McDonnell was raised in Northern Virginia, and now lives in Virginia Beach – both urban/suburban areas. McDonnell is winning (so far) based on this pedigree, and running away from the conservative “values” arguments which so turn off suburban/urban voters.

Second – Deeds is not the “Administration’s candidate”.  Deeds beat the two presumptive DNC candidates, Moran and Terry McAluffe in the Democrat Primary.

Lastly, McDonnell has tailored his message to the Northern Virginia – Southeastern Virginia voters, talking about transportation issues in terms of completing mass transportation projects and widening roads – as well as coming up with proposals to keep the juggernaut school systems in those areas funded. This is the exact reverse of typical Republican-speak in Virginia, who greet Northern Virginia and it’s transportation issues with disdain, and Northern Virginia’s Public School Juggernaut, consistently rated as one of the top 5 in the whole nation, with suspicion and hostility.

A Win for Republican (conservative) values –

Wrong again!

McDonnell has done several things to improve his chances in attracting minority voters, instead of writing their vote off. As such, he has met with Asian groups in Northern Virginia over 50 times, done the Black Church walks, and avoided the usual conservative pitfalls. Pitfalls?

Republican Minority Voter Kryptonite includes a lot more than just those “Macacca Moments” – so lets discuss some of those Minority Kryptonite conservative values moves –

1. McDonnell, unlike his Party’s  previous Republican candidates has refused to swear fealty under the confederate flag.  While Virginia historically is inseparable from the Civil War, the symbology of the confederate flag, deification of dead confederates and dead confederate symbols has come to represent intolerance, bigotry, and racism to Minority voters.
2. Military background. As the sole fully integrated entity in the United States for decades, years spent in the Service gain respect because of the values of the Military. McDonnell has a Military background, and one of his daughters is currently serving in Iraq in the Army. That is a huge contrast between McDonnell and the usual chickenhawk conservative crew.
3. Real Minority support. Black conservatives are Minority voter Kryptonite in that they are willing to be trotted out to provide racial cover for racist conservatives. The bullshit detector goes right off the scale, making many of these folks about as welcome in your average minority person’s living room as the local head of the Crips or MS-13. Trotting out the sort of black conservatives you see on Faux News means you have something to hide, and what you are hiding is ugly – typically racism. McDonnell approached and recruited Minority business leaders and political figures, and convinced some of them that he is a departure from the conservative Republican White People’s Party mold – thus getting Sheila Johnson to speak on his behalf, and convincing Former Governor Doug Wilder, if not to support him – not to make an endorsement of the Democrat candidate. He also gained the support of Virginia’s Black Police Chiefs.

Lastly, McDonnell has run a campaign focused on issues, and proposals to address issues like roads, schools, privatization of the state run Liquor stores, and to continue the tradition of support and growth of Virginia businesses started by Democrat Governor Mark Warner (Warner supports Deeds)…

Not conservative red meat issues and talking points.

So… If McDonnell wins, what it really is is a rejection of conservative values of guns, homophobia, and racism…

That put him there.

And the death knell of the far-right conservatism that has threatened to destroy the Republican Party the last few election cycles.

 

Va Governor Candidate Meltdown

Robert F. McDonnell, Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia in the 2010 Election is steadil chipping away at his previously commanding lead as more and more information about the ugly side of religious conservatism comes out…

Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Virginia voters finds McDonnell leading Deeds 51% to 42% on September 2nd. This was just after news of McDonnell’s thesis at Regent University leaked out where he blamed the cultural meltdown of America morality on working women and homosexuals. As such, it probably has not had any impact on the numbers…

Yet.

Scrutiny Spreads to ’03 McDonnell Remarks

In January 2003, then-Del. Robert F. McDonnell helped gavel in one of the most extraordinary judicial reappointment hearings in Virginia history: a seven-hour, trial-like affair that led to questions about whether the future Republican gubernatorial candidate thought gays were fit to serve on the bench.