Just another Evangelical Phony!
So, this piece of shit Evangelical pastor (is that
redundant?) whose own son testified to his father’s prior knowledge of massive
voter fraud, now admits it, yet NC wants to hold another election vice simply
concede to the other candidate? Really?
Testifying under oath, Rev. Mark Harris cited "sepsis
and two strokes" as the reason he ignored his son's counsel regarding the
crooked "operative" who conducted the scam. (Roger Stone, anyone?)
The "operative,’ one Leslie McCrae Dowless who committed the fraud, paid for
illegal and forged write in ballots, which constituted more than the margin of victory in a close
contest. His (Harris') health, apparently so bad that it rendered him incapable of
moral; decisions, is good enough to be a Carolina legislator? Am I the only
person who thinks this a bit odd?
The elder Harris’ son, John, a federal prosecutor, apparently
with the conscience his father seems to have misplaced, testified that his
father was notified, by him, of his grave concerns over the hiring of Dowless
and the questionable results of previous efforts by him to “procure” votes. “Dowless
conducted an illegal and well-funded ballot-harvesting operation last year,”
North Carolina's elections director said Monday. Dowless' workers in rural
Bladen County testified at a special state elections board hearing that they
were directed to “forge signatures, collect blank or incomplete ballots voters
handed over, and fill in votes” for local candidates who hadn't earned them.
In what I feel
is reflective of a much more pervasive problem in American politics, , Dowless was a sub-contractor
for a group known as “Red Dome.” The
name says it; the “Red” for Republican and the “Dome” for state and national
capitols. Here’s their mission statement:
"At Red Dome Group, we pride ourselves on
personalized service for each of our clients and we always put the needs of our
clients first. We’re hands on, we’re easily accessible, and we’re actively
engaged every step of the way.
Red Dome Group will work directly with the client to develop
and implement a unique strategy that is customized to fit their individual
needs and focused on ensuring the client’s success.
We’ve been involved in politics at every level and we have
over 75 years of combined experience in every aspect. We know what it takes to
win.”
Apparently, Red Dome, insulated by intermediaries, will countenance just about whatever it “takes to win,” legal or
not.
John Harris
said he first had suspicions in Bladen County when he analyzed the 2016 primary
results and saw huge absentee voting numbers for candidate Todd Johnson. He
said he sent an email with those questionable results to his father. That directly
contradicts the several times Mark Harris said he had “no previous warning
about Dowless.”
Of course, "voter fraud", which Republicans
trumpet against Democrats every time they wish to discredit and/or disadvantage a candidate, ethnic
group or economic stratum, has yet to be shown as a complaint with any merit in
any national contest. That said, this is in fact a rock solid prosecutable (not
enough penalty, mind you) crime, committed by an operative hired by the
"good reverend" who, naturally denies any knowledge of his rascality.
It all sounds a bit Trumpish, doesn't it?
What is truly hard to stomach, however is this comment, from the senior Harris’ attorney. Alexander Dale, with a straight face, said, “A new election would punish hundreds of thousands of voters whose choices weren't in doubt. The elections board should declare Mark Harris the winner and push prosecutors to act against those who broke laws protecting election integrity.” In this one statement he pled for the rights of the “hundreds of thousands” who supported his client, while simultaneously, by implication, figuratively spitting on rights of the hundreds of thousands (plus over a thousand more) who actually cast legal votes for his Democratic opponent. Holding another election is simply one more desperate effort to elect a Republican instead of acknowledging what the recount and subsequent investigation shows - that the Democratic candidate had a sufficient number of legal votes to win the contest. Period! There simply is no national "epidemic" of voter fraud, as Republicans allege to promote voter suppression, but there are pockets of criminal manipulation backed by paid operatives in local dirty politics, and this is certainly one of them.
In a quick
check of all actual cases of verified voting irregularities in Florida, most
(about ¾) are single individuals who failed to report previous felony convictions or used an improper address.
However, when the voting fraud offense involved orchestrating multiple, or
bundled, votes for either party, four of five convictions were of persons
working for organizations like, but not, in these cases, Red Dome, in the employ
of Republican candidates or in two cases the State Republican committee. Do we
see a pattern here which flies in the face of Republican rhetoric?
What is more interesting
to me is that this data comes from the arch conservative Heritage Foundation,
which clearly has little interest in slanting this data in Republicans’ favor.
Their data shows, looking at a number of diverse states (because I have that
kind of time), that contrary to Republican claims, while there are criminal convictions
related to election law violations in every state, many are not actual ballot issues,
but illegal registration issues, such as a candidate illegally registered, or a
potential voter claiming an incorrect residence. Relatively few such incidents
involve more than one vote in tens of thousands.
Likewise,
while Donald Trump ranted in 2016, re: “massive voter fraud,” The commission he
established at taxpayer expense found little or no evidence and was quickly
disbanded when even his own chosen hit squad came up empty.
On Nov. 18,
2017, Andrew Kossack — the executive director of the Trump mandated commission
— circulated a draft “Staff Report” on the commission’s work. The report was a
summary of the commission’s efforts, which Kossack had been compiling beginning
in August. The draft report included a prewritten section called “Evidence of
Election Integrity and Voter Fraud Issues.” The section, with few exceptions,
wound up almost entirely blank. Austin Evers, the executive director of
American Oversight, said the lack of material in the section set aside for
evidence of fraud or other voting problems “shows that the White House knew, or
at least should have known, that it was blatantly lying when they made those
claims in January.” (Trump’s own claims of “massive voter fraud”)
In any event, if
Mark Harris, man of the cloth or simply lowlife shit-heel cheater is allowed to stand
for election in North Carolina again…..now that’s a fraud!
No comments:
Post a Comment