Convictions In Kentucky Voting Fraud Case

Last year about this time I posted a story about charges that were filed in Clay County, Kentucky involving a case of out and out voter fraud. We aren't talking voter registration here, but actual manipulation of the vote. Well, the verdict has come in. Guilty on all charges.

A jury convicted a former judge and seven others on Thursday of scheming to buy votes for several local offices in an eastern Kentucky county.

The jury in U.S. District Court in Frankfort deliberated for nine hours over two days before convicting all eight people in a federal racketeering conspiracy. Those convicted on Thursday included former Circuit Judge R. Cletus Maricle and former school Superintendent Douglas C. Adams.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the jury also convicted several of the defendants on other charges, including mail fraud, extortion and laundering money that was used to buy votes.

Of course the reporting on this is another classic example of Name That Party, a game that has become a favorite in bars and frat houses all around the country. I however have this little portion from earlier reporting on the matter.

According to the indictment, Democratic election commissioner Charles Wayne Jones and election officer William E. Stivers helped extort money from candidates. In some cases, candidates were apparently asked to pool money so votes could be bought.

Anybody who self-identifies themselves as a Democrat ought to face some serious challenges in the job market. You are known by the company you keep, and so far the Democrats sure are proving themselves to be a bunch of tax cheats, liars, and schemers. I don't think I would want anybody working for me that expressed an affinity for the Democrats.

However, it does appear that maybe the Democrats healthcare plan is enabling blind people to see.

Briggs said 78 people asked for help in that election because they were blind, but investigators found nearly 40 had a license to drive. Many drove to London after the FBI asked them to come for interviews, Briggs testified.

Update: The article I originally linked to was the AP version of events. I have found the actual reporting of this scandal from the local paper, and they don't play the game, along with giving a chronology of the story and mugshots.

Report: Census Worker’s Death Might Not Be Homicide

A day after the leftwing blogosphere erupted with premature speculation about the death of this man in Kentucky, a report now says it's too early to say what actually happened.

Asphyxiation caused the death of a federal census worker whose body was found at a rural Clay County, Ky., cemetery with a rope around his neck, preliminary autopsy results show, but state police have not determined the death was a homicide.

William E. Sparkman, 51, of Laurel County, Ky., reportedly had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest.

That raised questions about whether he was killed because of hard feelings against the government and catapulted the mysterious death into a national story.

However, on Thursday, police had not confirmed Sparkman was even doing census work in Clay County at the time he died, said Capt. Lisa Rudzinski, commander of the state police post handling the investigation.

One media report — which quoted a census official saying a computer Sparkman used for census work was found in his truck near the cemetery — wasn’t true, Rudzinski said.

Police found Sparkman’s red pickup truck, but the computer wasn’t in it, she said.

Police have not ruled whether Sparkman’s death resulted from homicide, accident or suicide, Rudzinski said.

"There are too many unanswered questions for us to lean one way or the other," Rudzinski said. "We have not ruled this is a hate crime against a federal employee. We’re still trying to determine if foul play was involved."

The only thing police have concluded is that Sparkman didn’t die as a result of natural causes.

Reports that Sparkman was hanging from a tree at the cemetery create an image that doesn’t fit the evidence where Sparkman was found, Rudzinski said.

Sparkman had a rope around his neck that was attached to a tree, but he was not hanging in the sense that many people envision, she said.

Sparkman’s body was in contact with the ground, state police said in a news release.

News that Sparkman had the word "fed" on his chest came to the Associated Press from a law enforcement official who requested anonymity.

The official did not tell the AP what was used to scrawl the word on Sparkman.

Still, despite any evidence to back up their assertions, scores of leftwing bloggers immediately jumped to conclusions.

This report two days ago called it the next generations of lynchings.

We know that the levels of right-wing vitriol have reached psychotic new heights. But could they really be behind the "apparent homicide" of a Kentucky census worker, William Sparkman? Should we be calling this, as some are, a "lynching?"

This "respected" blogger, recently arrested on marijuana charges on Cape Cod, fretted like Nancy Pelosi.

But at some point, unhinged hostility to the federal government, whipped up by the Becks, can become violence. That's what Pelosi was worried about. The Dish will keep its eyes on this story.

Pleae do. And be sure to get back to us if you're hysteria is proven wrong.

This rockhead piled on, blaming Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Beck, Michelle Bachman, Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble, the corpse of Ronald Reagan and the founding fathers.

With all of that in mind, however, it's admittedly damned difficult not to look back at the kind of wildly-irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric being slung casually across the airwaves to millions of viewers and listeners every day by folks like Bachman, Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, and all the rest, without pondering questions such as: "What the hell are these people thinking?" and "Do they not realize that people are actually out there paying attention to what they have to say?"

Another blogger said let's not jump to conclusions, then jumped to a conclusion.

There’s not enough information yet to say for sure what was behind this killing, so let’s not jump to conclusions. But the description of the circumstances and the timing (around the time of the Washington DC tea party) raises a strong suspicion that anti-government sentiment may have been the motivation.

The memory holes around the web may be very busy in the near future.

This may well be a teachable moment: Wait until the facts are in before pointing fingers at you political enemies. It'll save a lot of embarrassment, your credibility, time spent scrubbing your website and a lot of backtracking.

The was once a time when people would let the police assess what happened and report the facts. Then pundits could offer analysis and opinion. Now, however, in the zeal to prove some deluded pre-conceived political point, the left prefers to smear their opponents using incorrect reports and wild conjecture. If indeed this is a suicide or a homicide totally unrelated to anything political, how many on the left will stand up and admit they're wrong?

Very few, I suspect.

Democrat Voter Fraud In Kentucky

Here is a case of real voter fraud in Kentucky and you would not believe how hard it was to confirm my suspicions of which party was involved. In reading the news stories and no particular party was mentioned we all know the rule of thumb is that if it is a scandal then 9 times out of 10 it means the guilty party is involved with the Democrats and that is indeed the case here. In one article from a local newspaper I found this snippet.

According to the indictment, Democratic election commissioner Charles Wayne Jones and election officer William E. Stivers helped extort money from candidates. In some cases, candidates were apparently asked to pool money so votes could be bought.

In all, so far 7 people have been charged in Clay county Kentucky for participating in this election fraud.

* Clay County Circuit Court Judge Russell Cletus Maricle, 65, and school superintendent Douglas C. Adams, 57, allegedly used their status in the county to influence the appointment of corrupt members to the Clay County Board of Election Officials and caused election officers to commit acts of extortion, mail fraud, and bribery. Maricle also allegedly instructed a witness to testify falsely before a federal grand jury in Lexington.
* Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 45, allegedly provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes and he also instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine. The indictment also accused Thompson of a false testimony before a grand jury in Lexington.
* Election officer William E. Stivers, 56, allegedly marked votes or issued tickets to voters who had sold their votes and changed votes at the voting machine. Stivers also allegedly instructed a witness to testify falsely before a federal grand jury.
* Paul E. Bishop, 60, allegedly marked voters or issued tickets to voters who sold their votes and he also hosted alleged meetings at his home where money was pooled together by candidates and distributed to election officers, including himself. He was also accused of instructing the officers how to change votes at the voting machine.
* William B. Morris, 66, and Debra L. Morris, 49, distributed funds pooled by the members of the scheme in order to buy votes. The couple owned and operated a transportation sanitation company and was active in the political affairs of Clay County.

The charges from intimidating voters to actually changing the votes on the electronic voting machines.

I am pretty sure that the diarist over on the Daily Kos didn't realize who was involved when they decided to mention it.

It is still hard to determine the party affiliation of most of those involved in this scandal but so far for those named it don't look good for the Democrats.

Obama and FEMA Leave Americans to Die in Kentucky

I guess what with Kentucky being a red state the heartless Barack Obama and FEMA can't be bothered helping the suffering Americans trying to cope with a massive ice storm that has left them powerless.

In some parts of rural Kentucky, they're getting water the old-fashioned way — with pails from a creek. There's not room for one more sleeping bag on the shelter floor. The creative are flushing their toilets with melted snow.

At least 42 people have died, including 11 in Kentucky, and conditions are worsening in many places days after an ice storm knocked out power to 1.3 million customers from the Plains to the East Coast. About a million people were still without electric Friday, and with no hope that the lights will come back on soon, small communities are frantically struggling to help their residents.

One county put it bluntly: It can't.

"We're asking people to pack a suitcase and head south and find a motel if they have the means, because we can't service everybody in our shelter," said Crittenden County Judge-Executive Fred Brown, who oversees about 9,000 people, many of whom are sleeping in the town's elementary school.

Local officials were growing angry with what they said was a lack of help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Grayson County, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville, Emergency Management Director Randell Smith said the 25 National Guardsmen who have responded have no chain saws to clear fallen trees.

"We've got people out in some areas we haven't even visited yet," Smith said. "We don't even know that they're alive."

Smith said FEMA has been a no-show so far.

"I'm not saying we can't handle it; we'll handle it," Smith said. "But it would have made life a lot easier" if FEMA had reached the county sooner, he said.

FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak said some FEMA personnel already are in Kentucky working in the state's emergency operations center and that more will be arriving in coming days. Hudak said FEMA also has shipped to 50 to 100 generators to the state to supply electricity to facilities like hospitals, nursing homes, and water treatment plants.

Can you imagine the media reaction if this were George W. Bush? Heck, we're still hearing about Hurricane Katrina nearly four years later.

Is Obama even aware what's going on in Kentucky? I know he's very busy between trashing Wall Street and Rush Limbaugh, but could he at least acknowledge these poor folks and get them some help?

Instapundit and Jawa Report link. Thanks!

Apparently Obama hates white people and wants them to die.

Also check out Obama Dozed, People Froze. Even in Australia they express more concern than the American media.

Kentucky Voters Told 'Thanks for Playing'

Blue Grass, Red State has the story of how an entire precinct in one Kentucky county is in danger of having all of their votes thrown in the garbage. At stake here is a Kentucky state house representative seat.

The resolution that Richards wants to pass is to take away the votes of all 1000+ Kentucky citizens who voted in that precinct because without that precinct’s votes, Democrat Mike Weaver would win the election.

With the upcoming runoff election here in Georgia we are already seeing all of these liberal voting rights groups muster their resources ready to steal that all important 60th seat in the U.S. Senate.

Stevens deserved to lose his seat in Alaska, but the recount effort going on in Minnesota in an attempt to hand a Senate seat to a third-rate comedian and failed radio talk show host is still in progress.

Isn't it amazing that whenever these contested contests seem to go in favor of the Democrat there is no national outrage or seething?

Sunday In The Colonies

Bad News For The Contessa
Barack [deleted] Obama spent part of his Sunday in beautiful Portland, Oregon.

Fire officials estimated 65,000 packed into a riverside park for a spectacular afternoon rally at a sun-splashed scene on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland. They said an additional 15,000 were left outside and dozens of boaters could be seen floating in the river.


"Wow, wow, wow," Obama said as he surveyed the audience. "We have had a lot of rallies. This is the most spectacular setting, the most spectacular crowd we have had this entire campaign."

And while Obama was in Oregon, Hillary Clinton was in Kentucky.

She attended worship services at a Methodist church in Bowling Green, and happily sang hymns and joined in Bible readings. But her smile faded when the pastor launched into a sermon about adultery, asking his congregants whether the devil had ever whispered over their shoulders in their marriages.

Heh. Ol' Bubba bites Hillary on the ass . . . again.




Excerpted from The AP/MyWay.