Time for Steele To Go

How incompetent can Michael Steele be? Coffers at the RNC should be overflowing with money and they're over $7 million in debt? What the hell is going on?

The Republican National Committee failed to report more than $7 million in debt to the Federal Election Commission in recent months - a move that made its bottom line appear healthier than it is heading into the midterm elections and that also raises the prospect of a hefty fine.

In a memo to RNC budget committee members, RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen on Tuesday accused Chairman Michael S. Steele and his chief of staff, Michael Leavitt, of trying to conceal the information from him by ordering staff not to communicate with the treasurer - a charge RNC officials deny.

Mr. Pullen told the members that he had discovered $3.3 million in debt from April and $3.8 million from May, which he said had led him to file erroneous reports with the FEC. He amended the FEC filings Tuesday.

Campaign-finance analysts said that simply misreporting fundraising numbers to the FEC can lead to millions of dollars in fines and that criminal charges can be levied if the actions are suspected to be intentional.

"This is significant because the civil penalties could mean big fines that take a significant bite out of the RNC's finances close to the November congressional elections, when state parties need the RNC's financial help for their 'victory' programs," said former FEC Commissioner Hans A. von Spakovsky.

Just what Republicans need less than four months out of an election that could prove critical in halting our fast march to socialism: A bumbling head of the RNC running the organization into the ground and facing the specter of fines and criminal charges.

Steele has got to go. Now.

Obama's Chicago Network

Another Michael Steele/RNC production. Mildly amusing, for what it's worth, but since I saw some Latinos in there early on it'll probably be deemed racist or something. A visual of a topless Rahm Emanuel shooting an arrow probably could have been avoided, but it's thankfully a quick snippet. Somehow I doubt it'll keep the Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff scandals alive since the media's largely disinterested and the White House is sure to keep Joe Barton in the news to quash and momentum those would get, if any.

A solid B-.

More Bumbling Idiocy From the RNC

Good grief, can't anyone at the RNC get their head out of their ass? The new website launch in October was bad enough, but this idiocy?

The Republican party took down its innovative link-shortening tool Tuesday for several hours after pranksters had a field day using the tool to associate the GOP with bondage sites.

As part of its new media strategy, the Republican party launched a new site called GOP.am on Monday. It’s a URL shortener designed to make it easy for conservative web surfers to exchange links to web pages.

Pranksters almost immediately began using the service to link to controversial or ironically intended websites, such as the official site of the American Communist Party, a bondage website and a webpage advertising a sex toy in the likeness of Barack Obama. GOP.am apparently started blocking such links at some point Tuesday morning, and the GOP.am homepage was taken offline.

The website is back online late Tuesday morning PST, and the company that designed the site in collaboration with the Republican National Committee plans to add an automatic filtering system to help with the high volume of what its president calls “pornographic, lewd” or “hateful” URLs being added to its service.

But not before the damage was done.

Palin Wardrobe Complaint Dismissed

You can practically smell the frothing indignation from Olbermann as he prepares to make her the Worst Person in the World for looking good, which admittedly isn't hard.

Between the frivolous "ethics" complaints in Alaska and now this, her detractors are now batting 0-for-12.

The Federal Election Commission has dismissed a complaint over the $150,000-plus designer wardrobe the Republican Party bought to outfit vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The good-government group that filed the complaint, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argued that candidates aren't supposed to use donor money for personal expenses such as clothes. The FEC ruled Tuesday that the ban doesn't apply to party money, however.

The Alaska governor was Sen. John McCain's pick for vice president. The purchases from such high-end stores as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus drew criticism for Palin, the self-described hockey mom.

The Republican National Committee told the commission that party money rather than candidate campaign money was used for the purchases, and that the shopping spree was allowed under campaign finance rules that let the party spend on behalf of and in coordination with presidential campaigns.

The controversy over Palin's clothing overshadowed the Republican campaign in the final weeks.

The RNC spent at least $150,000 on designer clothing, accessories and hair and makeup services for Palin after she became McCain's running mate in September. The designer duds contrasted with the practical, down-to-earth image that Palin and the campaign sought to craft for her.

The purchases included $75,062 worth at Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis; $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue; $9,447 at Macy's; and $789 at the luxury retailer Barneys New York. Goods were also bought for Palin family members, such as $4,902 spent at upscale men's store Atelier and $92 at Pacifier, a Minneapolis baby boutique.

Meet Saul Anuzis

Most people are familiar with the name Michael Steele but there is another name seeking the position of chair of the Republican National Committee and that is Saul Anuzis head of the Michigan Republican Committee. The fact that I found a video clip of him being interviewed by Megyn Kelly is just a bonus.
Go check out his web site too.

Remember Those 1.3 Million New Voters? Uh, Never Mind

Stunning isn't it, that ACORN would lie about the number of "new voters" they registered? Remarkably, the New York Times is reporting this, though they go to great lengths to obfuscate the obvious efforts at voter fraud.

On Oct. 6, the community organizing group Acorn and an affiliated charity called Project Vote announced with jubilation that they had registered 1.3 million new voters. But it turns out the claim was a wild exaggeration, and the real number of newly registered voters nationwide is closer to 450,000, Project Vote’s executive director, Michael Slater, said in an interview.

The remainder are registered voters who were changing their address and roughly 400,000 that were rejected by election officials for a variety of reasons, including duplicate registrations, incomplete forms and fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors, Mr. Slater acknowledged.

In registration drives, it is common for a percentage of newly registered voters to be disqualified for various reasons, although experts say the percentage is higher when groups pay workers to gather registrations. But the disclosure on Thursday that 30 percent of Acorn’s registrations were faulty was described by Republicans as further proof of what they said was Acorn’s effort to tilt the election unfairly.

“We were wondering how many were Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse,” said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “The group is really tainted, and any work they do is suspect.”

Republicans had been prepared for months to make an issue of Acorn’s registration drive. A year ago, the party’s national committee anticipated the surge of new registrations by putting a map of the country on its Web site, labeled “You Can’t Make This Up! Vote Fraud.”

Democrats and officials with Acorn accuse Republicans of trying to manufacture a controversy to deflect attention from alleged voter suppression activities in several states. Election officials and experts say there is little chance that significant numbers of supporters of either party would actually try to vote through a fraudulent registration.

We have a disparity of 850,000 here and the Times wants us to believe there's no organized effort at voter fraud.

Naturally, they use the occasion to endorse the empty suit for president today, just as they reach junk status.

Instapundit links. Thanks!

Democrat Anarchists Discussed Kidnapping Delegates

Oh, those wacky Democrat activists. Looks like throwing cement off overpasses wasn't the only mayhem they had in mind.

According to police, these nutjobs actually discussed kidnapping RNC delegates.

No doubt our hard-hitting investigative media unearthing every last detail of Sarah Palin's life can investigate this domestic terrorism.

A year ago, the Ramsey County sheriff's office began looking closely at a group called the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee.

What it found, according to an 18-page search warrant application and affidavit, led to weekend raids on two Minneapolis homes and a temporary St. Paul office for the self-described anarchist group.

According to the document, investigation learned:

The self-described anarchist group — whose main goal was to "crash" the Republican National Convention," according to its Web site — traveled to or communicated with affinity groups in 67 cities to recruit members and raise money.

Group members discussed the possibility of kidnapping delegates, blockading bridges, using liquid sprayers filled with urine or chemicals on police and throwing marbles to trip police and their horses.

At an "action camp" held from July 31 to Aug. 3 in Lake Geneva, Minn., one member talked of concealing inside giant puppets "materials" that could be used on the street. Others discussed the need for Molotov cocktails, paint, caltrops (devices used to puncture tires), bricks and lockboxes for protesters to lock themselves together.

Erik Oseland, one of the six group members arrested here, produced a video called "Video Map of the St. Paul Points of Interest." It included such major companies as Travelers Insurance and Qwest, hotels such as the Embassy Suites and the Crowne Plaza. Also included: the Pioneer Press building.

They have a word for people like this: Terrorists.

Anarchists Attack at the RNC

Nice touch, throwing bags of cement off the overpass. I'm sure that'll be the least of it.

Classy.

Meanwhile, the peaceful anti-war types turn violent. Now there's a stunner.

Protesters smashed windows, punctured car tires and threw bottles Monday during an anti-war march to the site of the Republican National Convention. Police used pepper spray in confrontations with demonstrators and arrested five.

Instead of the single coherent march that organizers had hoped for, fringe groups of anarchists and others wrought havoc along the streets between the state Capitol and the Xcel Energy Center where the convention was taking place.

Police estimates of the crowd shifted during the event before settling on 8,000 to 10,000. The crowd was clearly in the thousands, many of them marching peacefully.

The arrests occurred in confrontations several blocks from the convention arena. Five people were arrested for lighting a trash bin on fire and pushing it into a police car, St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said.

About 20 anarchists who had started the trash bin fire later tried to block the intersection of St. Peter and Exchange streets. Police quickly dispersed the group, then shot two tear gas canisters at the fleeing anarchists.

Rubber bullets would be nice. You know, just to send a subtle message.

The day's march was organized by a group called the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, whose leaders said they hoped for a peaceful, family-friendly march. But police were on high alert after months of preparations by a self-described anarchist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee, which wasn't among the organizers of the march.

Organized anarchy?

These aren't anarchists. They're urban terrorists and should be treated as enemy combatants.

Update: More here on the moonbattery.

Mary Gleason, a retired church musician from Minneapolis, said Hurricane Gustav "kind of worked in their favor. They won't have to wait for Bush and (Vice President Dick) Cheney to say something stupid."

What If The Southern States GOP Seceded from the RNC?

Why not? Maybe it is time for the southern states GOP party to finally say enough with the national Republican party? It has already become apparent that when it comes to launching any sort of attack of the Messiah apparent Obama that it is the southern states GOP committees that are carrying the water. Whether it was the ad in North Carolina or Tennessee, it has been the state GOP groups who have done it only to be criticized by McCain and his campaign group.

It is said the GOP can't win without the south, and so far the national party seems to have turned not only a deaf ear but even turned it's back on the very part of the country they consider to have in the bag. Now with the announcement of Bob Barr launching a presidential bid there are even nasty rumors that Georgia may be in play.
I think it is time for the southern states, whom are supposed to be so important to the Republicans winning, not only spoke up more but started demanding that the the national organization start listening to us.

The southern states have the clout and in fact they could even turn the GOP convention into an uproar by not only not having their electorates cast their votes for McCain but even put forth a different candidate. I know what everybody is saying, the primary elections are over and everybody has voted. Everybody has voted but nobody is listening. They allowed Iowa and New Hampshire set the tone. Here are the primary results for the southern states when we had a full slate of candidates.

GA
Huckabee 326,069
McCain 303,639
Romney 289,737

SC
McCain 143,224
Huckabee 128,908
Thompson 67,897
Romney 64,970

AL
Huckabee 230,608
McCain 210,989
Romney 103,295

TN
Huckabee 189,443
McCain 174,763
Romney 129,722

MO
McCain 194,304
Huckabee 185,627
Romney 172,564

If you add it all up Huckabee comes out the winner. I did not include all the southern states merely because candidates were dropping out and the poll results reflect that skewing along with lower turnouts for the Republicans as the list of candidates got smaller.

Let me say from the outset that Huckabee was not my man either, but rather Thompson was, however out of the final 3, McCain, Huckabee, Romney, I would be in the Romney camp. Support for Huckabee would be difficult, in my opinion, because he ran too much as a pastor and not enough as a politician concerned about the issues.

So while it sounds like I ain't happy about none of the contenders on the Republican side, I do think the southern states would be better representated by somebody other then McCain.

What I am proposing however, is that instead of our continual whining about how the Republican party no longer represents our values and views on issues, let's do something. The southern states have enough pull to make McCain come back to the right.

It might be time to send him a message that he can't ignore by raining on his parade at the convention. Does he still have enough delegates in his pocket to pull off the nomination? Of course, but by expressing a very open and public display of discontent in the way the Republican party is moving it just might make other folks take notice.

People in this country who also feel the Republican politicians no longer speak for them and might be motivated to look into their local races and instead of continuing to send the same old tired hacks back to congress get some fresh blood in there. Conservatives of all stripes may be uplifted enough to make their voices heard.
The south may indeed have to do it again, secede, but this time from the party who claims to need us so much but return so little to us. I don't mean earmarks, either.