'An Audacious Scheme to Violate the Law'

Color me shocked to discover the far-left Working Families Party isn't exactly abiding by the law. Next thing you know we'll discover ACORN is run by shady characters.

The labor-backed Working Families Party has engaged in "an audacious scheme to violate the law" to help the party's favored political candidates get elected, a sweeping new lawsuit charges.

The first-of-its-kind suit says the WFP created a political outfit, Data and Field Services, that it is using to "circumvent state election and local campaign finance laws."

The way the scheme works, according the suit, is that the WFP gets involved in local races, backing its favored candidates, who in turn hire DFS for vital campaign services, such as phone banking, polling and get-out-the-vote efforts.

But under the plan, the WFP-endorsed candidates pay only "a nominal sum, well below fair market value," for those services -- giving those candidates a major, unfair advantage over their opponents, whose spending is limited by law.

"This is a case about an audacious scheme to violate the law by using corporate subterfuge to hijack our local election process," says the suit, which was filed in Staten Island.

"It goes to the very heart of our local democracy and undermines the fairness and integrity of our local elections."

The suit, filed on behalf of five aggrieved Staten Island voters, highlights the relationship between the City Council campaign of Debi Rose, a WFP-backed candidate, and DFS.

The court papers provide a case study for how the WFP, which has been increasing its influence, operates.

Two WFP candidates, Bill de Blasio and John Liu, are expected next week to be elected as public advocate and comptroller, respectively, and the party scored recent wins in a number of key council races.

The lawsuit charges that he Rose campaign -- which bested incumbent Democratic Councilman Ken Mitchell in the primary last month -- paid a mere $19,000 to DFS in that contest.

The real value of the campaign services in a council race is at least $100,000, according to the legal papers.

DFS provided aid to Rose's campaign, including polling, phone banking and petitioning in the primary, according to court papers.

"Something doesn't fit. Somebody's cooking the books," attorney Randy Mastro said.

"It would appear DFS was created as a corporate veil to shield the WFP, [which is] funneling campaign contributions to candidates they support."

Since corporations are limited to giving political candidates $5,000 worth of services or cash in a calendar year, the discounted DFS rates are tantamount to in-kind political contributions that never get reported, the suit says.

How clever. It's almost as if the left didn't have faith in the public to vote for them so they have to discover ways to steal elections.

By the way, did someone mention ACORN?

A new lawsuit against the Working Families Party also hits another target -- the scandal-tarnished group ACORN, which shares office space with the party.

Pointing to a string of probes that ACORN is facing and news reports about the two groups sharing a Nevins Street address in Brooklyn, the suit seeks to flush out the overlap.

Critics of the two groups have long complained they work hand in glove -- and have found compelling evidence in Brooklyn.

"Another organization that helped found and remains closely [allied] with the WFP is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, commonly known as ACORN," reads a petition filed in the case, charging that "ACORN not only shares office space with the WFP . . . but Bertha Lewis, the executive director of New York ACORN, is also a state co-chair of the WFP."

The suit goes on to say the WFP "has remained closely" tethered to the group.

The court papers cite an exclusive Post story about hidden cameras at the Nevins Street offices capturing ACORN workers counseling a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp on how to buy a home and keep authorities from catching on.

Imagine my surprise to discover Lewis is the state co-chair of the WFP.

Community organizer Barack Obama was unavailable for comment.

Helpful Hints From ACORN?

French Observer Finds 'Dead Souls'
French National Assembly member Henri Plagnol told RFE/RL correspondent Ahto Lobjakas that he personally uncovered serious problems on a voter list in Orhei Vechi, a town outside the Moldovan capital [Chisinau Ed.] known for its monasteries, during his monitoring on election day.

Concerns have been high over the number of "dead souls" on voter lists, since their presence makes election fraud easier.

Plagnol said polling-station officials in Orhei Vechi initially dismissed his queries after he noticed pencil markings next to names on the voter list.

Eventually, the embarrassed officials gave up the ghost themselves: "I was told these people were dead," Plagnol said.

Monsieur Plagnol should read up on elections in Chicago. Those folks are rather well-versed in turning out the graveyard vote.

Allowing the dead to vote this past April caused all hell to break out in Moldova. Many are looking at the shenanigans that occured during yesterday's vote see only that it's deja vu all over again.

Yogi Berra is hard to translate. You have to understand America. And baseball. And Yogi himself. Viktor Chernomyrdin, who understands none of these things, nonetheless coined a Russian equivalent of Yogi's famous remark that "this is deja vu all over again."

The equally malapropistic Russian statesman, explaining in 1993 why Russians' savings would be wiped out, elucidated that "we wanted to do better, but it turned out like always."

As the dust settles, these two pieces of worldly wisdom will likely sum up Moldova's controversial repeat elections. Twitter-driven suspicion that thousands of "dead souls" had voted from the grave in April to extend Communist rule resulted in massive street protests. Things turned ugly and rioting led to a torched parliament, torture of detained protesters, at least three deaths, and a political stalemate.

Today's vote is part of a continuing contest for the broad strokes of Moldova's future: accelerated reform and EU integration or a place in Russia's coveted "privileged sphere of influence." Clean elections and political reconciliation are needed to put Moldovan society back together after April's trauma.

Unless I've missed it, both BarryO and That Woman have been silent on this. Must be afraid of getting Putie pissed off.

Regrettably, the process may once again be flawed and the outcome challenged, either on the streets or in the courts. Many have alleged that the Communists widely used harassment, biased state media, selective prosecution, and "administrative resources" to limit the opposition's chances. Perhaps most importantly, three well-regarded Moldovan NGOs each verified the voter rolls and found their quality and accuracy troublingly unchanged from last time.

These groups report that only 11 percent of the lists checked were fully correct; the rest contained either dead or duplicate souls, ineligible voters, incorrect information, or had not been published for public review.

One group said the Central Election Committee had "obstructed the monitors' work" and "ignored its legal obligations" by denying them access to the lists. Another uncovered serious problems that "place in doubt the quality of the voter rolls" -- including extensive, unexplainable increases in the number of voters from just three months earlier.

Pre-election polling suggests that this time around it will be the Communists who garner a sufficient bloc of seats to stonewall the coalition needed to elect the country's president and move ahead with the nation's business.

If so, Yogi and Viktor's sagacity will once again, sadly, mark Moldovan political life.

-- Louis O'Neill was OSCE ambassador and head of mission to Moldova from 2006-08

Via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Community organizers from ACORN were unavailable for comment.

Mugabe Incorporates Chicago-Style Politics in Bid to Secure Victory

Bring out your dead, and don't forget to vote early and often.

Zimbabwe has the highest proportion of elderly voters in the world, according to the voters' roll being used for elections next week. A glance at one page of the roll yesterday for a ward in the Mount Pleasant suburb of Harare turned up a Fodias Kunyepa, who was born in 1901. Over the page was Rebecca Armstrong, born 1900.

Somewhat younger was Desmond Lardner-Burke, born 1909, who was the notorious Minister for Justice in the rebel Rhodesian Government and responsible for the harassment, arrest and detention without trial of tens of thousands of black nationalists, including President Mugabe, fighting against white rule in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mr Lardner-Burke left the country soon after the demise of the illegally constituted Rhodesian state in 1980, and the establishment of Zimbabwe's independence. He died soon after, in South Africa. Mr Kunyepa and Mrs Armstrong are also long dead.

Opposition campaign workers say that the voters' roll is stuffed with the names of the dead, of non-existent people, of those with fake identity numbers and with names repeated numerous times in different constituencies, sometimes in the same ward.

Sounds like what the Democrats pull off in every city across the country.

Mr Lardner-Burke, who was reputed to have a sense of irony, would be amused at the idea of posthumously helping Mr Mugabe, born in 1924, to win presidential elections and go on for another five years. “There's one [person at least 100 years old] on nearly every page of the voters' roll for Mount Pleasant,” said Trudy Stevenson, parliamentary candidate for one of the two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The roll has 212 pages with 55 names on each.

Esteemed electoral monitor Jimmy Carter was unavailable for comment.