Republican Staffers Charged With 36 Counts of Election Fraud

by

It turns out that the Republican Party’s obsession with voter fraud may be yet another case of projection. Four former staffers for resigned House Rep. Thaddeus McCotter have been charged with 36 counts of misdemeanor and felony election fraud. Yesterday one of those staffers, Lorianne O’Brady, pled not guilty to five misdemeanor counts of  submitting fraudulent signatures on a ballot petition. O’Brady is the last of the four staffers to be arraigned; the other three, Don Yowchuang, Mary Melissa Turnbull, and Paul Seewald, were arraigned on similar charges on August 10th.

So what happened? It all started last May, when the Michigan Congressman announced that he was considering running for the Republican nomination for president. McCotter, who had served in the US House of Representatives for nine years, officially announced his candidacy in July of 2011, but was unsuccessful due to his relatively unknown status. In September of 2011, McCotter officially withdrew from the race and endorsed Mitt Romney.

For the next part of the story, we have to go back to April of 2011. Prior to running for president, McCotter had not confirmed that he would be running for reelection is his district. He was the only one of Michigan’s 15 representatives who still had yet to announce his intentions for his seat. That May, after McCotter began exploring a presidential run, he confirmed that he would not campaign for his seat in the House. Then in September, McCotter reversed that plan after ending his presidential campaign. McCotter was indeed running for reelection in Michigan’s 11th District.

Fast forward to May 2012. the date to collect signatures to appear on the ballot in Michigan has come and gone. 1,000 signatures are necessary for each candidate, and the McCotter campaign turned in over 2,000. There was just one small problem: most of those signatures were forgeries or photocopies. Only 244 of the signatures – just over 10% of the total number – were actually legitimate signatures.

Michigan’s Secretary of State announced that the McCotter campaign had not gathered 1,000 valid signatures, which McCotter accepted. McCotter then announced that he would still be running for his seat in the August primary, as a write-in candidate. But the discoveries of fraud by the Secretary of State were so egregious that the matter was turned over to Michigan’s state attorney general. The Michigan elections director Chris Thomas called the fake signatures an “unprecedented level of fraud.”

By June, the news of the false signatures had put enough pressure on McCotter, and the Congressman resigned in disgrace. In his resignation statement, McCotter lamented his decreased earnings potential, expressed his concern for the toll the scandal took on his family, and said that he would continue to cooperate in the investigation. He never took responsibility for the incident.

This incident perfectly highlights the dirty little secret about election fraud. Election fraud overwhelmingly happens on the campaign side, not the voter side. It’s far easier – and more rewarding – to cheat while working from within the system than it is to commit in-person voter fraud. The GOP is legislating against cases of voter fraud in which a person would have to give someone else’s name at the correct polling place in order to falsely vote once; meanwhile a Republican Congressman and his staff fabricated 1,756 signatures so that he could run illegally. 

And this is the truth about so many Republican policies: rules and regulations are put in place to scapegoat people who aren’t causing problems. In Florida, drug testing welfare recipients showed that less than 3% of those receiving welfare were using drugs illegally, while that discriminatory testing cost the state nearly $120,000. Mitt Romney has evoked the “47% of people [who] pay no income tax,” conveniently ignoring that collecting income tax from all of those households would bring in less than than the president’s Buffett Rule which would slightly raise taxes for the country’s wealthiest. Reagan’s racist welfare queen myth still looms large in the conservative narrative, despite the fact that the Bush-era bailout for corrupt and irresponsible banks cost far more than years of welfare programs. 

The cognitive dissonance bordering on willful delusion has become the hallmark of Republican policies and rhetoric. Expecting this heinous fraud to bring the GOP back to reality would be wishful thinking at this point, but at least one corrupt Congressman is now out of a job. 

  • http://luxomni.wordpress.com luxomni

    Four staffers committed 36 acts. From the headline one could presume 36 staffers.

  • Nemo

    What the hell is wrong with these folks?

  • toodeemo

    It’s a setup. They can’t FIND it, so they created it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002856016374 William P. Homans

    Beg pardon, correction, a hundred more cases in Florida (there is an Escambia in NM).

    Election officials in three central Florida counties say it didn’t happen in THEIR counties. Whew.

    But:

    http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2012/09/no-central-florida-fraud-cases-suspected-with-problematic-gop-voter-registration-contractor.html

    This Sproul fellow is all over the place raking in 7 figures.

    Where is all the Democratic vote fraud the Republican who want new and tougher laws were screaming about? Why is it that the only vote fraud we are hearing about is a multistate REPUBLICAN operation? I would really have to laugh if this wasn’t so serious.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002856016374 William P. Homans

    A hundred more cases of vote fraud now being investigated in New Mexico. It’s the same bunch, Sproul’s operatives.

    Read “Witness to A Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of An American Election,” by Dr. Richard H. Phillips, PhD (Canterbury Press, Rome, NY 2008). It is the story, complete with a DVD of all of the evidence, of the stealing of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio through massive vote fraud, voter intimidation and outright Watergate-style burglary.

    The Republicans will always try to win unfairly. They can’t get away with this one, though, the margin is just too big now, AND Obama gets the debate bump. Romney/Ryan is toast. Unfortunately, we’re going to elect all too many Republicans down-ticket.

  • Mark Langenkamp

    Exposing fraud wherever it exists is a noble pursuit, but to ignore one type of fraud (voter fraud) outright simply because it isn’t politically expedient is deceitful and lacks integrity at a very basic level. I want all election fraud to be exposed and those guilty of it to be punished–not just that fraud which originates from within the “other” party.

    As someone who contributes to the needs of others and who is required to be tested for drugs in order to keep my job that helps to pay for those programs, I cannot see how my drug test can be constitutional while a TANF recipient’s test is declared unconstitutional. By the way, if my drug test comes back negative, I am not reimbursed for my test. The cost of testing is a direct expense of my employer’s business, and as such it directly influences my wages in a negative way. That is how business works. Don’t forget, that when the TANF costs for drug testing is “reimbursed” to the recipient, it is still me and others who are reimbursing them–we are still the ones footing the bill. The cost isn’t to the state, but to those who pay taxes and create state revenue. TANF recipients aren’t being financially penalized–we are. Since I’m paying for TANF, I don’t mind that a portion of what I pay goes toward negative drug tests. There was a time in my life when my family was added by such programs, and I was thankful that such a program existed. I would have been happy to prove that I wasn’t on drugs at the time—although it wasn’t required. Now, as a tax payer, I expect the same of those who are receiving that benefit today—that they would be willing to be tested. I’m pretty sure that receiving TANF is voluntary. I’m also pretty sure that, just as with other sectors of the workforce, having a drug testing program in effect reduces the occurrences of drug use–so testing positive would naturally be low. The idea isn’t to catch people using drugs, but to prevent the use of drugs while on the program.

    I have to wonder if Augusta Christensen read what she wrote in the final paragraph about how “cognitive dissonance bordering on willful delusion [has] become the hallmark of” policy and rhetoric because she seems to be leading the charge.

    • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/augusta Augusta Christensen

      What is your drug test that you’re talking about? Is it something that a private company requires for you to work there, thereby costing the taxpayers nothing? The government is not your employer. The government is a system voted for by the people to perform functions in the best interests of the people – one of those functions as explicitly stated in the Constitution is to promote the general welfare.

      You seem to believe two patently false things in your comment. The first thing you believe is that only you and other people not on welfare are the ones paying taxes into the system. That’s not true – most people on welfare are employed and pay payroll taxes into that system, have been employed at some point and paid into that system, or are disabled and once paid into the system. So while you may feel like welfare recipients have some sort of moral obligation to you because aren’t on welfare and you pay taxes, nearly all of them pay taxes or have paid taxes in the past so that that system can be there for them now that they need it, and for you in the future that you do it. Also, your idea that “cost isn’t to the state, but to those who pay taxes and create state revenue” – are you serious? That’s a distinction without a difference if I’ve ever heard one That money isn’t YOUR money, it’s tax revenue. Welcome to the social contract.

      The second thing you seem to believe is that the best course of action for welfare recipients using drugs is to strip them of the tiny remaining safety net they have left. Yes, let’s take away welfare benefits for a single mom of four who has cocaine or weed in her system – that’ll be fantastic for the kids. And then once they’re starving and a teacher reports it – or the school catches on that they’ve missed weeks of school – they can be thrown into the foster system until they reach the age of majority, at which time they will lack all of the non-cognitive skills necessary for success in school and jobs. That’s not the answer. The answer is to have welfare recipients report to a case worker that can spot the warning signs of drug addiction and get that person treatment and counseling. And states already have that – they’re required to. That, not the threat of drug testing, is what keeps illegal drug use lower among these people than the general population.

      So yes, when you twist the situation into something that bears little resemblance to reality and paints you as the responsible Atlas holding all of the working poor and disabled on your shoulders, my statement seems like cognitive dissonance. When you’re dealing in facts, it’s quite a bit different.

    • https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gallery-Shops/209832765748998?ref=hl Erma Jean

      There apparently IS no voter fraud. The fraud seems to be happening in the legislative group. These guys are shameless. They get caught lying and try to smear it on the other guy. There is a case of denial here that that is paramount in its scope. As far as those that are receiving benefits, most of them don’t even vote much less cheat. And we know who the majority of those are. They’re not African American or Hispanic. So that leaves the other people. Drive through some of the inner City neighborhoods: they’re full of the OTHERS now.

      Stop calling Social Security an entitlement. It is an entitlement. But I paid into it for years to be able to get check. The only unearned entitlements go to people on welfare and to the big corporations.

      • JamesK

        What makes you think that most of the people on welfare aren’t also paying taxes, Erma?

        And who are these other people?

    • JamesK

      Mark, George W Bush spent 5 years looking for voter fraud and out of the tens of millions of votes cast in that period, he found all of 86 examples…none of which would have been stopped by Voter ID.

      Voter Fraud simply doesn’t exist in the numbers the GOP claims.

    • JamesK

      Oh…and what those Republican officials and what Nathan Sproul continues to do is election fraud…not voter fraud

  • Billy Boy

    Because Republicans were caught committing voter fraud, this means Democrats never do? Or how about, it’s potentially a problem from both parties, and we should make it difficult for both parties to do it. That seems to make more sense than trying to claim Republicans are the only ones doing it.

    • Crystal

      I am sure voter fraud does happen on both sides, so I think it’s just poor wording within the article really. I more got the sense that this was calling out the GOP on having so many negative realities coming up on this campaign year that it’s rather outrageous coming from just one party.

    • Ed Stoddard

      The Republican’s are far more interested in voter suppression than any Democrats, so it’s not a stretch at all to believe this is more a Republican issue and problem. Let’s point the finger in the correct direction for a while, Billy. Sure, a Democrat may get caught for voter fraud some day. When that day comes, we all will point the finger at him/her.

      • http://pievegas.com pievegas

        Of the course. Republicans are far more interested in voter suppression than any democrat. They let dead people vote.

        • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/jesse Jesse Lawson

          Of the course.

    • butch

      it was not said that dem. side dont do it , if they are , they are not so greedy to get caught. here you have a rep. candidate running for president, whom want release his taxes, if you have a bussiness and hiring, would hire a person that would not release their info that identifies their activities.

    • http://gravatar.com/johnse0366 johnse0366

      Maybe so Billy Boy but as in the party of “family values” where was all the cases of no so family values happening and so much so, they have tried to get away from that nomer. As the party of stopping voter fraud and constantly nobody had been able to find any cases of it, we now have these republicans involved & there is another case of a republican party in FL engaging in the same. Pretty sad & pathetic, as the Romney campaign is.

    • specfriggintacular

      While I do not condone the falsifying of signatures to get on ballots, how exactly does one get away with equating this to say, the NAACP executive now serving time in Prison for factually VOTING for Obama 10 times in 2008????

    • JamesK

      Since there is very little voter fraud despite the GOp claims to the contrary and there is a whole lot of election fraud seemingly…why don’t the Republicans come up with a law to stop election fraud? Why do they keep on hiring Nathan Sproul and his various companies every election for the last 8 years despite Mr. Sprouls record of shenanigans in every election since then?

      Voter ID won’t stop what little voter fraud exists.

      So if the Republicans were so interested in ensuring an accurate election..why don’t they craft laws that would do so instead of laws designed purely to keep blacks, hispanics, senior citizens and college students from voting?

  • dean

    Why is it that voter fraud does not carry an atomatic jail time,say a minimum of one month,this would certainly weed out which party is more guilty.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Rickpa9 Rick Reynolds

    As I am fond of saying. Members of an outside group are represented by their worst examples.

    This story is a propaganda tool to cast a congressman’s staffers as “Republican Staffers.” To the casual reader who is skimming headlines, one would think that these idiots were working in an official capacity for the Republican Party.

    • exboyracer

      No but finally a case of voter fraud does show up… remember voter fraud it is the thing you all want to use to keep brown people from voting., well when the fraud finally appears it is republicans. How does that work?

      • http://pievegas.com pievegas

        Funny. I know a lot of black people in my church, and not one of them is voting for Obama. They all have ID cards. Why is it some have to jump on the race card right away? It’s annoying.

        • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/jesse Jesse Lawson

          I encourage you to look at the disparaging effects of voter ID mandates. Look for.our article called Five Shocking Facts about Voter ID Laws. I’m glad you know some people who are black, but just because the only Republicans I know are ignorant bigots doesnt mean they all are.

      • Mof3

        First of all, you’re all kidding yourselves if you actually think that there haven’t already been democrats caught doing the exact same thing this article talks about. I recently posted an article on it. Of course, dems jumped in saying that b/c it was about false signatures, and not actual polling place voter fraud, that it didn’t really mean anything. Um, ok. And my point was that Conservatives could care less who’s committing the fraud…get rid of it! We understand that new voter laws will catch BOTH sides. We like it that way.

        And the pathetic argument that we are trying to suppress votes is simply an uneducated assumption, or a lie. I’ll let you decide which it is for you but those are your only options b/c it’s not true. Much like saying that there have been no cases of the type of voter fraud we are trying to combat. I’d recommend educating yourself before speaking.

        To add to your ridiculous, brain-washed liberal talking point comments, I hope you do actually realize that there are many (more by the day) black conservatives. They refuse to stay enslaved by the democrats. They actually know their history, their rights and their bible. Therefore they have realized that the Democratic party as it is today does not represent them. So why would we be trying to suppress votes of like-minded people? The fact that dems are so arrogant as to believe they have all of the “seniors”, all of the “blacks”, all of the “students” and all of the “gays” votes is just more proof of how out of touch they really are. (And yes, there are gay conservatives.) But that’s ok…keep being overconfident about who you’ve got in your pocket. With every claim, more and more of those “groups” realize they are pawns in Obama’s game.

        • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/augusta Augusta Christensen

          If you want to make these claims, go ahead and cite them. If not, your “talking point comments” are far more ridiculous than ours (all of which are cited). Please explain how voter ID laws would have caught this. Please explain how voter ID laws would have caught Democrat Wendy Rosen, the Democrat from MD-1 we wrote about just a few weeks ago. Seriously, do you understand how rare (and pointless) going to the polls and pretending to be someone else would be? You would have to know the names of registered voters, have all of their information (name, birth date, current address, and party affiliation), and go from poll to poll pretending to be one person at a time. Even if someone took the time to do that, they would be able to fraudulently add, what, ten votes after waiting in line and traveling to each place? Do you really think that’s more important than the millions that would be disenfranchised by these laws? If so, that says a lot about you – and nothing good.

  • http://www.facebook.com/lapointe2of6 Lorraine La Pointe

    Follow up on this story, please. I’m interested too to see if this guy or his staffers are going to be prosecuted.

  • Kat

    Your points are well taken as to campaign fraud, however,his staffers are being brought to charges, not the congressman himself. He may or may not be complicit. I also doubt that this is a problem relegated to one side of the aisle.

  • http://www.facebook.com/CarlGottsteinJr Carl R Gottstein Jr.

    Your bias is gross. For instance. You state it is discriminatory to test recipients for drug use? Why? Is it discriminatory to test folks who work to pay taxes that support the recipients? You paint a wide and miss leading brush. But hey, that’s what liberals must do..How does it feel to represent every liberal in history? I know, you just want to be loved liberal, its not working.

    • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/jesse Jesse Lawson

      I like how you complain of bias and then go on to point fingers and call her a liberal.

    • Jamie

      Carl, your bias is gross.

      Why is it discriminatory to test welfare recipients for drug use? Because they don’t drug test others who receive government funds. College students, farmers, Wall Street bankers have all received government funds but they were not drug tested. Congress and the President should be tested too.

      Anyway, the point of the article was the hypocrisy of people republican party of saying one thing and doing another. Of course, all politicians do.

      • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/jesse Jesse Lawson

        But Jamie, those are “job creators.” If we have them tested for drug use then we’re just inhibiting job growth!

        What’s interesting to me is that people are perfectly fine with most of their dollars going to for-profit industries that make money on war and health care, but they’re completely insulted when they have to pay for a child’s meal or an unemployed person’s benefits. Since they’re not making billions of dollars at the expense of an increasing national debt, then they’re obviously just lazy.

    • theolddog

      It is discriminatory to test ONLY welfare recipients.
      When we test the 1%, then and only then it is possible to say it is not discriminatory.

  • http://www.facebook.com/abison.ace Abison Ace

    Is he going to jail? , i mean prison

    • joshshaine

      No evidence that he was behind it or knew about it. So,probably not. (And I am not convinced he did, either.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/abison.ace Abison Ace

    Like food stamps they benefited it and blaming black and latino for it. James Carville is right, that’s why they want fewer government

  • chesterm

    2 pertinent facts missed
    1: a part-time Secretary of State employee discovered the fraud and
    2: it had occurred in McCotter’s previous campaigns.

  • onceproudamerican

    This just seems to underscore the need for voter ID laws and more diligent work by election boards all across America. If you need an ID to get on a plane or to get into a place where the Attorney General is speaking, positive ID should be required to get an absentee ballot, or vote in-person. It’s just common sense.

    • JamesK

      It underscores the need for Voter ID laws?

      Tell me..exactly how would Voter ID have stopped that?

      And then you can point me to the evidence that shows that there’s more then a miniscule amount of voter fraud right? Because George W Bush spent 5 years looking and out of tens of millions of votes cast in that time period his DOJ found all of 86 cases of voter fraud..nearly all of which was former felons voting when they shouldn’t have…which wouldn’t be stopped by Voter ID.

      Oh and by the way…the difference between my boarding an airplane and voting is that voting is a right and getting on an airplane isn’t.

      You want to treat all Americans as guilty of voter fraud until they prove themselves innocent. Sorry, this isn’t the Soviet Union. In this country its innocent until proven guilty. So why don’t you and your fellow scared Republicans quit trying to suppress votes because you guys can no longer win except for by cheating

      • Mof3

        I was looking forward to replying to you until I read your last sentence. Clearly you have been misguided like all of the other sheep. Voter suppression is a left lie to avoid voter laws. There is actual evidence of how this all came about, from the left, in order to discredit us. But I’ll never convince you of that so I’ll get to what I wanted to reply to…

        Voting may be a right, but it’s only a right for legal, eligible voters. Hence the need for an ID. What’s so hard to understand about that??

    • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/jesse Jesse Lawson

      I’m sorry, but what?

      Getting on an airplane and exercising your right to vote in a free democracy are not one and the same.

      • onceproudamerican

        How can you be sure the person voting is the one registered to vote absent an ID requirement?

        You do realize that the United States has never been, and is not now a ‘democracy’ don’t you? The Founders thought a democracy was that absolute worse form of government. It translate from Greek as ‘ mob rule’…

    • http://www.facebook.com/andrea.blackwell ThyGeekgoddess Blackwell

      How do you figure?
      Herding people onto a database is NOT a requirement and NEVER EVER EVER was it intended to be.
      That’s the kind of BS they used on NDNs to keep track. You might want to look up AIM and see why they were burning their CDIB cards.

      That is NOT a requirement of US citizenship and never should be.
      You are condemning people you have NO right to condemn as free people of these United States….knock it off.
      It’s embarrassing.
      And stop asking for transcripts while you’re at it, cross it off your trollatariat list of crap they told you to spam in ignorance. A college education is NOT a requirement either.
      Also, try and learn what the powers of office ARE before you complain about what the president doesn’t have a legal power to do anyway…..that’s especially embarrassing on a GLOBAL scale.
      And yes, the wage gap is an issue and congress won’t be fixed on either side until the GTOP extremist are left to fall over the edge of oblivion where they belong.
      After that, we’ll work on getting the republican refugees a new home or get a new left since they’ve decidedly been a bad influence on the democrat party, whatever they’re supposed to be.

      http://i.imgur.com/Ukl68.png

      Your precious GOP does NOT exist…long gone…deal with it and recover so the rest of the country can move on.
      Everything everybody’s complaining about points right to the corporitization of these United States. Vote Dem and get the GTOP packing so we can restore the balance.
      To troubleshoot a problem, you have to know when it was working in the first place.

  • http://gravatar.com/mjbarkl mjbarkl

    Somebody told to do the work, procrastinated, and then looked at the photocopier and said, “Hmmmm”? California Congressional for instance requires 50 to 60 signatures for nomination but allows submission of up to 3,000 each of which reduces the $1,740 filing fee by 53 cents. For my recent primary run in CA-10, using voter rolls I collected at front doors 1,304 signatures of which 1,267 were accepted as valid, for 97.16% acceptance which I understand is unusually high. Knocking on doors takes work but it is a good opportunity to meet voters one-on-one. Most candidates are too lazy to put in the effort –mike

  • Reisadan

    Not even surprised. Whenever a Tea Party type complains about something, the chances are astronomically high that they are the ones doing it. Just like Republicans who crusade the hardest against gays and end up taking a wide stance in a stall themselves.

    It is clockwork and hilarious.

  • Pingback: Republican Staffers Charged With 36 Counts of Election Fraud | Voting Matters | Scoop.it

    • JamesK

      no..they committed election fraud. Election fraud, unlike Voter Fraud, actually happens and its usually, as of the last 3 decades, done by Republicans.

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.turnbole David P. Turnbole

    Every time I hear the Teathuglikkkons screaming about election fraud, I then read that it’s the Teathuglikkkons doing it.

    • http://google nina bartoletta

      That TeaParty is a terrorist organization like any other and should be disbanded and anyone caught sneaking to maintain it should be arrested as subversives. Give them a sip of their own hate flavored tea.

      • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/jesse Jesse Lawson

        Even if you disagree with them, they still have the right to peaceful assembly and free speech.

        • JanaTheVeganPiranha

          Yes of course, and everyone hopes they do- we need to pay attention to what these criminals are up to.

        • http://viistar.com S. Stern

          and by ‘assemble peacefully’ you mean open carry and assemble. too bad the same allowance wasn’t made for the occupy movement…

          • onceproudamerican

            If the OWS folks were peaceful that might be a valid point. Violence , rapes, theft, drug use and sales, considerable vandalism and property damage do not constitute a ‘peaceful’ movement.

          • Mof3

            I would love for you to cite just ONE incident where a Tea Party member was arrested for violence. Or even demonstrated violence or hate. More left talking points. Getting rather old. Unlike all of the violence, hate and arrests that resulted from the pointless OWS.

          • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/jesse Jesse Lawson

            Are you joking?

            Here’s 10 hateful Tea Party signs: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/10-most-offensive-tea-par_n_187554.html

            Here’s them organizing an Islamaphobic hate rally: http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/husseinrashid/4333/tea_party_organizes_islamophobic_hate_rally/

            Here’s that one poll from a while ago that showed how Tea Party hates equality the most: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/new-poll-finds-tea-party-is-political-group-that-hates-gays-the-most/politics/2012/08/19/46939

            Here’s 10 house democrats who reported vandalism from Tea Partiers: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20001259-504083.html

            And yes, Tea Party loyalists have been violent before, like when one threw a brick threw the window of the Democratic Party headquarters, stomped on a woman’s head and neck at a Rand rally, mailed white powder and swastikas to Rep. Grijalva and fired on his office on after ruling on the Arizona immigration law, issued death threats against Sen. Patty Murray after a yes vote on healthcare reform resulting in the arrest of the armed and angry perpetrator, invited Tea Party activists to descend upon the address of a Virginia Democratic representative resulting in the gas line at that address being cut, threatened California state Senator Yee, shot at Gabby Gifford’s office windows (before she was actually shot in the head in what was described as a “lone wolf” act), spit on highly respected black leaders in public, contemplate trying to make the working class unions look bad by using a plant to stir up violence in a large group of protesters heedless of the dangers (Walker only chose to not do this because it could backfire on him politically), shoot the police via a Glenn Beck paranoid listener, arrest of another Beck listener who was upset by congress “railroading the left-wing agenda” and was planning the Tides Foundation shooting, stabbing a cab driver after asking him if he was a Muslim…. The full list is actually too long to use as an aside. (see here and here for a Google map of right wing violence just during a six month period.)

          • http://www.lawsonry.com/author/augusta Augusta Christensen

            You realize most of the violence at the OWS protests was on the part of the police, right?

      • onceproudamerican

        You obviously have never been to a TEA Party meeting. There are three core values: A constitutional, ;limited government, Free Markets, and Fiscal Responsibility, which of those constitute ‘hate’?

  • Ted

    This may be an indication of more to come

  • http://zul.me akismet-5e40d31d01e7bfb432173c371f72c0d0

    Is anyone surprised at all? Republicans love to cheat.

  • Jann Swanson

    I will be interesting to see if the people of the district will, like lemmings, send yet another Republican to Washington.