D’ownfall

Posted by Ben Cisco on 201401.24

Looks like karma has caught up with 1% fluffer Dinesh D’Souza – AGAIN!:

Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative commentator and best-selling author, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for arranging excessive campaign contributions to a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

The candidate was Wendy Long, a Republican who sought to unseat Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand as New York’s junior senator in 2012, according to a person familiar with the case.

A lawyer for D’Souza said his actions were “at worst,” an act of misguided friendship.

D’Souza was charged in an indictment made public on Thursday with one count of making illegal contributions in the names of others and one count of causing false statements to be made.

The indictment said D’Souza directed individuals to contribute a total $20,000 to the campaign of an unnamed Senate candidate in 2012 and then reimbursed them for their contributions.

***

Gillibrand, a 1988 Dartmouth graduate, ended up winning re-election to her first full term, collecting close to 72 percent of the vote.

In late 2012, D’Souza resigned his post as president of King’s College, a small Christian college in New York City, after admitting he had become engaged to a woman even though he was legally married, although separated from his wife. He has been an outspoken defender of traditional marriage.

This guy is like the Energizer bunny of stupid. He just keeps going, and going, and going…and you have to love (and by love I mean despise) the lawyer’s attempt to pass this off:

“Mr. D’Souza did not act with any corrupt or criminal intent whatsoever. He and the candidate have been friends since their college days, and at worst, this was an act of misguided friendship by D’Souza,” Brafman said.

So, he just happened, out of the goodness of his heart, to pay people to contribute to his candidate of choice, then repaid them for their contributions (thereby making himself the sole and illegal source of those contributions) in violation of campaign finance law, but he really didn’t mean it? Besides the fact that “I didn’t mean it” stops working as an excuse for most sentient people in early childhood, this is just stupid. I don’t think his pivot from “I didn’t mean it” to “I didn’t know it was against the law” is going to be particularly helpful.

Zombie Idiocalypse

Posted by Ben Cisco on 201211.28

Three weeks after the election, and somebody STILL can’t let it go:

Even after Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips’ scheme to elect Mitt Romney president through the electoral college was debunked, the idea continues to gain traction with some reality challenged tea partiers.

On November 19, Phillips wrote,

“Is there a way to stop this?

Yes, there is.

And the best part – this is totally constitutional.

The 12th Amendment of the Constitution as well as Article II of the Constitution govern the Electoral College.

According to the 12th Amendment, for the Electoral College to be able to select the president, it must have a quorum of two-thirds of the states voting. If enough states refuse to participate, the Electoral College will not have a quorum. If the Electoral College does not have a quorum or otherwise cannot vote or decide, then the responsibility for selecting the president and vice president devolves to the Congress.

The House of Representatives selects the president and the Senate selects the vice president.

Since the Republicans hold a majority in the House, presumably they would vote for Mitt Romney, and the Democrats in the Senate would vote for Joe Biden for vice president.

Can this work?

Sure it can.”

Turns out he misread the 12th Amendment (who could blame him – it’s not like it was the 2nd Amendment or something REALLY important!), so badly in fact that even World Net Daily was forced to admit that no, Virginia, there is no insanity clause. Yet, as with all things far-right related these days, the Zombie Idiocalypse just WILL. NOT. DIE:

Philips’ incorrect reading of the 12th Amendment has found new life in the dark subculture of right wing chain emails. One of these chain emails found their way into the inbox of Idaho state Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, who is urging states to boycott the Electoral College, so that Romney can win the presidency. When Nuxoll was told that Philips had it all wrong, and the scheme to boycott the Electoral College won’t work, she said, “Well, I guess that’s one lawyer. She later went on to tell the Idaho Statesman that, “I think it is very, very sad that we elected our current president, because he is definitely not following (the) Constitution. He is depriving us of our freedoms by all the agencies, and so … what I’m thinking is the states are going to have to stand up for our individual rights and for our collective rights.”

For a group of people who spend most of their time screaming about the Constitution, they don’t seem to have any idea of what’s really in it, or what it means. Or apparently, how to spell it: