Former Iowa Republican official admits to taking payment for support of Ron Paul’s presidential bid

Kent Sorenson said he was paid $73,000 to switch his allegiance from Michele Bachmann to Ron Paul in 2011

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A former Iowa state senator who abandoned then-presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to endorse Ron Paul a week before the 2012 Iowa caucuses has pleaded guilty to “concealing payments” from Paul’s campaign in exchange for his support, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

In December 2011, state senator Kent Sorenson, then the Iowa chairman for Bachmann’s campaign,made a surprise announcement that he had switched his endorsement to Paul. At the time, Sorenson said he made the decision based on his support for Paul’s policies, but this week he admitted to accepting tens of thousands of dollars from the Paul campaign as part of the deal. According to a DOJ release, “from October to December 2011, he met and secretly negotiated with a second political campaign to switch his support to that second campaign in exchange for concealed payments that amounted to $73,000.”

The payments were delivered in $8,000 installments, which were “concealed by transmitting them to a film production company, then through a second company, and finally to Sorenson and his spouse,” the DOJ statement read.

“An elected official admitted that he accepted under-the-table payments from a campaign committee to secure his support and services for a candidate in the 2012 presidential election,” DOJ Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in a written statement.

Paul, a Texas Republican who retired from Congress in 2013, went on to place third in the state caucuses behind Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney. He continued to campaign through the spring and ended his run in May 2012. Paul’s son, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, is considering his own bid for the presidency in 2016.

The consequences for those involved with Paul’s campaign are unclear. Jesse Benton, a Paul campaign spokesman at the time, did not return a request for comment. Benton is currently the campaign manager for  Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is running for re-election.

In an interview with Yahoo News, DOJ spokesman Peter Carr declined to discuss details of the agreement but said that the investigation “remains ongoing.”

Sorenson resigned from his office in 2013 amid allegations that he had also taken illegal contributions from a political action committee aligned with Bachmann.

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Rick Perry Turns Himself In

Rick Perry Turns Himself In

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) turned himself in to authorities Tuesday on counts of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant.

Perry was indicted Friday for allegedly abusing the powers of his office by carrying out a threat to veto funding for state prosecutors investigating public corruption.

Before being booked, Perry said he stood by his decision.

"This issue is far bigger than me. It's about rule of law, it's about the Constitution that allows not just the governor but every citizen to speak their mind, free of political interference or legal intimidation," Perry said.

"I'm going to fight this injustice with ever fiber of my being, and we will prevail," he said.

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Despite the fact that she will soon have to ban herself from U.S. Representatives, Michele Bachmann will soon have to explain about her funding on her position on the border baby bill.

 $$$$$$"Arbeit macht frei"$$$$$$

But after being stripped of all the things that come with the Majority Leader position — a police detail that drives him around, extra staff, and a big office — Cantor announced his last day as a member of the House will be August 18.Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©“We’re looking at possibly one of the most anti-Hispanic Congresses in generations,” said Rep. Joe Garcia (D-FL) to reporters in the U.S. Capitol yesterday.

With Reps. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and Steve King (R-IA) in charge of strategics, House Republicans voted last night to deport over 500,000 people.  Since August 2013, 550,000 people have applied for Deferred Action.  At 8:30 p.m. last night, two hundred and twelve Republicans in the House voted in favor of ending the program.

The anti-Deferred Action bill has zero chance of becoming law.  Yesterday’s events were political “message vote” games with election day 95 days away.  No member of Congress had actually seen the final bill voted on until hours before votes were called.

Consistent with a GOP controlled House with a thin schedule that has passed fewer bills than any other in history, another answer to a problem facing the country was met with doing nothing.  Or more specifically: Passing D.O.A. political statement legislation everyone knows will never become law.  But a serious problem remains: Officials in Texas are quickly running out of money to deal with the number of immigrants crossing the border from Mexico.

Last night’s efforts were part of an odd and ill-timed anti-immigrant vote led by the right wing of the Republican party.  Despite all the talk at the beginning of 2013 of the GOP’s need to “expand the party” after Gov. Mitt Romney lost to President Obama in 2012 House Republicans sounded more like the party of the past than of the future during yesterday’s debate.

It’s “like I ordered if off the menu,” said Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on the anti-Dreamers bill.  That Rep. King was the lead-author of the anti-Deferred Action bill is telling since Rep. King is known for his racist comments against Hispanic immigrants.

“For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” Rep. King said in June 2013.  Last August at a Tea Party rally, King said,”if you bring people from a violent civilization into a less-violent civilization, you’re going to have more violence right?”

That immigrants from Mexico are often spoken of within the context of criminality by House Republicans was not lost on Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). At a press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday, he said that, “GOP leaders embraced “the least common denominator of hatefulness toward the immigrant community” with the King-Bachmann anti-Dreamers bill.

Speaking on the GOP’s references to Mexican immigrants, Gutierrez said that, “for weeks … they have said that they are disease-ridden, lice-filled, gang bangers, drug dealers and mules of the drug cartels who have come here in hoards to invade our nation… And now they are demonstrating that that’s how they feel in their legislation.”

“It sends a vitally important message that minors wanting to come here in the future will … have absolutely no opportunity to receive DACA benefits,” said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).  During the 113th Congress, Goodlatte has failed to move on the Senate passed immigration bill.

Four Democrats voted with Republicans: Reps. Collin Peterson (D-MN), Mike McIntyre (D-NC), John Barrow (D-GA), and Nick Rahall (D-WV).  Among the eleven Republicans voted with Democrats and against the right wing Bachmann/King anti-Dreamer bill were:  Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL),  Jeff Denham (R-CA), Cory Gardner (R-CA), and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).

“This is one of the most mean-spirited and anti-immigrant pieces of legislation I have seen in all my years of Congress,” said Rep.  John Conyers (D-MI) who has been in Congress for 49 years.

Outgoing House Republican Majority Leader didn’t bother to vote.  Making no attempt to prove the Eric-Cantor-haters like Laura Ingraham wrong, Cantor made none of the immigration related votes last night.  Cantor lost his House seat in large part because of his moderation on the issue.

Peggy Noonan: America is divided because Obama is “out there dropping his g’s”

The WSJ columnist says the country can't come together until the president starts enunciating properly

Peggy Noonan is worried about America. Again. The Wall Street Journal columnist’snewest worry arises, as is so often the case, from “a conversation this week with an acquaintance of considerable accomplishment in the political and financial worlds” who thinks America is going to break apart into red and blue factions. “I think a lot about the general subject of what deeply divides us,” Noonan writes, “occasionally with a feeling of some alarm.”

Like any pundit worth her salt, Noonan assumes that her own personal sense of alarm is shared by the country as a whole, and after many paragraphs of gauzy ruminations on the nature of political division, she finally arrives at her point: “No nation’s unity, cohesion and feeling of being at peace with itself can be taken for granted, even ours. They have to be protected day by day, in part by what politicians say. They shouldn’t be making it worse. They shouldn’t make divisions deeper.”

And who are we to blame specifically for these deepening divisions?

In just the past week that means:

The president shouldn’t be using a fateful and divisive word like “impeachment” to raise money and rouse his base. He shouldn’t be at campaign-type rallies where he speaks only to the base, he should be speaking to the country. He shouldn’t be out there dropping his g’s, slouching around a podium, complaining about his ill treatment, describing his opponents with disdain: “Stop just hatin’ all the time.”

Ah, that divisive Obama, busting apart the country’s delicate sense of common unity by employing relaxed diction when chastising House Republicans for VOTING TO SUE HIM. That lawsuit was the “ill treatment” that Noonan apparently believes is a less of a contributor to the country’s intractable partisan divide than Obama’s momentary dips into colloquial modes of speech. The larger point Obama made was that Republicans should be more constructive partners in the governing process. Given yesterday’s embarrassing spectacle in which internal GOP divisions forced the leadership to cancel a vote on their border crisis legislation, you have to think the president might be on to something there.

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KKK Calls For ‘Shoot To Kill’ Policy On Undocumented Child Immigrants (Video)

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US: Utah language school fires blogger for writing about ‘homophones’

A social-media strategist at a Utah language learning center claims to have been fired for a blog post about homophones, due to concerns that it would lead the school to be associated with homosexuality.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Tim Torkildson was fired from his job at the Nomen Global Language Center in Provo, Utah, for writing a blog post on the Center’s website about homophones.

A cached version of the post, which has now been deleted, starts by explaining: “In English a homophone is a word that has several different meanings and spellings, but always sounds the same.” It then lists a handful of examples starting with the letter A.

Writing in a post on his own blog, Torkildson described the conversation between himself and his former boss, Clarke Woodger, during which he was let go.

According to Torkildson, Woodger told him: “I’m letting you go because I can’t trust you. This blog about homophones was the last straw. Now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality.”

He added: “We don’t teach this kind of advanced stuff to our students, and it’s extremely inappropriate.”

Woodger offered Torkildson “a good reference” for his next job, but reportedly said: “I would advise you to try something clerical, where you’ll be closely supervised and have immediate goals at all times. That’s the only kind of job you’ll ever succeed at.”

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Woodger claims he fired Torkildson because he would “go off on tangents” in his blog posts.

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Proposed GOP Lawsuit Against Obama Backfires, Helps Democrats Raise Millions

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $1 million in a single day on Monday, chairman Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said. The fundraising juggernaut was driven by Democratic opposition to a lawsuit House Republicans intend to file against President Barack Obama related to the enforcement of certain Obamacare provisions.

"Since the announcement of the lawsuit, we've raised more than $7.6 million," Israel said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. The committee has received more than 160,000 donations, Israel said, and the average donation amount is $19.

On Monday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) published an op-ed defending the GOP lawsuit plan. Obama "has overstepped his constitutional authority," Boehner wrote, by twice extending the Affordable Care Act's deadline for large employers to provide health coverage for their workers.

For Israel and the Democrats, the most important number, however, may be 74,000 -- the number of first-time contributors to the committee in recent weeks. Israel confirmed what many on Capitol Hill suspected: The prospect of legal action by the GOP against the president is a powerful tool for mobilizing Democratic campaign donors, who strongly oppose the lawsuit.

Prominent Democrats have also successfully woven together the Obamacare lawsuit with a rumored House GOP plan to file impeachment proceedings against the president. The latter is a prospect that numerous top Republicans have rejected, and that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday was a baseless "scam started by Democrats at the White House." Nonetheless, incoming House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" refused to rule out possible impeachment proceedings.

As long as the specter of impeachment hangs over the Capitol, Democrats probably will continue to capitalize on the widespread public opposition to impeachment.

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Mother of slain Mexican teen sues ‘brazen and lawless’ Border Patrol agents

 

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By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Lawyers for the mother of a Mexican teenager fatally shot by U.S. border police filed a U.S. federal civil rights lawsuit on Tuesday, calling the killing “brazen and lawless” and the latest example of agents using excessive force.

The lawsuit says unnamed U.S. Border Patrol agents violated the constitutional rights of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was 16 years old when he died in the cross-border shooting from Arizona into Nogales, Mexico, in October 2012.

An autopsy by Mexican authorities found the teen was shot seven times from behind.

“I want to know who assassinated my son and why?” Araceli Rodriguez, the slain boy’s mother, said in a statement released by her attorney. “I want to know why they have not been brought to justice. Isn’t that why there are laws?”

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Tucson by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others seeks unspecified damages against an undetermined number of agents. It also seeks a jury trial.

A border patrol spokesman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

The border patrol has said agents were responding to reports of drug trafficking on Oct. 10, 2012, when they opened fire on a group that began throwing rocks at them from across the border on Mexican territory.

The incident was condemned by the Mexican government.

News reports showed Elena Rodriguez’s apparently lifeless body lying face down on a sidewalk just a few yards south of the steel border fence.

The lawsuit said he had been “peacefully walking down the street by himself” when he was killed.

“He was not committing a crime, nor was he throwing rocks, using a weapon, or in any way threatening U.S. Border Patrol agents or anyone else,” it said.

The complaint said the shooting was the latest in a string of “unjustified deadly shootings and physical abuses along the U.S.-Mexico border over the past several years.”

Attorney Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s immigrants’ rights project and a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the case has broader legal implications, such as the whether the court will allow a lawsuit for a killing on Mexican soil.

Border Patrol agents have been criticized for allegedly being too quick to open fire after a number of agent-involved shootings on the frontier in recent years.

In March, the border patrol directed its agents to try to take cover, or to move away, when confronted by rock throwers, rather than immediately firing.

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Rachel Maddow - Democrats lawsuit amendments embarrass GOP

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Morning Jew Ep. 43: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, George Zimmerman's Brother, Deval Patrick

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Washington Republican ‘Representative Beefcake’ resigns over vote fraud

State officials in Washington are trying to determine whether a now-former state Representative owes them any of the money he earned as a state lawmaker.

According to the Greenfield Reporter, state Rep. Mike Hope (R) — a former b-movie actor who bills himself as “Representative Beefcake” because of his ripped physique — stepped down after it was revealed that he was registered to vote in both Ohio and Washington.

Hope, who had previously announced that he would not be running for reelection after his third term, had intended to settle in Ohio and registered to vote there in 2013. The lawmaker, who represents the 44th Legislative District does not have a home in his Washington district, living with his brother in Snohomish.

According to the Heraldnet, Democratic activist Mark Hintz, contacted the office of Barbara Baker, chief clerk of the House of Representatives, about Hope’s dual voting registration.

State law requires an elected official to remain a registered voter in the district in which they serve. If they are not a registered voter, they must be immediately removed from office.

Now officials are looking into whether Hope must reimburse that state for his earnings as a legislator.

“I think we did get duped by him and should have to pay it back,” Hintz, who is chairman of the 44th Legislative District Democrats, said. “He sold his house, registered in Ohio and continued to take taxpayers’ money to represent people in Washington while living in Ohio. That’s unconscionable.”

In a letter to Gov. Jay Inslee, Hope wrote, “It has been an honor to serve in the Washington State House of Representatives. It has also been an honor to serve during your term. However, I can no longer serve the remainder of my legislative term.”

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GOP Candidate Charges Opponent Is Dead, Represented By A Body Double

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WASHINGTON -- Political opponents accuse each other of lying all the time, but one Oklahoma congressional candidate took his accusation to a new level this week when he claimed his opponent was actually dead and being represented by a body double.

KFOR in Oklahoma reports that Timothy Ray Murray believes Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), his opponent in the congressional Republican primary, was executed three years ago and is being represented by a look-alike. Because he believes Lucas is really dead, Murray said he will challenge the results of Tuesday's Republican primary, in which Murrayreceived 5.2 percent of the vote. Lucas won the primary with 82.8 percent of the vote.

"It is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike. Rep. Lucas’ look alike was depicted as sentenced on a white stage in southern Ukraine on or about Jan. 11, 2011," Murray said in a statement posted on his campaign website. The statement claimed Lucas and “a few other” members of Congress from Oklahoma and other states were shown on television being hanged by “The World Court.”

"I am contesting that this matter has happen [sic] since his election was blocked, because of the U.S. Defense Department’s use of Mr. Murray's DNA. To my knowledge, the U.S. Defense Department has not released to the public that information, as it is their confidential information about many people," Murray's statement said.

Bryan Dean, a spokesman for the Oklahoma State Election Board, told The Huffington Post that Murray had sent the board a copy of the statement posted on his website but had not formally filed a petition asking for a recount or alleging election irregularities. He has until 5 p.m. Friday to do so.

In the statement, Murray, who did not respond to an interview request, also reassured voters that he is not a body-double.

"I, Timothy Ray Murray, am a human, born in Oklahoma, and obtained and continue to fully meet the requirements to serve as U.S. Representative when honored to so. I will never use a look alike to replace my (The Office’s) message to you or to anyone else, as both the other Republican Challengers have," he said.

Lucas, who has served in Congress for the last 20 years, released a statement in March about the crisis in Ukraine. He told KFOR, however, that he has never been to the country where he's being accused of having been executed.

“Many things have been said about me, said to me in the course of all my campaigns. This is the first time I’ve ever been accused of being a body double or a robot,” Lucas said. Lucas also added that Murray ran against him as a Democrat in 2012.

Murray's claim is the latest incident in an election cycle that has featured plenty of strange candidates, including a Santa Claus impersonator and a supernatural role-player.

A representative from Lucas' office told The Huffington Post that Lucas would not comment further on the allegations, but said, "I can assure you that the congressman is alive."

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Republican: If a Woman Has Right to an Abortion, a Man Should Have Right to Force Himself on a Woman

Republican: If a Woman Has Right to an Abortion, a Man Should Have Right to Force Himself on a Woman

Republican Maine state Representative Lawrence Lockman is under fire for comments he’s made in the media regarding rape, abortion, and homosexuality.

An investigation by Mike Tipping, an activist with Maine People’s Alliance, found numerous offensive comments made by the Republican in various newspaper interviews.

Perhaps the most inflammatory was a press statement from 1995 in which Lockman says “If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”

That wasn’t all.

According to the report, Lockman once implied that the HIV virus can be spread through mosquitoes and bed sheets. Lockman also asserted that liberals helped exacerbate the AIDS epidemic by assuring “the public that the practice of sodomy is a legitimate alternative lifestyle, rather than a perverted and depraved crime against humanity.”

In a letter to Bangor News, Lockman once wrote “Clearly the practice of sodomy is learned behavior, and those addicted to this form of biologically-insane sex are at high risk for all manner of serious medical problems.”

Lockman also spoke out against HIV infected students attending school, saying “It’s peculiar that the government is telling health care workers that surfaces contaminated with bodily fluids should be thoroughly disinfected, but at the same time they are telling us that toilet seats have some magical property that they are able to resist viruses.”

He also tried to alert people to a “secret gay affirmative action plan,” saying “You can bet the rent money they will demand that employers set up goals and timetables to achieve 10 percent homosexual representation in the workforce and in government contracts.”

Ben Grant, the chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, called for Lockman to resign in light of these statements, calling them “hateful, vicious, and offensive.” Grant also called Lockman “disturbed individual who holds some of the most abhorrent beliefs ever heard from a public official in Maine.”

Lockman has refused to respond to direct questions but released a statement, saying “I have always been passionate about my beliefs, and years ago I said things that I regret. I hold no animosity toward anyone by virtue of their gender or sexual orientation, and today I am focused on ensuring freedom and economic prosperity for all Mainers.”

Read more at http://issuehawk.com/igor/2014/03/04/republican-if-a-woman-has-right-to-an-abortion-a-man-should-have-right-to-force-himself-on-a-woman.html#rkhUFVjcO40A5Q4l.99
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