May 23, 2008

Dillon recall attempt bites the dust


LANSING – Apparently the charges of voter fraud and forged signatures are true after the Michigan Secretary of State issued a press release today saying the recall against House Speaker Andy Dillon is short of signatures.

Republican Macomb County Commissioner Leon Drolet and his group filed 15,739 signatures with the Bureau of Elections on May 1 with 8,724 signatures needed to put the recall question on the Aug. 5 primary ballot. However, a preliminary review found only 8,224 were valid and those of registered voters.

"Verifying the registration of every signer is a meticulous and time-consuming process," Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land said in the press release. "However, it's a necessary step to ensure the integrity of our elections. I appreciate the hard work of our Bureau of Elections team and the support of local election officials during this review."

Dillon has also filed challenges claiming fraud, and that has not been determined. A final determination on whether the recall petition is sufficient must be made by June 5, but it appears the recall threat against Democratic lawmakers who voted to increase the state income tax and place a sales tax on some services that helped balance the state budget and erase a $1.8 billon budget deficit last fall is over.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

CG do you know the difference between truth and a lie?

Your headline states "Dillon recall attempt bites the dust"

Then buried in your words are "However, a preliminary review found only 8,224 were valid and those of registered voters."

Definiton of preliminary is as follow's: something that precedes or is introductory or preparatory.

So you headline states it is done and the attempt has failed. So that means the story is over.

The recall is dead there is no need for a June 5th ruling.

I am very confused with your writing.

Communications guru said...

That’s a pretty stupid question. Do you? If you see a lie you are more than welcome to point it out. A preliminary review – meaning a quick look – eliminated almond half the signatures. How many do you think a through review is going to disqualify? Right, a lot more. That also does not include them looking at Dillon’s challenges. It’s like election results are unofficial until the board of canvassers certify it as official.

The unofficial results say the recall is dead. It will be official dead on June 5. Is that clear enough?

Anonymous said...

I am hearing that the fix was in and some of the signatures that were disqualified were actually good.

Apparently the convicted criminal that the Democrat party hired was found to have theartened with their lives the people involved with reviewing the signatures. Also, apparently but has not been confirmed yet but Mark Brewer Chairmen of the MI Democrat Party approved of the plan

Communications guru said...

Wow. I am stunned. That is absolutely the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Where did you hear “the fix was in?” From the freaking CIA?

The Secretary of State is a very partisan Republican who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Governor. For her to disqualify that many signatures it must have been painfully obvious they were invalid. They have not even begun to dig into the challenges Dillon has lodged, and that will show the fraud and forged signatures.

This “convicted criminal” Leon Drolet and crew keep talking about is a person who once committed a crime and paid his debt to society. Those people are allowed to have a job when that is completed and make an attempt to stay out of prison. When the MDP hired the person, they were unaware of his record, and when they found out they let him go. A mistake, in my opinion.

The only wrong doing here has been committed by Drolet, and I hope he will pay his debt to society.

Anonymous said...

You wanted people to point out when you lie.

Well you just lied. He was convicted 8 times for felonies (armed robbery, guns). How is anyone suppose to believe anything you say. Oh I forgot you are a liberal, never mind.

House speaker's foes criticize Dems for hiring felon
Organizers of bid to recall Dillon claim parolee who tells voters about legislator's record is out to intimidate.
Christine Ferretti / The Detroit News

REDFORD TOWNSHIP -- The feisty campaign to oust House Speaker Andy Dillon took another twist Thursday when organizers blasted the Democratic Party for hiring a convicted felon to dissuade voters from signing recall petitions.

Party spokeswoman Liz Kerr acknowledged that Marcel L. Mitchell -- who has been convicted eight times of armed robbery, gun charges and other offenses since 1990 -- was hired to inform residents about the Redford Township lawmaker's voting record. She said there's nothing illegal about hiring Mitchell, who got out of prison last year and is on parole.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080425/POLITICS/804250365

Communications guru said...

I’m still waiting for you to point out a lie. Oh, I forgot, you’re an idiot. Never mind. I said he is “a person who once committed a crime and paid his debt to society.” That is correct.

Anonymous said...

This is interesting. Marcel Mitchell was convicted EIGHT times, yet the CG says he is "a person who ONCE committed a crime and paid his debt to society." That is INCORRECT. He EIGHT times committed a crime for which he was caught, tried and convicted. Not just once. And those are just the ones he was caught at.

Another interesting aspect is that they Democrats didn't know he was a felon and dismissed him after finding out. This points out the incompetence of the Democrats when they don't know that one of their operatives is an eight time convicted felon. But it may not be incompetence. They may be very competent and just liars.

Speaking of incompetence, I have to reserve some of that for Leon Drolet. He's a former congressman and now holds some position in Macomb County government. Just based on that, he should have some knowledge of how to run a recall legally. Include the fact that he organized the drive to recall Dillon and others, he really should have done his homework and made certain that this recall attempt was above aboard in all aspects. If he thought the Democrats and Dillon were going to just sit by and let the recall happen, then he's not sitting too well on the scale of intelligence either.

Someone else, with the Democrats and Dillon, said that this shows that there wasn't any support for recalling Dillon. This is just spin at it's finest...or worst. The legitimate votes that were collected fell just 50 votes short of the necessary votes to get the recall in motion. Some of the votes, as reported in the Lansing State Journal, were disqualified due to the inability to verify some of the voters (this could change if they find that those voters were in his district), others were disqualified because they beleive a couple of those gathering petitions were not eligible to collect signatures because they were not in his district. Those signatures on those petitions could be legitimate, but the petitioner wasn't. Again, I blame Leon Drolet for that. Had the collector of signatures been eligible to collect those signatures, the signatures would have counted towards the total and that would have amounted to more than 50, giving the recall enough to get flying.

So we have incompetence with the Democrats (Dillon, Brewer-government) in hiring someone that they didn't know was an EIGHT time felon (or they are liars), incompetence in the leadership of the recall (Drolet-government), and voters disenfranchised because they signed something that they believed in but because the person collecting the signatures wasn't eligible to collect, their wishes are tossed aside.

This all just backs up my position that when government is involved in anything, they find a way to screw it up.

Brett
conservativelifestyle.blogspot.com

Communications guru said...

You want to pay semantics, fine. The MDP hired a convicted felon. How many felonies he committed is splitting hairs, to me. I had no idea what his record was and don’t care. It is eight, I was wrong about the number. It seems to me if he is on parole then he has to do something to earn money to stay out of prison. What he did was legal. I would have done it for free, and I know many dedicated volunteers who did. The MDP did nothing wrong in hiring him, and they never should have let him go just because a few hypocritical right-wingers cry. It’s funny that a party that has convicted felons as its heroes, such as G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North and Tom Delay, wines about a guy just trying to make a living. I see no incompetence or wrongdoing there, just a mistake in letting him go.

Leon Drolet is beyond incompetent, try criminal.

Man, talk about spin. I said a long time ago that there was no support for the recall of Andy Dillon. As I said before, they only raised $5 in Dillon’s district for the recall. It will be much less than just 50 votes. That’s just a preliminary count. They have not even taken up Dillon’s challenges. That includes the signatures where they hired homeless men to use the Redford phone book to forge signatures. You really don’t know much about elections and politics do you? Voters disfranchised? Please.
This was not the government involved, and the only incompetence was on Drolet’s part. But it pales in comparison to the criminality.

Anonymous said...

CG, did you graduate from elementary school, I doubt you went to High School.

You said "I’m still waiting for you to point out a lie. Oh, I forgot, you’re an idiot. Never mind. I said he is “a person who ONCE committed A crime and paid his debt to society.” That is correct."

Let me school you, "ONCE" and "A" are singular and in the english language mean "one time".

And you say you were a journalist ONCE.

You want people to point out when you lie, we do and you call us names and try to use liberal spin.

Anonymous said...

CG

If you really want to get your blood boiling read the following quotes:

http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html

Yeah is was only Bush who said these things.

For you to be intellectually honest (oh there is that word again) you must call on all your liberal friends to demand that all of the politicians which made the statements in the above link must and should step down because they lied.

Communications guru said...

That is correct. I am still waiting for you to point out a lie. I made a mistake on the number of apparent convictions, but it is irrelevant. He is a convicted felon who has paid his debt to society. I’m not familiar with his record, and frankly it’s irrelevant. He and the Michigan Democrats Party did nothing illegal. That’s not the case with the recall group. You still have not pointed out a lie. He is out for a reason, and if its once or 100 it makes zero difference.

Nice try of trying to divert attention away from the real point of the post.

Anonymous said...

The lie was you stating that he was convicted once not EIGHT times. One conviction even of a felony may be a huge mistake in judgement and I would give a man or women a pass on that. But EIGHT times CG you have to admit is someone who is probably not a stand up citizen and probably not someone either party should be hiring to scare or sorry I mean "inform" old people of whatever they want them to inform them of.

That is why it was a lie, you were trying to pass this person off as someone who he was not.

Now you can only say you did not lie if you did not know (but when writing something and you know there was a felony conviction you should probably find that out, it was in all the papers)then it was not a lie.

BUT then you must then know and say that President Bush did not lie when he said there was WMD's

Communications guru said...

It’s not a lie because I had no idea of his record, other than he was convicted of a crime and was released. How many is irrelevant. The only mistake in judgment is letting him go after people like you made the ridiculous and untrue charges of intimidation. The only wrongdoing that has taken place has been from the recall people.
I was not trying to pass anyone off as anything. There was no reason for me to find out more about this guy because it was completely irrelevant and still is. You cannot possibly be comparing this to the unnecessary Iraq fiasco. There was nothing that was going to convince Bush that WMD’s were not in Iraq, and any information to the contrary was thrown out and discarded.

Anonymous said...

CG,

You are saying you did not lie because you did not know he was an eight time (felonies) convicted criminal. I will take you at your word for that because you say you do not tell a lie or strech the truth.

All of the worlds intelligent agencies were saying Iraq had WMD's, he killed thousands of his own people with them, all the Dem's said he had WMD's (see link above) and our intelligent agencies informed Bush and the Congress including many Democrats (see link above) that they had WMD's.

SO Bush did not lie either.

That is what it has to do with it.

Also if the Republican party hired a goon like this (Convicted 8 times for armed robbery and gun charges) you would have been howling to the moon about how horrible the Republicans are.

Stop being dishonest about it and just admit it and move on.

Anonymous said...

I actually believe that you believe you are not lying. However, you do ignore the facts. It was reported on WDIV with sound and pictures that those working for Dillon were using intimidation tactics against those collecting signatures.

They were intimidating old ladies and homeowners. This was shown on the news.

Facts don't become speculation just because you don't want to believe that your precious criminals are doing it.

Brett
conservativelifestyle.blogspot.com

Communications guru said...

I will say it again, I didn’t know how many, don’t care how many and it doesn’t matter how many convictions. Again, nice try of directing the attention from the real illegal activity. You keep making these charges of “goons,” but none of it was true. There was no intimidation from the Democrats. I can promise you that if someone tried to intimidate me from signing a recall petition I would do everything in my power to sign it. It may not be that day or the next, but I would sign it. Intimidation does not work, and that’s why it was not used. I’m a little sick of being called a liar and of being dishonest when the best you can do is point out a mistake that I admitted. I stand by everything I have written. We have enough Republicans that are convicted felons, so you’re charges are ridiculous.

I’m not going to get in a debate over Iraq because in no way shape or form is it relevant to this discussion. More than 4,000 service members are dead and more or dying everyday because of the Bush lie.

The WMD’s he used on the Kurds were not WMD’s because he had no way of delivering it to the U.S. There was plenty of doubt about the necessity of the war and the presence of WMDs. You remember how they smeared Ambassador Joe Wilson after he debunked the yellow cake lie. The fact that he used 9/11 and still uses 9/11 to justify that unnecessary invasion and occupation speaks volume. Too many people trusted the president. That mistake will not happen again.

Anonymous said...

Well then CG if you feel that President Bush lied then sir

YOUR ARE A HUGE LIAR.

You did what Bush did.

You asked about when you lied and you did.

Anonymous said...

Joe Wilson are you kidding me. He is one of the biggest liar.

See the following;

Joe Wilson in a Bind
By Clinton W. Taylor
Published 10/31/2005 12:07:45 AM
Last week I had the privilege of being lied to personally by Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who spoke here at Stanford last Monday.

The fact that Joe Wilson is economical with the truth probably won't surprise many Spectator readers. Nonetheless I assure you the horse I am beating, although it may be lying in the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times, is far from dead.

But this week there's new evidence of his lies to flog him with. When the indictment of Scooter Libby was unsealed on Friday, it finally placed one of Wilson's oft-repeated fabrications beyond the most hopeful partisan's credibility.

First the lie: In the Q&A after his talk last Monday, Wilson answered a question of mine with essentially the same statement about the origin of his mission to Niger that he relates in his L.A. Times op-ed:



Valerie was an innocent in this whole affair. Although there were suggestions that she was behind the decision to send me to Niger, the CIA told Newsday just a week after the Novak article appeared that "she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment." The CIA repeated the same statement to every reporter thereafter.


The Newsday article he refers to notes:


A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.

But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be."


This has been Wilson's story ever since the issue came up: he maintains his wife had nothing to do the CIA's decision to send him. It's important to his narrative that "outing" his wife was a bolt from the blue designed to intimidate and punish him.

The more plausible explanation is that the information came out because it cast Wilson's mission and his credibility in a new light. Evidence supports this interpretation. While the CIA may back Wilson's account to reporters, it has now twice contradicted him when the chips were down and the threat of perjury loomed.

The first contradiction, of course, occurred back in July 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence devoted a few pages of its report on WMD intelligence failures to point out that Valerie Plame came up with the idea of sending her husband to Niger. Both a memorandum Plame wrote and the testimony of a CIA officer show that Wilson's trip was her idea. (The report can be downloaded here, and the relevant sections are on page 39, 40, and 72.)

That should have put an end to Joe Wilson's credibility, but it wasn't good enough for the diehard Wilson fans, like most of the audience at Stanford last week, or the editorial staff of the L.A. Times. But now the indictment of Scooter Libby has proved yet again that Wilson is full of it.

In order to claim that Libby had perjured himself and obstructed justice, the grand jury goes to great lengths to show how and when he had actually learned about the origin of Wilson's trip. To do so, they refer on page 4 of the indictment to a conversation between Libby and a "senior officer of the CIA" on June 11, 2003:


[Libby] was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip.


And again on page 12 of the indictment:


[Libby] was informed by a senior CIA officer that Wilson's wife was employed by the CIA and that the idea of sending him to Niger originated with her.


This puts Wilson's fan club in a bind: either Wilson is lying, or the indictment is. Which is it? If it's the latter, then perhaps Scooter Libby didn't know what the indictment said he knew, and the indictment ought to be thrown out or at least amended.

Alas, most of the world sees it's the former. Wilson's lie, of course, wouldn't excuse any crime Libby might have committed, but it ought to be enough to prevent Wilson from ever being taken seriously again.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8955

Communications guru said...

Sorry, you are wrong again. The only law breaking going on was by Drolet and company. If you want to talk about criminals, your side has more than its fair share of them, and they are your heroes. Just because Drolet calls the police and makes a stink doesn’t means it’s intimidation.

Communications guru said...

The American Spectator? The American Spectator? I almost fell out of my chair laughing at that one. There’s an unbiased source that only wants to get the truth out. There’s a good reason rightwing trust fund magnates like Richard Mellon Scaife pony up millions of dollars to fund it.

Ask the director of Media Matters about The American Spectator and Scaife. The Wilson smear goes on
The truth hurts doesn’t it? Bush lied us into an unnecessary war that did nothing but make the world unstable and the U.S. less safe.

Anonymous said...

The article states facts, something you know little about comrade.

I guess if it does not come from the Clinton News Network it means nothing to you.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, you try to debunk an article because it's written by a someone that is on the Conservative side?

You offer no sources as a way of proof to back up your assertions that the story is untrue in the American Spectator. Yet you attempt to discount it because it has a Conservative lean to it. I wonder, do you also discount stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS because they are liberal leaning media outlets?

I can't wait for this answer.

Brett

Communications guru said...

First, there’s not much to debunk, other than some guy’s opinion. The conviction stands by itself. You can’t possibly compare the American Spectator to the mainstream media? The corporate media is conservative. A few large corporations own most of the media outlets, and you’re telling me corporations are liberal? I don’t think so. The Spectator was created to get Bill Clinton, and only the Democratic target has changed. Now, nothing I can say is going to change your misguided belief in the Nixonasqe “liberal media” political strategy, but there is no way a same person can compare the spectator to the corporate media. There may be journalists who are liberals, but I can guarantee they are professional wanting to do the best job possible. I know that to be true because I was that way. You will never find anyone who will find any liberal bias in a news story I wrote in over 12 years.

Anonymous said...

Now what do you have to say for yourself and your party.

"Some of the signatures that the SOS believes are invalid may be the result of deliberate sabotage by paid operatives of Speaker Dillon and Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer. On May 23rd, a woman named Julianne Cuneo testified that Dillon's and Brewer's attorney paid her to infiltrate the recall campaign. Ms. Cuneo testified that she misrepresented herself to the petition drive organizer in order to trick the campaign into hiring her. Ms. Cuneo admitted under oath in court that she then participated in election fraud by knowing gathering signatures and having other people sign as the official circulator."

Now who should go to jail?

Communications guru said...

I say Drolet has made lots of claims and accusations. Not a single one has been true or correct.