Talk Straight

AFL-CIO Canvasser Booked On 23 Felony Counts Related To Voter Fraud…

AFL-CIO involved in criminal activities?  No!!!!

From Media Trackers:

A former Ohio University student paid to canvass for Voters First Ohio petition signatures was arrested August 14 by the Cincinnati Police Department. Timothy Noel Zureick was booked on 22 counts of signing false signatures and one count of election falsification, both fifth-degree felonies.

As reported by the Athens News, Zureick, age 21, was arrested for crimes allegedly committed while working in Athens for Working America, a campaign arm of the AFL-CIO in Washington, DC. Zureick’s August 14 arrest is the first known prosecution to stem from the numerous allegations of fraud during the union-driven Voters First campaign.

According to authorities, on or around June 12 Zureick forged the signatures of a number of prominent Athens County Democratic Party figures. Athens County Board of Elections employees who had not signed Voters First petitions alerted the county prosecutor’s office after finding their signatures on petitions Zureick submitted.

The White Collar Crimes unit of the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office investigated the case and found that Zureick was living in Cincinnati. Zureick, who has two addresses in Cincinnati, was located by authorities at his father’s residence thanks to assistance from a neighbor.

Zureick reportedly attempted to hide from the officers serving a warrant for his arrest.

But yet, showing ID at voting locations is evil and racist.

Top Official From Obama-Backed Group Jumps Bail, Disappears…or Ol’ B-Rock Backs Another Winner

Rather than face his newly revealed checkered past, a top official from the Obama-backed black chamber of commerce has apparently fled town.

Brandon Trainer, formerly the treasurer for the U.S. Black Chamber, Inc. – the Obama-backed rival upstart to Harry Alford’s National Black Chamber of Commerce – failed to appear in court Wednesday morning and cannot be found by colleagues in Raleigh, North Carolina, according to Kim Burke, a leader of the regional black chamber of commerce there.

A private investigator hired to track down Trainer found the furniture in his house had already been removed, Burke said. Trainer faces criminal charges in Missouri for allegedly defrauding a Hurricane Katrina victim out of $1,500. He also lied about graduating from Harvard, which he never even attended as an undergraduate.

Burke said the regional black chamber is scrambling to pick up the pieces left in Trainer’s wake. “Right now everyone is getting hit by the shock and awe of it,” she said. “We still don’t know where the money is.”

More here

Where are all the ‘climate refugees?’…or how to make 50 million people ‘disappear’

A column in Asian Correspondent.com begins, “In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010.” Um, unfortunately for the Gore-ons, many of the places that were supposed to be emptied out by now — due to rising ocean levels, advancing desert sand dunes, windblown plastic grocery bags etc. — are actually some of the fastest growing on earth.

…The UNEP is dishonestly covering-up its hysterical an d utterly wrong prediction. Gavin Atkins of Asian Correspondent catches them red-handed:

The United Nations Environment Programme has tried to erase one of its glaring failed predictions about climate refugees by removing a a map from its website purporting to show where 50 million climate refugees will come from by 2010.
After Asian Correspondent reviewed its findings earlier this week, the story has been linked to by websites around the world such as Investor News, American Spectator and was referred to in yesterday’s Australian newspaper and even got a mention on Fox News.
However, the website which is maintained by GRID-Arendal, an official United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) collaborating centre, has now deleted the map.
What’s more, the error message dishonestly claims:
Dear visitor, it seems like the map you are navigating by is maybe not fully up-to-date, or that it might have an error in it, or is it that your GPS is not loaded with the correct data?
However, if you are quick, you may yet be able to download a copy via google cache here.

Such actions clearly identify the warmist scheme as fraud, not science. Honest scientists review the failed predictions their theories generated and then change their theories. Fraudsters delete evidence of their mistaken predictions and pretend they never happened.
More here

ACORN Pleads Guilty-Gets Slap On The Wrist…or it’s awesome to be BFFs with the President

In Nevada last week, one ACORN employee told authorities that the organization paid “lazy crack heads” and convicted felons to register voters in the 2008 elections. In fact, owing to this corrupt and criminal process, nearly the entire Dallas Cowboys football team registered to vote in Nevada that year. (A warrant to search ACORN’s facilities tells the full story.)

And what is the price ACORN will be forced to pay for violating our nation’s election laws so egregiously? Not more than $5,000. And no jail time for any ACORN leaders.

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Climate change study had ‘significant error’: experts…or Honey, it’s cold outside

A climate change study that projected a 2.4 degree Celsius increase in temperature and massive worldwide food shortages in the next decade was seriously flawed, scientists said Wednesday.

The study was posted on the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was written about by numerous international news agencies, including AFP.

But AAAS later retracted the study as experts cited numerous errors in its approach.

“A reporter with The Guardian alerted us yesterday to concerns about the news release submitted by Hoffman & Hoffman public relations,” said AAAS spokeswoman Ginger Pinholster in an email to AFP.

“We immediately contacted a climate change expert, who confirmed that the information raised many questions in his mind, too. We swiftly removed the news release from our Web site and contacted the submitting organization.”

Scientist Osvaldo Canziani, who was part of the 2007 Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was listed as the scientific advisor to the report.

The IPCC, whose figures were cited as the basis for the study’s projections, and Al Gore jointly won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007 “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change,” the prize committee said at the time.

Canziani’s spokesman said Tuesday he was ill and was unavailable for interviews.

The study cited the UN group’s figures for its projections, combined with “the business-as-usual path the world is currently following,” said lead author Liliana Hisas of the Universal Ecological Fund (UEF), a non-profit group headquartered in Argentina.

But climate scientist Rey Weymann told AFP that the “study contains a significant error in that it confuses ‘equilibrium’ temperature rise with ‘transient temperature rise.’”

He also noted that study author Hisas was told of the problems in advance of the report’s release.

“The author of the study was told by several of us about this error but she said it was too late to change it,” said Weymann.

More here

Pigford II Settlement Partially Funded By Cuts To Child Nutrition Programs…or so what? Kids are fatty fatsos anyway. Right, Mrs O?

Congress is rushing through its lame duck session to finally appropriate funds to pay out claims from the Pigford II settlement. The settlement is meant to clear up claims from black farmers who claim discrimination from USDA and also missed out on the first settlement.

The legislation sets aside $1.5 billion to pay these claims. The legislation also makes cuts in other federal programs to “pay for” the new spending. Among the cuts are $500 million for nutrition programs for women, infants and children.

From the Senate language:

Subtitle E–Rescission of Funds From WIC Program

SEC. 841. RESCISSION OF FUNDS FROM WIC PROGRAM.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, of the amounts made available in appropriations Acts to provide grants to States under the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children established by section 17 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1786), $562,000,000 is rescinded.

Well.

 The left likes to couch everything they do as for “the children” and the disadvantaged. Okay, so, why cut funds from child nutrition to pay a second round of claims for a lawsuit surrounded by allegations of fraud?

It is simple, really. The left is really about pay-offs to interest groups. If a child nutrition program loses funds, well, that’s the price to pay to move money around to a more favored group.

Via Big Government

Republicans Oppose Pigford II Settlement To Black Farmers Due To Fraud…or I saw a show about farming once so pay me.

Despite numerous allegations of fraud, the Senate approved legislation by a voice vote Friday to fund $1.15 billion worth of settlements to black farmers who claim the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against them.

The legislation now makes its way to the House, where Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Steve King of Iowa, and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia have made it clear that they will be pushing hard to prevent its passage and will be calling for investigations into every claim prior to allowing any payoffs.

Much of the cause for concern is the fact that there have been vastly more claims of discrimination than there are even black farmers in America. Sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by the president of the National Black Farmers Association, John Boyd, put the number of black farmers in America at 18,000.

To date, more than 94,000 individuals have filed discrimination claims.

More here

Congressman‘s Claim of ’Toxic Substance‘ in ’Domestic Terrorism’ Attack — Proved Wrong…or but I’m a Congressman, you’re supposed to just believe what I say

In a little-reported story Thursday, a Tuscon-area office of Congressman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., claimed to have received a suspicious piece of mail, subsequently closing down his Tuscon and Yuma offices and sparking the involvement of local police, the bomb squad and the FBI. Fortunately, Rep. Grijalva was reportedly not at the office at the time the package arrived. According to news accounts, the envelope arrived with swastikas drawn all over the outside and a white powdery substance on the inside.

Ironically, Grijalva — a co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus and four-term incumbent Democrat currently locked in a tight “toss up” battle to retain his House seat — appeared on a national news talk show earlier this week complaining about racist tactics being used in politics. Just days later, it seemed Grijalva himself had been a target of this negative rhetoric.

Adam Sarvana, Grijalva’s spokesman, told the local press Thursday that staffers were undergoing preliminary health checks and Grijalva himself declared the envelope of white powder “toxic.” Despite the FBI having yet to identify the substance, MSNBC.com reprinted Grijalva’s claim,reporting:

White powder delivered in an swastika-covered envelope to the Tucson, Ariz., office of Rep. Raul Grijalva is a toxic substance, the Democratic congressman said the FBI told him Thursday afternoon.

This seemingly racist threat also caught the eye of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann who interrupted his regular prime-time programming to feature Grijalva.

Olbermann repeats the assumption that the substance was “confirmed toxic,” and Grijalva himself says the piece of mail put constituents and his staff in danger….

Olbermann asked Grijalva to confirm details of the case and the congressman confirms the presence of swastikas and that “this is a pattern.”  Olbermann then claimed Politico reported the substance as “toxic,” although Politico’s source on that theory appears to have been the congressman himself.  Grijalva responded that it has been confirmed as “toxic,” but it’s “level of toxicity” had yet to be determined….

Also weighing in on the issue Thursday was Pima County Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Rogers who said he was disappointed in the level of discourse in politics, blaming the Grijalva office incident on the tea party and right-wing Republicans….

On Friday, the FBI confirmed that the powdery substance was indeed not toxic and Politico quickly corrected the record, pointing out that this information contradicted Grijalva’s assertions.

The day before the toxic envelope arrived at Grijalva’s Tuscon office, the Yuma Sun reported that two organizations — SEIU’s Mi Familia Vota and One Vote Arizona — had delivered 3,000 new voter registrations to the Yuma County Recorder‘s Office in Grijalva’s district.

On the same day the envelope arrived at Grijalva’s office, the County Recorder’s Office found more than 65 percent of these ballot registrations to be fraudulent, either belonging to individuals living in the country illegally or addressed incorrectly.  However the only story out of Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District to receive national media attention Friday was the mysterious envelope — coincidence?

Full story here

In Obama’s Chicago, stimulus weatherization money buys shoddy work, widespread fraud…or what? It’s only taxpayer money, not mine

Projects to weatherize homes are a key part of the Obama administration’s fusion of stimulus spending and the green agenda. But a new report by the Department of Energy has found serious problems in stimulus-funded weatherization work — problems so severe that they have resulted in homes that are not only not more energy efficient but are actually dangerous for people to live in.

The study, by the Department’s inspector general, examined the work of what’s called the Weatherization Assistance Program, or WAP, in Illinois. Last year, the Department awarded Illinois $242 million, which was expected to pay for the weatherization of 27,000 homes. Specifically, Energy Department inspectors took a close look at the troubled operations of the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, known as CEDA, which is the largest recipient of weatherization money in Illinois with $91 million to weatherize 12,500 homes.  (Cook County is, of course, home to Chicago.)

The findings are grim. “Our testing revealed substandard performance in weatherization workmanship, initial assessments, and contractor billing,” the inspector general report says. “These problems were of such significance that they put the integrity of the entire program at risk.”

Department inspectors visited 15 homes that were being weatherized by CEDA and paid for by stimulus funds. “We found that 14 of the 15 homes…failed final inspection because of poor workmanship and/or inadequate initial assessments,” the report says. In eight of the homes, CEDA had come up with unworkable and ineffective plans — like putting attic insulation in a house with a leaky roof. In ten of the homes, “contractors billed for labor charges that had not been incurred and for materials that had not been installed.” The report calls billing problems “pervasive,” with seven of ten contractors being cited for erroneous invoicing. And the department found “a 62 percent final inspection error rate” when CEDA inspectors reviewed their own work.

The work was not just wasteful; it was dangerous. Department inspectors found “heat barriers around chimneys that had not been installed, causing fire hazards.” They found “a furnace [that] had not been vented properly.” The found “a shut-off valve that had not been installed on a gas stove.” And they found “carbon monoxide detectors, smoke alarms and fire extinguishers had not been installed as planned.”

And then there was fraud. At ten of the 15 homes visited, Department inspectors found examples in which “a contractor had installed a 125,000 BTU boiler, but had billed CEDA for a 200,000 BTU boiler costing an estimated $1,000. more.” Another contractor “billed for almost four times the amount of drywall actually installed.” And another “installed 12 light bulbs but had billed CEDA for 20.” (The Department found that CEDA paid almost three times the retail price for each light bulb.) “Billing issues appeared to be pervasive,” the report concludes.

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Billion Dollar Black Farmer Settlement a Massive Fraud…or it’s only taxpayer money. Give it to everybody.

House Republicans on Wednesday charged that a multibillion-dollar settlement with black farmers supported by the Obama administration was rife with fraud.

 At a press conference in the Capitol Visitor Center, Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Steve King (R-Iowa) alleged that a $1.25 billion Agriculture Department (USDA) settlement to resolve discrimination claims included individuals who were never farmers.

Bachmann said the discrimination claim process was subject to “massive and widespread fraud and abuse.” King also said he believes the Obama administration has ignored the fraud allegations surrounding the settlement.

“I think they have turned a blind eye to the fraud and corruption here,” King said.

The lawmakers shared a list with reporters of three unnamed “whistleblowers” — one black farmer and two USDA employees — who would be willing to testify before a congressional hearing regarding the settlement process. They said their testimony would detail allegations of fraud and corruption in the settlement. 

The GOP lawmakers called on Attorney General Eric Holder to start an investigation into the settlement’s claimants to ensure that they are genuine. In addition, they asked congressional leaders not to sign off on new appropriations for the settlement.

More here