Octopus Overlords

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:12 pm Duncan Hunter's wife flipped:

Now, Hunter’s plea agreement does not specifically mention the rabbit. Technically, on paper, he admitted to only two of the alleged overt acts: spending $511 in campaign funds for a “family celebration” in 2011 (#43), and $409 for “a social outing with several of his closest friends” in 2016 (#191). So is it accurate to say that he “pleaded guilty to” the other 198 alleged overt acts? Which, by the way, included but were not limited to:

[Pared list - Isg]

• $351 to rent a car for a “personal ski trip with Individual 14” (#2);
• $162 for a night at the Liaison Hotel with Individual 14 (#33);
• $36 for Uber rides to the residence of Individual 15 (#83);
• $203 for dinner with a group including Individual 16 (#124);

As for why Hunter changed his position now after denying guilt for so long, the Washington Post notes that his “legal situation” had “become more precarious in recent months.” That’s because wife and co-conspirator Margaret pleaded guilty in June, agreeing as part of the deal to testify against Duncan. Why’d she do that? Well, guilt is one explanation. But her decision was probably made much easier by learning about Individuals 14, 15, and 16 (see above), as well as Individuals 17 and 18, also mentioned in the indictment. Because all of those individuals were female, and none of them were Margaret Hunter.

When asked Wednesday about whether and when he intended to resign, Hunter blew off the question. “Good talk,” Hunter told a POLITICO reporter.

So far, neither Republican nor Democratic leaders have pressured Hunter to leave office, although there is precedent for expelling members who don’t step down following a criminal conviction. Hunter is not scheduled to be sentenced until March 17.

“Our patience is not unlimited,” a top Democratic leadership aide warned.

California Rep. Duncan Hunter has called it quits. Hunter pled to a conspiracy count as part of a plea bargain in a criminal campaign finance case against him on Tuesday. Then on Thursday the embattled representative was stripped of his congressional voting privileges by the House Ethics Committee; he resigned later that same day.

Announcing his resignation, the congressman released a statement, which read, “Shortly after the Holidays I will resign from Congress. It has been an honor to serve the people of California’s 50th District, and I greatly appreciate the trust they have put in me over these last 11 years.”
...
According to 10News in San Diego, the governor of California will call for a special election to fill the congressman’s vacated seat when an exact date of resignation is official.

Chris Taylor, a Safford city councilman who is running for Congress, overdosed on heroin last week and since has suspended his campaign.

The Wednesday incident was a relapse for Taylor, a combat veteran who has battled opioid addiction since high school.

In a written statement, Taylor said he was seeking treatment and not backing away from what happened.

"Today, I have suspended my campaign for the US House of Representatives and am seeking treatment for substance abuse disorder. I will fully cooperate with local authorities on any matters arising from my recent relapse and overdose," Taylor said in a statement to The Arizona Republic on Monday.

"I’m not going to hide from this. I’m not ashamed of what happened. I wish to sincerely apologize to the amazing people who have supported me. I don’t know what went wrong. I recently relapsed after having so many solid years in sobriety. I have to figure out where I went wrong."

found that $94 million in total could either not be accounted for or had been spent on questionable purposes, more than 90 percent of what the state has received over the last three years.

The report is part of the largest investigation into misuse of welfare funds in state history and has already resulted in the arrest of the Mississippi Department of Human Services' former head, John Davis, in February.

The money came as part of the federally funded Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which provided state officials $98 million over the last three years to be distributed at officials' discretion to state programs and nonprofit groups supposed to help Mississippi's poor. Nearly all of that money was misused, according to the audit.

Four others were also arrested: former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, Householder adviser Jeffrey Longstreth, and lobbyists Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes.

The charges are linked to a controversial law passed last year that bailed out two nuclear power plants in the state while gutting subsidies for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The federal complaint describes a years-long bribery campaign to build support for Householder's bid to become House Speaker and then pass the nuclear bailout law with his help. Householder won the Speakership in January 2019, and the bailout passed in July 2019. It went into effect in October.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:19 pm https://www.npr.org/2020/07/21/89349322 ... ery-scheme

FBI agents arrested Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder on Tuesday morning at his rural farm. Householder was taken into custody in connection with a $60 million bribery scheme allegedly involving state officials and associates.

That's gotta hurt.

malchior wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:58 am I agree. However, if past informs us here is how the news clip will go in 2-3 years. Narrator: Today the SCOTUS found that donations from First Energy to former Ohio House Speaker Householder's PAC donations were legitimate political speech and overturned his conviction on...

Scraper wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 9:01 am

malchior wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:58 am I agree. However, if past informs us here is how the news clip will go in 2-3 years. Narrator: Today the SCOTUS found that donations from First Energy to former Ohio House Speaker Householder's PAC donations were legitimate political speech and overturned his conviction on...

The papers are already digging in. Apparently he spent some of the money on a house in Florida. He owed back taxes (surprise) and the house was in disrepair, so he spent a bunch of the money just to keep himself out of legal trouble in Florida.

A political consultant for former Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) has been indicted on election fraud charges.

According to an online court record, former Taylor consultant Rob Catron committed the offense in May 2018, the same year that Taylor’s campaign was engaged in a petition signature forgery scheme — an effort to split the Democratic vote by getting the 2016 Democratic nominee for the same office on the ballot as a third-party candidate. A judge ultimately ruled that the third-party candidate, Shaun Brown, be removed from the ballot.

After the signature forgery scheme was uncovered, Rep. Elaine Luria (D) went on to defeat Taylor in 2018, and again in 2020.

It’s not clear what precisely Catron is accused of doing; the online court record merely references 24.2-1016, the law governing “willfully false” material statements made on election forms, categorized as election fraud.

BREAKING: Republican strategist and campaign manager Anton Lazzaro has just been arrested on underage sex trafficking charges.

Lazzaro is the latest on a long list of GOP political operatives, donors, and candidates who have been charged with trafficking and/or raping minors.

Smith and Casada allegedly received kickbacks from Cothren in exchange for using their official positions to pressure the House Speaker's Office to approve Phoenix Solutions as an official vendor and disburse state funds to the firm, according to court records.

A central Indiana man accused of murdering his wife and dumping her body in a creek in March has won a Republican primary election for township board in the state – from jail.

A signature forgery scandal has turned the race for the GOP nomination to be Michigan’s next governor on its head: Two leading Republican candidates did not collect enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot after invalid signatures were excluded, according to a report from the state’s Bureau of Elections.

The Bureau of Elections reports will now go to the Board of State Canvassers, which will vote Thursday on which candidates qualify to appear on the ballot for the state’s Aug. 2 primaries.

Thirty-six petition circulators — campaign workers hired to collect signatures — “submitted fraudulent petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures,” according to the Bureau. In all, according to the Bureau’s report Monday, these circulators submitted at least 68,000 invalid signatures across nominating petitions for 10 candidates.

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 12:14 am

A signature forgery scandal has turned the race for the GOP nomination to be Michigan’s next governor on its head: Two leading Republican candidates did not collect enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot after invalid signatures were excluded, according to a report from the state’s Bureau of Elections.

The Bureau of Elections reports will now go to the Board of State Canvassers, which will vote Thursday on which candidates qualify to appear on the ballot for the state’s Aug. 2 primaries.

Thirty-six petition circulators — campaign workers hired to collect signatures — “submitted fraudulent petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures,” according to the Bureau. In all, according to the Bureau’s report Monday, these circulators submitted at least 68,000 invalid signatures across nominating petitions for 10 candidates.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/mich ... signatures

LordMortis wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 2:19 pm

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 12:14 am

A signature forgery scandal has turned the race for the GOP nomination to be Michigan’s next governor on its head: Two leading Republican candidates did not collect enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot after invalid signatures were excluded, according to a report from the state’s Bureau of Elections.

The Bureau of Elections reports will now go to the Board of State Canvassers, which will vote Thursday on which candidates qualify to appear on the ballot for the state’s Aug. 2 primaries.

Thirty-six petition circulators — campaign workers hired to collect signatures — “submitted fraudulent petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures,” according to the Bureau. In all, according to the Bureau’s report Monday, these circulators submitted at least 68,000 invalid signatures across nominating petitions for 10 candidates.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/mich ... signatures

Wait the Michigan GOP is doing what accuse Michigan democrats of doing but are largely electing candidates willing to invalidate democratic votes with no proof up to in including the GOP institutional level? Say it ain't so.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.

The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed the matter had been forwarded to an interagency group for investigation, reported the New York Times.

...

The allegations against Boebert were first reported in February 2021, claiming that Boebert had cashed two checks from her campaign totaling $22,259 for mileage reimbursement, but that figure worked out to 38,712 miles -- which is significantly further than the planet's 24,901-mile circumference.

...

“This is not an attack on Lauren Boebert,” Wheeler said. “Had Rep. Boebert paid her restaurant staff properly and also paid the unemployment premiums to the State of Colorado, an investigation never would have been necessary.”

Boebert's campaign later amended the mileage reimbursement to include travel expenses and hotel rooms, but the new filing still shows $17,280 in mileage reimbursements.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 6:37 pm First Cawthorn and now Boebert? Could there be a pattern:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is under investigation for possible fraud.

The first-term Colorado Republican allegedly inflated her mileage totals in 2020 and then used more than $20,000 in campaign reimbursements to pay off years worth of tax liens on her restaurant, and state officials confirmed the matter had been forwarded to an interagency group for investigation, reported the New York Times.

...

The allegations against Boebert were first reported in February 2021, claiming that Boebert had cashed two checks from her campaign totaling $22,259 for mileage reimbursement, but that figure worked out to 38,712 miles -- which is significantly further than the planet's 24,901-mile circumference.

...

“This is not an attack on Lauren Boebert,” Wheeler said. “Had Rep. Boebert paid her restaurant staff properly and also paid the unemployment premiums to the State of Colorado, an investigation never would have been necessary.”

Boebert's campaign later amended the mileage reimbursement to include travel expenses and hotel rooms, but the new filing still shows $17,280 in mileage reimbursements.

A federal watchdog is accusing the Architect of the Capitol, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, of ethics violations over an offer to provide tours to “patriots” weeks before the November 2020 election.

“The OIG identified a significant amount of administrative, ethical and policy violations as well as evidence of criminal violations throughout the investigation,” the report said. “Blanton’s actions have violated every pillar the OIG operates under including theft, fraud, waste and abuse against not only the AOC but also the taxpayer,” the report continued, referring to the acronym for the Architect of the Capitol.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 2:55 pm Yeah, about what you expect...

A federal watchdog is accusing the Architect of the Capitol, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, of ethics violations over an offer to provide tours to “patriots” weeks before the November 2020 election.

“The OIG identified a significant amount of administrative, ethical and policy violations as well as evidence of criminal violations throughout the investigation,” the report said. “Blanton’s actions have violated every pillar the OIG operates under including theft, fraud, waste and abuse against not only the AOC but also the taxpayer,” the report continued, referring to the acronym for the Architect of the Capitol.

A state House candidate in South Dakota was arrested on a rape charge just days after he lost his race against the incumbent — his mother.

Bud Marty May, 37, was arrested in Box Elder around 4 a.m. Sunday and charged with second-degree rape, court filings said. The criminal complaint alleges May used "force, coercion, or threats of immediate and great bodily injury" against the victim.