Martin Pushed Bogus Claims After Knowing They Were False

Ed Martin's initial press conference "asking questions" about voter fraud pointed to a late surge of votes for Congressman Carnahan coming in on Tuesday night. Here's what he initially said:

Then just before midnight seven precincts within the city and county delivered an astonishing late night dump of votes. In such a hotly contested race and with so many voters concerned it only makes sense to make sure in fact every vote counts. Since Missouri’s Secretary of State is in fact Congressman Carnahan’s sister it is suggested she recuse herself from the investigation and appoint an independent investigator to look into these three main points of question.

In Ed Martin's concession announcement, he stated that he learned on Wednesday afternoon that there was nothing wrong with these numbers:

Since Wednesday afternoon we have learned that the votes were not from three to seven precincts in the City, but rather included unreported votes from the northwest precincts of St. Louis County encompassed by Missouri’s Third Congressional district. In light of this new information, the implausibility factor evaporates along with my concerns about voter fraud in that late surge. And, although I have concerns about other incidents and improper conduct on election day, I no longer believe these concerns are sufficient to continue our review of what has occurred or delay agreeing that this election is over.

Yet if Ed Martin knew on Wednesday afternoon that the "late surge" conspiracy was a non-issue, why did he continue to push the story? When Martin called in to Jamie Allman's show on Friday morning, he continued to raise his vague conspiracy theory about the late numbers.

Here's what Martin said:

Uh, well, you know we're still trying to figure out a little bit about what's going on, but uh, obviously we've had good cooperation from the city and st...county election board so...you know there was some late number numbers that came in, votes that came in, that gave people pause and there was some provisional balloting that looked a little odd. So we've got some more work to do to make sure that the election we went through on Tuesday was totally on the up and up. But we're getting to the bottom of it.

At no point in the interview does Martin indicate that he had already determined that the "late numbers" were perfectly legit. You can listen to the whole thing here (although it gets pretty boring after the initial quote):
Absolutely shameful that this guy continues using conspiracy theories to attack the Carnahans, even when he knows they're wrong.

Roy Blunt's Immigration Problem(s)

News sources are reporting that the Blunt campaign is defending itself from allegations that Blunt had hired an illegal worker and tried to use his office to help her get her citizenship. From Jo Mannies at the Beacon:

The Missouri Democratic Party released documents today that it says shows that Republican U.S. Senate nominee Roy Blunt attempted to use his post 20 years ago as Missouri secretary of state to aid a woman from Nicaragua who was seeking asylum in the United States.

In a 1990 letter on official state letterhead, Blunt wrote that the woman "has done some work for Roseann,'' his wife at the time. The letter was addressed to Gene McNary, then the head of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. McNary previously had been St. Louis County executive.

The state Democratic Party also released 1989 documents from the INS pertaining to the woman, Dora Navaez, that are stamped "employment not authorized." Attached to Blunt's letter to McNary was a lengthy letter from Navaez to Roseann Blunt, in which the woman lays out her immigration problems and her request for asylum.

Corey Platt, speaking for the state Democratic Party, said the documents show that Blunt "used government resources to reach out to Gene McNary'' and that he or his family had employed an illegal immigrant. Platt asserted that the incident showed Blunt's practice of "using his office'' to help friends and relatives. Blunt has been a congressman for 14 years from southwest Missouri.

I see three issues raised by this case:

First is the question of whether Blunt abused his office by reaching out to McNary. I'm not familiar enough with the case or with the general practices of politicians to evaluate this claim. Obviously, politicians help out constituents in dealing with government agencies quite often; in fact, many constituents get pissed if elected officials don't help them out with these issues. So I'd need to see more to be convinced that Roy Blunt did something beyond the pale on this issue (and yes I realize that Navaez, as someone who was not a citizen, is not technically a "constituent," but I think it's related to that general practice).

Second, there's the hypocrisy. Mannies writes the following:

The Kansas City Star reports that it got ahold of Navaez and that she said she had been the Blunts' housekeeper.

Given Roy Blunt's stance on immigration and that Navaez was not authorized to work in the U.S., it would be pretty amazing if he had hired her to do housework. This issue has the potential to be pretty damaging.

Finally, and in my mind most importantly, is the fact pointed out by Sean at FiredUp that the Blunt campaign's statements seem to contradict the statements of the woman and the original letter. Blunt's spokesman claims that, "the woman merely helped at some church events, and was never employed by the Blunts." However, the Kansas City Star wrote the following:

A woman who identified herself as Narvaez spoke briefly with The Star. She said she had worked as a housekeeper for the Blunts for several months in 1990."

Furthermore, the original letter from Blunt stated:

Dora Narvaez has done some work for Roseann [his wife]," and asks McNary to do anything he can "to provide information and an early resolution of this request."

So it strongly appears that Blunt is claiming, in contradiction with his own letter and with the comments of Navaez, that she never worked for him. This might get very interesting, espcially considering that Robin Carnahan has already been making a strong move in the polls and Roy Blunt has been running away from reporters.

Roy Blunt Runs Away From Reporters

This is pretty remarkable:



Robin Carnahan wins on both style and substance. She deserves to be our next Senator. Can we pull it off?

CNN's Lame Poll

I was really shocked last week when a poll came out from CNN/Time that showed Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan by 13 points. Naturally, all the state Republicans were proclaiming that the race was over (but even they clearly didn't believe it, since they continued attacking Carnahan). I've been wondering why this poll would be sooo much worse than any others I had seen (even the Republican-leaning Rasmussen). Well, I after discussing it with some friends, I finally looked at the internals of the poll, and I found a couple amazing gaps.

First of all, they listed N/A for "non-white" respondents:

They also listed N/A for the 18-34 age group:


In other words, the poll was completely missing two major demographics that would be far more likely to vote for Carnahan. And since from what I hear Robin kicked some serious butt in the debate today, this just might be an interesting race yet!

And while we're on the subject, put me in the Rachel Maddow camp of saying we should be talking about Roy Blunt's support from the foreign-funded, pro-outsourcing U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove's secretive Crossroads group all day long:

There's No Excuse For Not Being Involved In November's Elections!

On November 2nd, Missouri voters head to the polls for the most crucial election since the 2008 election that put Barack Obama in the White House. It's been a stressful two years, for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that the national Republican Party cynically decided, from the very beginning, that they would not cooperate with the Democrats on anything, even bills designed to put Americans to work or extend unemployment benefits to people who desperately needed help. Republicans bet on the fact that people vote against incumbents when they are unhappy, and they succeeded in doing everything they could to make people miserable. Billionaire right-wing extremists kick-started the tea party movement who introduced a nonstop display of screaming, pouting, foot-stomping, and offensive rhetoric into the political process, which further soured people on politics.

Though Republican obstruction was the primary reason for the difficulty of the past two years, obviously the Democrats deserve some criticism. So called "centrists" (more accurately referred to as Democrats In Name Only) significantly watered-down and outright blocked key legislation even when Democrats had a majority in the House and 60 seats in the Senate. Even mainstream Democrats were way too willing to cooperate with Republican attempts to stall, and as such allowed them to drag out the healthcare bill for almost a year. Democrats have caved to Republicans in cases where it seemed like they didn't need to, and have often failed to be as outspoken and blunt as progressives would like.

But even with these failings in the Democratic party, there are a number of reasons why we need to be involved in these races. First of all, we did pass key healthcare reform legislation that will reduce the deficit, expand health coverage to 32 million Americans, strengthen Medicare and Medicaid, and make health coverage more affordable for all of us. We passed a stimulus bill that saved up to 3.3 million jobs and strengthened investment in green jobs and infrastructure. We passed financial reform legislation. We withdrew troops from Iraq and took a more sane approach to foreign policy, in spite of neoconservatives screaming for us to bomb Iran.

And even if you don't think that these accomplishments are motivating enough for you to feel like you should reward the Democrats with your effort, consider that rewards and punishments are not limited to the Democratic Party. If Republicans take back the House of Representatives and/or the Senate, we effectively will have sent the message to them that the most cynical, dishonest, unethical type of politics is completely effective, and we will be encouraging them to continue doing it in the future. If keeping people miserable from '08 to '10 works to kick Dems out of Congress, why wouldn't it work to kick Obama out of the White House in 2012? Not working for Democrats is the same as rewarding Republicans.

One of the most obvious races where this applies is the Robin Carnahan vs. Roy Blunt Senate contest. Carnahan has ticked off progressives by moving to the right on a number of issues. And not just moving to the right, but moving on issues that seem to go against her own narrative against Blunt, like supporting tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Be that as it may, there is no quetion that a Senate with Robin Carnahan is far, far better than one with Roy Blunt. Carnahan cares about the environment, cares about union workers, and genuinely cares about the people of Missouri. Blunt, on the other hand, really is the "Worst of Washington." He's been in D.C. for 14 years, was connected with the convicted criminal Jack Abramoff, and was in the leadership of the Republican Party during the years marked by corruption, the turning of a national surplus into a huge deficit, and a needless war. Do we really want to reward Blunt for his behavior with a seat in the Senate? I don't. You can sign up for Robin Carnahan's campaign here.

If Robin is still too moderate for you, consider that Republicans are poised to win back the House of Representatives, which would unfortunately result in the loss of Nancy Pelosi as our house leader (and she is one of the few Democrats who really has stood tough during the last two years). Ed Martin, a dirty campaigner and a dirty public servant, is running a loud, if not effective, race against Congressman Russ Carnahan. Some people don't like Congressman Carnahan's calm demeanor, but he is a leader on environmental issues and on public transportation, whereas Ed Martin is a global warming denier who has a vested interest in big oil due to his wife's $100,000+ in Exxon stock. Sign up to help at Congressman Carnahan's website here.

Lacy Clay probably has a cake walk, but if you don't believe me you can check out his website here.

The excuse that you're tired of political dynasties and D.C. insiders also does not work. Tommy Sowers is running a spirited grass-roots campaign against Jo Emerson. He's in a tough district, but it'd be hard to find a better candidate. Click here to help him out.

And finally, for the most pure, most idealistic Democrats in existence, the amazing Arhur Lieber is running a progressive campaign against Todd Akin that is so pure that he won't even accept donations because he's disappointed in how money has corrupted our political process! If you are a progressive, Lieber is the real deal for you. Why not help out his campaign to send a message you can be proud of?

Oh, and for those only motivated by spite, please donate a few dollars to Congressman Phil Hare's campaign so that the dishonest tactics of the St. Louis tea party don't flip a congressional seat. Could you really live with yourself knowing that the House of Representatives fell into Republican hands because of a successful lie by the St. Louis tea party that went unchallenged?

If you're not into national races, there are a number of important local races as well. Democrat Charlie Dooley is competing hard against Republican Bill Corrigan to keep his County Executive Seat. The tea party smeared Dooley and vowed to defeat him for supporting public transportation. Help prove them wrong here.

There are also a number of important races for the Missouri Legislature. Barbara Fraser is a progressive running to follow in the footsteps of the amazing Senator Joan Bray. It is incredibly important for progressives to have a strong voice in the Senate, and Fraser can provide that. Help her election campaign by clicking here.

A great candidate for State Representative is Debra Lavender. She's a true blue Democrat and is running against Rick Stream, who is waaay too extreme for his district. Get involved here.

Another excellent progressive candidate for Missouri House of Representatives is Genise Monticello. Support her campaign by going here.

If you're not that into supporting candidates, consider the following. A billionaire is trying to use the statewide ballot process to gut the budgets of St. Louis and Kansas City by eliminating the earnings tax. This would cut key city services like public safety, and would shift the tax burden to the people who can least afford it. Do you really want one man with a lot of money to be able to push around our city? If not, please get involved with Say No To A.

And finally, if you've made it this far and still don't care about getting involved in the elections, don't get cocky yet. Because there is a proposition on the ballot that would help to end cruelty against dogs if it passes. Yes, dogs. Could you really, possibly, scandalously, be so cold-hearted as to sit out the political process even when there's an opportunity to help puppies from being harmed? If you are, I'm not sure why you're reading this blog. If you're not, you can help out by going to the Yes On Prop B site.

I submit that if you are a genuinely progressive person, an activist, or someone who cares at all about making the world better, you have no excuse not to start doing something to affect the November elections. Whatever issue you care about, there is somebody or some ballot that will be voted on in November that makes a difference to that issue. You might have an out if you are already working on some other form of activism that you think is a better use of time than these elections, but for everyone else there's no excuse* to not get involved.

....

*Obviously excluding extreme situations or demands in one's personal life. But TV doesn't count!

Wow! Roy Blunt Does the Old "Fake Phone Call" Evasion Technique!

Think Progress reported a bombshell yesterday that the "U.S." Chamber of Commerce is paying for attack advertisements out the same account that takes donations from foreign companies, likely in violation of campaign finance law.

When Roy Blunt was asked about this, he took out his phone and acted like he was busy:



The Chamber has reportedly spend $324,640 attacking Blunt's opponent Robin Carnahan so far. No wonder Blunt doesn't want to talk about it

h/t FiredUp Missouri.

Post-Dispatch Column Shows Ed Martin Is Lying About the Wind Farm

Ed Martin continues to try to make hay out of the stimulus money awarded to Russ Carnahan's brother Tom. Martin has claimed, falsely, on multiple occasions, that Carnahan "funneled" the money to his brother. On September 22, Martin said:

We have families struggling to make ends meet and a representative who instead of helping them is funneling money to his family,

And, on September 23, in a post based on another blatent verifiable falsehood, Martin said this:

This news comes on the heels of the discovery that Congressman Carnahan’s brother was recently funneled more than $107 Million in stimulus funding for a wind farm.

However, a recent column by Post-Dispatch reporter Bill Lambrecht completely disproved these claims by Martin.

In order for Ed Martin's claims to be true, Russ Carnahan would have had to have some influence over the process of awarding the funds. However, as is clearly reported in the article, neither Russ Carnahan nor Robin Carnahan had any roll in deciding how the funds were used:

Russ Carnahan was among 244 House Democrats who voted for the legislation. But officials from the Energy and Treasury departments, who jointly administer the program, said that neither Russ nor Robin Carnahan played a role in the awards.

But hold on because it actually gets better. Not only did Russ Carnahan not play a role in the awarding of the funds, he couldn't possibly have played a role, because the funding was awarded automatically to projects that met the basic criteria:

The upfront payments to Lost Creek, a $300-million-plus project, and various other projects aren't awarded competitively but on the basis of meeting various criteria. For instance, companies were required to submit accredited designs and start building by the end of this year. Energy Department officials described the process as automatic; the Treasury Department is required to issue the payments to those who qualify within 60 days of application.

"Treasury has no discretionary authority in this," said Treasury spokeswoman Sandra Salstrom.

In other words, any projects that met certain criteria were funded, including another $85 million dollar project in Missouri last year and a $170 million dollar project in Illinois.

So not only was there no influence from Russ or Robin, there was no possible role influence could play! Martin's claims of "funneling" were completely fabricated. Tom Carnahan says as much in the article:

In an interview, Carnahan, 41, the youngest son of former Gov. Mel Carnahan and former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan, said he is untroubled by criticism of the payment. He said that neither his family's political clout nor any lobbying could have played a role in the process.

"Not only was there not any contact or anything like that, it was not necessary," he said, referring to the eligibility requirements.

Tom Carnahan also said that his company has invested a lot of money in rural Missouri:

Carnahan asserted that his 5-year-old company has been responsible for $600 million investments in Missouri "that have made gigantic contributions to the economy in rural Missouri. I'm very proud of that. We need to be doing more to support renewable energy, not less."

And lest you think that this tax credit was the result of some sneaky language put in by Russ to help out his brother, the article reports that the payments were actually composed of two tax credits: one that has been around since the 70s and one that was first approved in 1992. Prior to the stimulus, the credits were reauthorized in 2008, and even Roy Blunt voted for them:

In fact, Robin Carnahan's opponent in the Senate race, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, was a key backer of the financial bailout bill in 2008, one of several measures that reauthorized the tax credit.

Finally, Martin and tea partiers have been complaining that the award was in the form of cash rather than tax credits, and this was also explained in the article:

Critics of the Lost Creek funding have seized on the design of the payment. Rather than giving the credits after companies file tax returns, the stimulus legislation provides for upfront payments equivalent to 30 percent of the cost of the project. It was done that way, the Treasury Department has said, so "the near term goal of creating and retaining jobs is achieved, as well as the long-term benefit of expanding the use of clean and renewable energy."

So given that Ed Martin has been repeatedly making accusations about undue influence in a process that Carnahan could not possibly have influenced, what exactly is Martin's explanation for his repeated acusations of corruption?

"I'm not saying there's anything illegal; it may not be corruption with a capital 'C' with people taking bribes. But it doesn't smell right," said Martin, who raised the issue while debating Russ Carnahan over the weekend.

It doesn't smell right. That's Ed Martin's pathetic explanation for months of smears about a process that Carnahan couldn't influence. You know what really doesn't smell right? When an arrogant GOP insider who was fired from Chief of Staff for smearing an idealistic conservative whistleblower continuously fabricates lies and distortions against someone who is actually an honest politician.

Another Tea Party Conspiracy Theory Comes Crashing Down

Remember how the St. Louis Tea Party kept saying that President Obama and Senate candidate Robin Carnahan wouldn't appear in public together because Obama was too politically toxic, or because Carnahan was too politically toxic, or something? Well, we can put that one to bed, because the Beacon reports that Obama will be visiting Kansas City in a couple weeks to headline a fundraiser for Carnahan.

Meanwhile, good ol' Turd Blossom is coming to St. Charles to stump for Republican Congressman Roy Blunt.