How The Left Works

Posted in 2008 Election on October 25th, 2008

This is how the Left and the Obama campaign and its surrogates and shills work. In the quest for the Presidency they seem to be willing to use any and all means – legal, quasi-legal, or outright criminal – to achieve their aims.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about “Joe the Plumber.”

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama’s tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. “It’s outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama’s allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question,” he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama’s Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay’s statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. “Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated.  If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully,” he said.

The attorney general’s office is investigating if the access of Wuzelbacher’s BMV information through the office’s Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway computer system was unauthorized, said spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi.

“We’re trying to pinpoint where it came from,” she said. The investigation could become “criminal in nature,” she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16.

Records show it was a “test account” assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general’s office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

Brindisi later said investigators have confirmed that Wurzelbacher’s information was not accessed within the attorney general’s office. She declined to provide details. The office’s test accounts are shared with and used by other law enforcement-related agencies, she said.

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show.

Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher’s information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch.

Sgt. Tim Campbell, a Toledo police spokesman, said he could not provide any information because the department only had learned of the State Highway Patrol inquiry today.

Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch

The Obama campaign is reported to have threatened the Jewish groups sponsoring the rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN with potential loss of their tax exempt status if they had Palin and not Clinton or Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden speak at their rally.

In key swing states Obama has set up “Truth Squads” composed of law enforcement officers and high profile prosecutors to intimidate any media outlet that airs or publishes any article critical of Sen. Obama that they – Obama and his Truth Squads – feel is false or misleading.

Obama has attempted to use the US Congress’ Special Prosecutor to attack the entire GOP and the current US administration due to their investigations into the actions of ACORN in key swing states. He has made spurious claims that the ivestigation of voter fraud and voter registrations fraud is somehow related to Congress’s witch hunt over the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys in late 2006.

Now it seems that that either the Obama campaign – they deny the allegations – or more likely some of Obama’s supporters have illegally used Ohio state law enforcement data in the attacks against Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe The Plumber.

I find it most disturbing that the illegal searches came from the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency. It’s frightening to think that the Obama supporters might use Joe’s children in their attacks upon him. Was this an attempt to punish Joe the Plumber by having his children removed from his custody? Probably not, but it still should send a chill of fear down all our spines.

Rogge Admits Error

Posted in 2008 Olympics on April 10th, 2008

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), when asked if he regretted awarding the 2008 Olympics to China, admitted that it had not been a wise and a sound decision.

I’ve said that it is very easy with hindsight to criticize the decision. It’s easy to say now that this was not a wise and a sound decision.

— Jacques Rogge
IOC President

Yet Rogge defended himself by claiming that Beijing had “clearly the best bid” and offered the strong incentive of taking the Olympics to a country with 20% of the world’s total population.

This is a total load of bullshit! The only way that China had the best bid would be if criteria other than the IOC’s own Applicant City Evaluation Report was not only considered but weighed far more heavily than those official evaluations.

China’s Olympic Bid

Posted in 2008 Olympics on April 10th, 2008

I’ve performed some research on China’s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. Below are my findings on the accuracy of Rogge claiming that had “clearly the best bid.

Applicant City Evaluation Report Results From August 2000

Beijing Toronto Paris Istanbul Osaka
General Infrastructure 4.6 7.0 8.1 4.2 7.6
Accommodation 9.9 7.8 10.0 6.2 9.7
Olympic Village 8.5 7.0 8.0 6.4 7.0
Sports Infrastructure 7.1 7.9 7.9 6.9 7.0
Transport Infrastructure 7.0 8.1 8.4 6.9 7.4
Total Score: 37.1 37.7 42.2 30.5 38.7
Average Score: 7.41 7.54 8.44 6.09 7.73

According to these scores China was only the top contender in one category – their proposed Olympic Village. Overall China had the 2nd lowest composite score (37.1). Paris achieved the highest composite score (42.2). China also had the 2nd lowest Average Score (7.41), an average of the individual scores in each IOC category, whereas Paris once again had the higest score (8.44).

With Paris not only having the highest overall and average scores, but also having earned the highest individual scores in: General Infrastructure, Accommodation, Sports Infrastructure (tied with Toronto), and Transport Infrastructure, it seems that Paris and not Beijing had “clearly the best bid.

The situation is actually worse though. The chart below details Beijing’s scores per category vs. the mean average of all the Applicant Cities.

Beijing Average Difference
General Infrastructure 4.6 6.3 (-1.7)
Accommodation 9.9 8.7 1.2
Olympic Village 8.5 7.4 1.1
Sports Infrastructure 7.1 7.4 (-0.3)
Transport Infrastructure 7.0 7.5 (-0.5)

This shows that Beijing actually scored below the average in 3 out of 5 categories. China had a mean average score 0.2 points below the composite average. It seems strange that such a score could indicate that Beijing should have been considered for the short list of Applicant Cities that the IOC would have voted on to host the 2008 Olympic Games, much less that Beijing would win that election.

Something else must have prompted the choice of Beijing as the 2008 Olympic Games’ host city. It obviously wasn’t their comparative ability to manage such an endeavor. The IOC Evaluation Committee certainly found them wanting.