More than a month since the inquiry was complete and nearly two weeks since I sent a letter to the editor and blogged the news, the Jacksonville Daily News has reported on Onslow County Commissioner (and failed 2006 candidate for Clerk of Superior Court) Delma Collins‘ campaign finance FUBAR.

The article doesn’t cover any new ground except for having great quotes from Commissioner Collins.

An example from the article:

“I made a mistake,” Collins said. “But you have to be a bookkeeper to understand election finance laws.”

Mr. Collins, indeed, you do not need to be a bookkeeper to understand the election finance laws. You simply have to read the regulations, attend training by the local or state Boards of Election, and ask questions if you’re that confused. It’s clear that by reaching the threshold limit of $3,000 in June (months prior to Election Day) you either acted intentionally to avoid reporting your campaign finance or you are incapable of managing your campaign funds. Neither is acceptable.

When questioned about motives regarding the inquiry, Collins had an interesting answer:

“This is nothing more than old enemies taking potshots at me,” Collins said.

As a response to the statement, I made this comment on the online article:

It’s nice to see the Jacksonville Daily News doing some investigative reporting. Too bad it’s been almost a month and a half since the report was released and it’s been reported on the ENC Forums and other websites.

As for Mr. Collins’ comment, since the SBOE found several instances of violations of campaign finance regulations, it’s not “Enemies taking potshots.”

The article did have one new and intriguing iota of news:

Collins said if he runs for office again, he will file differently.

“I have learned a valuable lesson,” Collins said. “If I do decide to run for a higher office in the future, I will not file under the $3,000 threshold.”

Mr. Collins, you promised your family, your friends, and, most importantly, your constituency that, should you lose the race for Clerk of Superior Court, you would leave politics at the end of your term as County Commissioner.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten, so I will quote the letter your campaign sent to teachers in Onslow County Schools:

I have promised my family that I will leave the political arena if I am unsuccessful in this endeavor.

Keep that promise, Mr. Collins. For the good of your family, for the good of your friends, and for the good of your constituency, keep your promise. Leave politics.

Tonight the Onslow County Board of Commissioners elected Lionell Midgett as their Chairman for 2008. Commissioner Paul Buchanan will remain the Vice Chairman.

Correction: According to the Jacksonville Daily News, Commissioner (and challenger to Republican Congressman Walter B. Jones, Jr.) Joe McLaughlin was elected as the Vice Chairman.

In other Board of Commissioner news, the Jacksonville Daily News still has not reported anything on the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ inquiry on Commissioner Delma Collins’ inability to manage his campaign finance records from his failed bid for Clerk of Superior Court. They also haven’t published the letter to the editor I sent.

It’s been almost a month since the report was released and the “paper of record” for Onslow County has failed to print anything. It’s a darned shame that the Jacksonville Daily News is withholding this pretty darned important information from the voters of Onslow County.

What do you think?

Has anyone noticed something different about the iTunes podcast store? When perusing the podcast section by category, I end up in a very unsexy list-like interface. Completely not cool. There’s no extra information on the podcasts, just the basic information (title, artist, genre, etc.).

It’s making it quite complicated to shop for new and exciting podcasts, that’s for certain.

Somebody at the local nutjob message board has been sending offensive private messages to the female users.

Remember the controversy surrounding Onslow County Commissioner Delma Collins’ 2006 failed campaign for Clerk of Superior Court?

The North Carolina State Board of Elections has released its findings regarding Commissioner Collins. In a letter dated November 5th, the Board noted that Collins accepted business contributions (in-kind contributions from Donald Keith Branch of Allstate Insurance and Michael Lazzara (Yes, the City Councilman)), paid cash for advertisement purchases, and submitted campaign finance reports late. All of which are violations of campaign finance regulations.

The letter also suggets that Collins submitted information that could not be corroborated:

You stated that the Onslow County Board of Elections instructed you to file a final report after the elections in the event that you exceeded the threshold. You also stated that Ed Brown, candidate for sheriff, received the same instructions. Neither Mr. Brown nor the Onslow County Board of Elections corroborated your statements.

The letter also directs Collins to re-open his campaign committee, pay a fee of $1,288.72, file an amended report to include all receipts and expenses, and providing a sworn statement describing the source of funds used to purchase advertising from the Jacksonville Daily News.

They’re well-earned, but not excessive, punishments.

I wonder, though, if the letter was signed November 5th, when the Jacksonville Daily News is going to get around to reporting the news?

In a recent editorial, the Jacksonville Daily News once again displayed their Republican roots.

It seems that the editorial staff of the Jacksonville Daily News doesn’t agree with voter owned, or publicly financed, elections.

First, let’s set a correct definition for “voter owned elections.” “Voter owned elections” are campaigns funded by public tax-dollars. Those dollars have the requirements for spending limits and fund-raising activities. Doing so means that each candidate starts at the same place. Essentially, public financed campaigns ensure that wealthy candidates aren’t given advantages over non-wealthy. Sounds like a good idea to me.

The Jacksonville Daily News disagrees and feels that less affluent people shouldn’t seek election as representatives of the people.

Candidates for political office generally are more affluent than the average taxpayer.

The idea behind voter owned elections, Daily News editorial staff, is that the average taxpayer would have a realistic chance of getting elected if he/she started from the same position as a more affluent candidate. If there were one source of clean money with requirements for its use, elections would be more effective, more honest, and more available to the average taxpayer.

There would be a shift in North Carolinian politics: Average citizens with above average goals and ideas would be elected instead of the citizens with above average wealth and below average goals and ideas. Of course, if real North Carolinians were elected to office with public funds, newspapers like the Jacksonville Daily News may lose what limited influence they have in the goings-on of the government. And we can’t have that, can we?

So, the great Markos Moulitsas Zúniga comes from the mount with a message to his followers about their rising level of…nasty rhetoric.

There has lately been an alarming rise in diaries and comments that seek to impugn (without evidence) the motives of those they disagree with on various issues.

Yes, there’s the impeachment stuff, but this nasty rhetoric is also rampant in the primary war diaries.

This points to a serious breakdown not just on civility, but in the ability of people to properly debate various issues. As such, it presents a serious threat to the integrity of this site.

It seems that Kos has seen what I’ve seen at Daily Kos: The rise of the “With us or against us” mentality.

And no, I’m not reading Kos again.

I only saw this because CorrenteWire linked to it for this money quote regarding Ambassador Simpson’s (and my own) prediction/fear/paranoia that the Bush administration may find a way to postpone/cancel the 2008 elections:

No, Bush won’t cancel the next round of elections to remain in power. That’s about the most ridiculous conspiracy theory I’ve seen in a long time. Some people on our side can be just as “out there” as the “black helicopter” crowd.

It must be so easy for Markos to dismiss the valid fears of many Americans. He’s safe, financially secure (through the site, no less!), and powerful, though he probably would be too humble to admit it.

Those are advantages that average Americans do not have. Those are advantages that I don’t have.

And, so, I tell you this: I am afraid. I am seriously afraid that the current American government will do anything to remain in control and I think it’s a valid, rational, and logical fear.

Take a look at the evidence (many of these items are cited in replies at CorrenteWire).

• President Bush has ordered the Department of Justice not to act on Congressional contempt charges against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and current Chief of Staff Josh Bolten.
• He’s made it illegal for Americans to act in ways that “threaten progress in Iraq.”
• He’s refused Congressional review of the plan to ensure the continuity of government during a time of crisis in America.
• He’s authorized surveillance of Americans without a court order.
• He’s legalized torture.
• He’s stricken the right to a Writ of Habeas Corpus and made it legal to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely and with no legal recourse.
• He commuted the prison sentence of a former staff-member who was convicted by a jury of his peers for lying to an FBI investigation.

We all know that’s not all this Administration has done. They sent an ill-equipped and unprepared military into an unnecessary war under false pretenses, failed to react to genocide in Africa, lowered taxes on the richest 1% of Americans while raising expenses and reducing services for the poorest 25%, destroyed the American educational system, played partisan politics on veteran’s funding…The list just keeps going!

So, yes, maybe it is a bit “tin-hattish” and maybe it does make me part of the “black-helicopter-crowd”, but don’t dismiss my fears when I have the evidence to support them. And it seems to me, that the crimes I’ve listed have proven that this Administration is capable of those things we thought impossible, improbable, and, at their base, unAmerican.

For the record, “this bunch” refers to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the rest of the Administration.

Corrente has more (on something I wrote about last year).

So! The DFH types like us aren’t the only ones to think this way. Former US Ambassador Dan Simpson writes for the Toledo Blade:

At which point they quote a lengthy excerpt from Ambassador Simpson’s editorial. I shall quote only the most important parts, but do ask you read its entirety.

There is also the late-at-night, eerie concern that Mr. Bush has in his head some sort of scenario where, for reasons of national security - real or drummed up - the 2008 elections will have to be postponed and he will get to stay on.

My suspicions have at their base the feeling I have that, given their operating style now, this bunch will not leave the White House easily in 2009.

Almost exactly a year ago I said:

My fear is that, in two years, continuity in government will be used as an excuse to fast-track legislation or a Constitutional amendment to extend or prevent Presidential elections. This administration has extended the President’s war-time powers so far that I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch of imagination that they would attempt such a coup.

This Administration used “continuity in government” as a reason to re-nominate failed U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and to ask for a Democratic Senator’s re-election (Senator Joseph Lieberman). There’s nothing to stop them from using it again to delay the 2008 elections.

Atrios has the quotes.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

The President’s decision to commute Mr. Libby’s sentence is disgraceful. Libby’s conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq War. Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

The President said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the President shows his word is not to be believed. He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable.

Presidential Candidate and former Senator John Edwards:

President Bush has just sent exactly the wrong signal to the country and the world. In George Bush’s America, it is apparently okay to misuse intelligence for political gain, mislead prosecutors and lie to the FBI. George Bush and his cronies think they are above the law and the rest of us live with the consequences.

My favorite quote hasn’t made it on Eschaton, though. It’s from Senator Dick Durbin:

“When it comes to the law, there should not be two sets of rules — one for President Bush and Vice President Cheney and another for the rest of America. Even Paris Hilton had to go to jail. No one in this administration should be above the law.”

The emphasis is mine and is apropos.

Reuters.

President George W. Bush on Monday spared former vice presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby from going to prison for 2 1/2 years for obstructing a CIA leak investigation.

“I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive,” Bush said in a statement. “Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

Bush’s statement says much, much more, if you can only see between the words.

I will get what I want and I do not give one damn about “justice”.

Loyalty is the currency of this administration and Mr. Libby is as loyal as they come.

As I wrote in May, I write again in June.

Ms. Strange of the NC State Board of Elections said in an email dated June 18th:

There is no new information at this time regarding the Delma Collins complaint.

There’s no new information after more than 4 months of investigation.

When I asked about the length of investigations and the delay, Ms. Strange answered:

There is no average time length for an investigation—some are resolved very quickly, others take longer depending on the length of time it takes to receive and review records and conduct interviews. We currently have three compliance specialists working on 78 investigations in various stages of completion.

Perhaps the SBOE should invest in more investigators and educators to ensure that campaigns and candidates are more informed on the applicable laws.

Of course, if you rely on local news, you’d never know that the investigation was ongoing because the Jacksonville Daily News hasn’t reported on it since February.

The Washington Post.

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove’s political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

Ok. Doesn’t seem so bad, right? Except that the Hatch Act prohibits Federal Employees from doing some political stuff.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could “help ‘our candidates’ in the next elections,” according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using “targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country.”

That’s one of those prohibited acts, in case you were curious.

The committee is also expected to question Doan about her attempt to give a no-bid job to a friend and professional associate last summer. In addition, the committee plans to look at Waxman’s charge that Doan “intervened” in a troubled technology contract with Sun Microsystems that could cost taxpayers millions more than necessary.

That doesn’t violate the Hatch Act, it’s just plain illegal.