Has Debbie Wasserman Schultz been committing election fraud?

[AgingAmerican]

..on behalf of the Clinton campaign? If it isn't election fraud, what is it?

[DURHAM D]

1. Pure speculation on your part? nt

[AgingAmerican]

7. No it has been ongoing, systematic, sustained and well documented since before he announced

Culminating in her àttempting to drop a wrecking ball on it yesterday, and getting caught. If it isn't election fraud, what his it? Just rigging? Just old fashioned political corruption?

[yeoman6987]

29. I think she wants to win. Plus she is a Democratic Party member

O'Malley may be able to be jilted some but she'd say polls are minimum.

[AgingAmerican]

30. Isn't ' wanting to win' by stacking the deck cheating aka election fraud?

Or is it just plain old every day fraud?

Sign the petition! https://www.change.org/p/debbie-wasserman-schultz-a-call-for-corruption-dripping-debbie-wasserman-schultz-head-of-dnc-to-resign?recruiter=451102910

[Enrique]

2. no, she's favoring Hillary

election fraud is a crime

[AgingAmerican]

23. Is rigging the election merely 'favoring' it?

Interesting...

[NV Whino]

3. We could start with stupidity

And probably end with partisan.

[cantbeserious]

4. Great Question - This Citizen Calls For An Investigation Of DNC Data Security Practices

eom

[nashville_brook]

5. that's an interesting question.

[JaneyVee]

6. Deflect!

[AgingAmerican]

9. There is nothing to deflect

You guys apparently have no clue what is happening, and where it is headed. She cannot get the genie back into the bottle.

[MoonRiver]

15. Well, what's happening then?

You don't seem to have a clue either.

[AgingAmerican]

24. Yes I do

Schultz is under heavy pressure to resign. It's only a matter of time now. The cat is out of the bag and Bernie will now get wide exposure! DWS little stunt has had the opposite effect she desired. The end result of her actions was easily predictible, which calls her competence into question.

The genie is out of the bottle.

[MoonRiver]

28. I don't really care if she resigns or not,

But what Brrnie did has nothing to do with her.

[AgingAmerican]

32. Her actions have plenty to do with herself, Clinton and Sanders

That's why she is the one facing pressure to resign, not Sanders!

Sign the petition! https://www.change.org/p/debbie-wasserman-schultz-a-call-for-corruption-dripping-debbie-wasserman-schultz-head-of-dnc-to-resign?recruiter=451102910

[MoonRiver]

35. I certainly won't sign that.

It's a biased poll with no basis in fact.

[edgineered]

36. Signed. They have a small goal for total sigs.

Maybe put the change.org poll in its own thread?

[libdem4life]

10. Detect...fixed it.

[MoonRiver]

20. Detect what?

[libdem4life]

25. Deflect what?

[RandySF]

8. Oh lord

What you do with voter data has nothing to do with the conduct of an election. Please brush up.

[libdem4life]

12. Just finished brushing up. That one candidate politically owns the IT company with

supporters and former campaign workers that holds the data for the entire Democratic Party...and can turn it off or on in a heartbeat?

And you're right...it does fall under a broader context. And one the Clintons have been famous for...stacking the deck in their favor and getting away with it...before our very eyes, right now it's out there in the public realm...names, positions and former alliances... because Bernie's folk reported it...twice.

Thus the first head that should roll is the IT company. If the rank and file had known this in the beginning, there would have been demands to find a neutral company

Maybe brush up on conflict of interest.

[mmonk]

11. Electioneering

[MoonRiver]

16. How so?

[Buzz Clik]

13. ..

[AgingAmerican]

14. Sign the petition! Çorruption dripping DWS must resign!

https://www.change.org/p/debbie-wasserman-schultz-a-call-for-corruption-dripping-debbie-wasserman-schultz-head-of-dnc-to-resign?recruiter=451102910

[Buzz Clik]

17. Silly.

[UglyGreed]

18. Ties that bind

Seems the fix is in, borrowed this from another thread. Thanks SoapBox

[artislife]

26. It is like Game of Thrones

and not one likable character.

[Lars39]

27. Good grief! One hand washing the other,eh.

Barf

[UglyGreed]

40. indeed

[99Forever]

41. Seems pretty damning to me.

But then I'm just one of those little people, put on this Earth to provide services for the 01% and their like.

What the fuck do I know?

[backscatter712]

19. Looks like we might find out, in the lawsuit's discovery process...

Judging by how fast the DNC caved and reinstated access, I'd say DWS doesn't want that lawsuit to move forward.

[starroute]

21. It's not election fraud because it's internal

It's probably not a crime unless there was some other illegality involved, such as a quid pro quo. But it does seem to be outrageous favoritism.

In googling around, I found this incident from last summer. And yes, the story is from the Washington Times -- please don't hate me -- because they were the only ones to make an issue of it and go into detail. But the same basic facts are there in any report on the convention.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/28/dnc-lets-clinton-break-rules-speech-summer-meeting/

The Democratic National Committee demonstrated Friday that when it comes to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the rules do not apply.

Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination, was allowed to break the time limit on her speech Friday to the DNC’s summer convention in Minneapolis. Her speech lasted about 24 minutes, despite an announcement beforehand by DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz that speeches by presidential candidate at the meeting would be limited to seven minutes.

Afterward, Mrs. Wasserman Schultz told the crowd of party faithful that she had erred in her original announcement and that the time limit was actually 15 minutes, though Mrs. Clinton exceed that restriction by about nine minutes.

The apparent preferential treatment received by Mrs. Clinton was noted by state Democratic Party leaders at the convention.

[backscatter712]

22. It's certainly unethical.

DWS has been pulling out all the stops to squelch Bernie and shove Hillary down our throats in the primaries.

And that's a huge breach of ethics and trust. The DNC chair is supposed to be impartial in primary races, and DWS has been everything but impartial.

DWS needs to be removed immediately.

[starroute]

33. Charles Pierce was calling for her removal last summer

And that was just over her refusal to back the Iran deal -- not anything to do with the campaign. (http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a37542/dnc-chairperson/) But there have been persistent questions about her leadership, and Wikipedia suggests behind-the-scenes manipulation when Obama was considering dropping her in 2013.

What also caught my eye in Pierce's piece was his offhand statement that "this is not to mention the long history that DWS has with the Fanjul family, the premier sugar dynasty in Florida."

The only thing I know about the Fanjul family is the claim in an old website on Bush contributors that "The Fanjul family has such extraordinary political access that President Clinton took a call from Alfonso Fanjul while being serviced by Monica Lewinsky." (http://info.tpj.org/pioneers/wayne_berman.html)

However, I do find a lot about Schultz and the Fanjuls at Howie Kelin's Down with Tyranny blog. Klein has been going after this current flap really hard (https://twitter.com/downwithtyrannyr), but he's had Schultz in his sights for a long time. Here are a couple of posts, from 2012 and 2014, that refer both to Schultz's general support for the anti-Castro Cubans and to her specific efforts to defeat a bill that would have roll back sugar price supports that make the Fanjuls millions.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-badly-are-steve-israel-and-debbie.html

I've been told by a very good source that the Fanjul brothers-- the big bucks behind the American sugar industry and major financial players for corrupt conservative politicians on both sides of the aisle-- count on Wasserman Schultz to guarantee the political viability of their Cuban right-wing Republican protégés in increasingly Democratic South Florida. As chairman of the DCCC's red-to-blue program, Wasserman Schultz did exactly that for her pals, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart in 2008, willfully wrecking the campaigns of their 3 Democratic opponents. That earned her a nice promotion to the head of the DNC, where she's doing an even worse job... for Democrats. Wasserman Schultz enforces a hard-line anti-Cuban position for the Fanjuls and makes sure that Cuban sugar can't be imported and they can keep the price of domestic sugar artificially high. They help her build her political power inside the Democratic Party in return.


http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2014/08/is-there-democrat-in-congress-more.html

This morning I got my daily "give me your money" e-mail from one of America's most corrupt politicians, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). The subject line was "Petition: Clean Up Campaign Finance" and instead of deleting it unopened like I do with 90% of her spam, I opened it to examine the latest hypocrisy from the sleazy New Dem trying to accumulate as much money as she can in a push to bribe fellow Democratic House members to make her party leader when Pelosi retires or when Pelosi and Hoyer retire. . . .

Schultz was the head of the DCCC's Red to Blue program in 2008, she endorsed 3 corrupt Republican amigos-- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart-- over three Democrats. Chris Van Hollen fired her a Red to Blue chair, but not before her toxicity had taken root. That year Wasserman Schultz helped beat Joe Garcia, who eventually made it to Congress anyway and helped beat Annette Taddeo, who is running for Lt. Governor today. Neither likes talking about Wasserman Schultz's corruption but both have told intimates she's lower than a snake. In Florida Democratic politics if you don't make an effort to get along with her, you can find yourself face down in a swamp, metaphorically speaking. That was when other Members of Congress first started telling me that Wasserman Schultz was a funnel for far right Cuban money to Democratic members of the House and for sugar cane money (which is behind anything that will keep the U.S. from normal relations with Cuba). . . .

Wasserman Schultz directed payments from a Big Sugar-funded right-wing front group, the US-Cuba Democracy PAC to hand over $320,000 to Democrats of her choice that cycle. Fifty-two of the 66 Democrats who voted against Rangel’s amendment received one or more contributions from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC that year. Wasserman Schultz's own leadership PAC gave nearly a quarter million dollars to Democrats running for re-election and election in the House that year. Between the US-Cuba Democracy PAC and her own sleazy Democrats Win Seats PAC this is how much loot Wasserman Schultz was able to direct to Democratic freshmen willing to sell her their votes, even from congressmen representing agricultural districts where this amendment would have had widespread support.

[starroute]

37. And also this, on Hillary's own Fanjul ties

A few weeks ago, AP reported on Hillary's meetings with supporters while she was Secretary of State. I don't normally trust AP because of their tendency to spin, but the facts and numbers here seem pretty straightforward.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6b96865adeec4ecc8e9c05f87ec554ba/calendars-show-clintons-availability-supporters

Another was Alfonso Fanjul, one of four brothers who run a Florida-based sugar and real estate conglomerate and are politically active in the state's Cuban-American community.

Fanjul, whose family subsidiaries include Domino Sugar and Florida Crystals, was a Florida co-chairman for Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992, supported Hillary Clinton's 2008 run and has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Florida Crystals spent $1 million lobbying the Obama administration in 2011 and nearly that amount in 2009, 2010 and 2012 on issues related to sugar and its use as a biofuel.

Fanjul met Hillary Clinton for a half hour in October 2009. Gaston Cantens, a spokesman for the firm, said Fanjul sought the 2009 meeting because he was having "customs issues coming in and out of the country and wanted help." Cantens said Fanjul's entry and exit problems eased.

Clinton met Fanjul again at a 10-minute "pull-aside" during a Brookings Institution luncheon in June 2012. The event honored Saban and his wife, Cheryl, who both bundled donations to Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign and whose family foundation has donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.

[starroute]

38. And a lot more on the Fanjul family here

http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/2015/7/fanjul-family-benefits-political-donations.html

The four Fanjul brothers have an outsize presence in both the Dominican Republic and the United States. In the DR, their American company, Central Romana, produces most of the country’s sugar. In the U.S., the Fanjuls also grow cane and spend heavily in Washington, ranking among the sugar industry’s top political donors and biggest spenders on lobbying. As big players in both countries, they benefit from a highly profitable combination of factors: In the DR, Central Romana pays some of the lowest wages in the country, produces most of the country’s allotment of sugar exported to the U.S. and, thanks to CAFTA-DR, pays dwindling tariffs for those exports. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Fanjuls sell their sugar at sometimes two to three times the global market price, thanks to import limits and price supports. . . .

Ahead of the 2008 presidential elections, Andres directly contributed almost three times as much as Alfy did to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but Alfonso’s relationship with the Clintons is more well-known. The Alfonso Fanjul-Bill Clinton friendship dates to Clinton’s first run for president in 1992, when Fanjul co-chaired his campaign in Florida. And after Fanjul visited Cuba in 2012 and 2013, he reportedly told then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that his views — once staunchly pro-embargo — were changing. Alfy and Andres also signed letters to President Barack Obama over the past year, urging increased engagement with Cuba. . . .

In January, Bill and Hillary Clinton visited their old friend and campaign donor Alfy at Casa de Campo, the Fanjuls’ 7,000-acre residential resort in the DR, where the Fanjuls have a second home. The resort’s website says that over dinner they chatted about Hillary’s possible presidential run.

[starroute]

39. And a little more here

My apologies for posting so much -- but I think this could turn out to be important.

http://dominicanwatchdog.org/page-Fanjuls_cash_in_while_U.S._taxpayers_foot_$1.8_billion_bill_for_destruction_of_the_Everglades

Despite being behind every packet of Domino sugar in every diner in the country, the name “Fanjul” is little-known outside of Florida. Alfy and Pepe Fanjul run Flo-Sun, Inc., the mega-corporation that, alongside U.S. Sugar, dominates the American sugar industry and wields substantial political influence in Washington and around the country. Flo-Sun’s subsidiaries include Domino, Florida Crystals, C&H and Redpath Sugar, but the company’s legacy is its alleged stranglehold on sugar-industry policy in the United States. The Fanjuls’ sugar empire benefits from environmental efforts that give them a green image — as taxpayers foot the bill — and from federal subsidies that American consumers pay for both at the grocery store and on tax day.

Florida’s Everglades Forever Act of 1994 drives one of the major environmental cleanup efforts in the state. Everglades Forever implementation so far has cost the state of Florida $1.8 billion. Of that, Florida sugar companies have pledged to contribute $300 million in tax revenue. (The Fanjuls own 40 percent of Florida’s sugar industry, though no hard numbers exist on how much each company has offered to the effort.) Put another way, the industry that is almost entirely responsible for both the historical destruction of the Everglades and continual pollution of the ecosystem thanks to fertilizer runoff is footing less than 20 percent of the bill to clean up the mess. . . .

The Fanjul family’s political connections — and, it could be said, the Florida sugar industry’s diminished role in paying for the Everglades reconstruction projects that were crafted in the ’90s — become rather more open when it comes to Alfy Fanjul’s longstanding ties to the Clinton family. The campaign donation records of Alfy Fanjul, a Democrat, show he gave extensively to both the Senate and presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton. He has also given money to the William J. Clinton Foundation, was the co-chair of Bill Clinton’s 1992 Florida campaign and has hosted Clinton fundraisers in the past.

Alfy Fanjul’s Clinton association received outsized attention during the Kenneth Starr investigation of Clinton; Bill Clinton’s breakup speech with Monica Lewinsky was cut short by a phone call from Alfy Fanjul. While White House records don’t document the content of phone calls, Alfy’s call, made on President’s Day in 1996, could very well have been in reference to an announcement that Vice President Gore had made just hours before that he’d be pursuing a tax of a penny per pound on sugar producers. Fanjul could not have been happy about this — as evidenced by the millions spent by the sugar industry (PDF) in pre-election day advertising once the tax was put on the ballot in Florida. Ultimately, Big Sugar ads claiming the tax would be a job killer won out and Florida voters killed the measure. Bill Clinton quietly shelved it on the federal level against Gore’s wishes.

[BainsBane]

31. Considering not a single vote has yet been cast

the obvious answer is no.

[AgingAmerican]

34. So voter ID laws are not election fraud?

What are they then?

I think you are confusing voting fraud with election fraud. Rigging an election is fraud.