The New York Times catches up to Arizona’s own GOP voter suppression specialist, Nathan Sproul

October 5, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On Thursday, the New York Times finally caught up to Arizona's own GOP voter suppression specialist, Nathan Sproul. File this one under "reporting you will never see in the pages of the Arizona Daily Star." Nathan Sproul, Long Trailed by Voter Fraud Claims:

Republicans are now playing defense over the role of a well-paid operative, Nathan Sproul, in a voter registration scandal that emerged in Florida and has spread to other states.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it was reviewing “numerous” claims involving a company that Mr. Sproul runs to determine if a criminal investigation is warranted. Complaints have surfaced in 10 Florida counties, among them allegations that registrations had similar signatures or false addresses, or were filed under the names of dead people. In other cases, party affiliations appeared to have been changed.

In recent days, similar claims against Mr. Sproul have arisen in Nevada and Colorado.

Mr. Sproul, 40, a former executive director of the Arizona Christian Coalition and the Republican Party in Arizona, is well known in political circles there. Since 2004, Mr. Sproul’s companies — he has operated under several corporate names — have collected more than $17.6 million from Republican committees, candidates and the “super PAC” American Crossroads, mostly for voter registration operations, according to campaign finance records.

The Republican Party, which paid Mr. Sproul about $3 million this year for work in five states, has severed its ties with him, saying it has no tolerance for voter registration fraud.

But questions about Mr. Sproul’s methods first emerged in 2004, when one of his companies, Sproul & Associates, was paid nearly $8 million during the election cycle. The payouts made the company the seventh-biggest recipient of campaign expenditures by the committee, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

* * *

Mike Hellon, a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, said that Mr. Sproul had been considered “very controversial” in Arizona Republican circles before the recent allegations, partly because of past voter registration investigations. “There are questions among a lot of people in the party about how he gets these contracts and why he gets contracts,” Mr. Hellon said.

As a political operative in Arizona, Mr. Sproul is known for a no-holds-barred approach. He was criticized for dredging up 28-year-old domestic abuse claims against an incumbent State Senate candidate in 2008.

That same year, he promoted a ballot initiative that would have made it more difficult to impose additional taxes or increase spending in the state. The measure failed, despite considerable financial backing from the liquor industry and from Jim Click, a Tucson car dealer and a large Republican donor who has worked closely with Mr. Sproul on local elections.

‘Don’t make me angry’ Frank Antenori is scaring the villagers again

October 5, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The realization of his impending defeat is starting to get to Sen. "Don't make angry" Frank Antenori. He has become unhinged and is scaring the villagers again.

The political gossip rag The Yellow Sheet (subscription required) has two items on Frank(enstein) Antenori unhinged.

The first item is "The following item is rated 'R' for language":

Antenori told our reporter today that those in the political chattering class who are declaring his re-election bid DOA don’t know what they’re talking about.

“Who the f**k is Bert Coleman? I’m going to have to track this guy down,” Antenori told our reporter, referring to yesterday’s report in which Coleman accused Antenori of being out of touch with voters for hosting a border town hall in Tucson.

* * *

 “I know exactly what the voters of this district want and I’m giving it to them… The guy who is out of touch is Bert Coleman,” Antenori said.

That kinda sounds like "threatening and intimidating," Frank. You may want to reconsider your intemperate words in light of A.R.S. § 13-1202. Just sayin'.

The second item is "At least he didn't call them the 'Chamber of Commies'":

Antenori also told our reporter that Coleman’s proclamations that his campaign isn’t getting any business support are foolish, and reflect only the view of the “establishment” business community in Tucson led by auto dealer Jim Click and developer Don Diamond.

That group expects Southern Arizona legislators to do its bidding, he said, something he isn’t willing to do. “That’s why I have a hard time raising money – because I don’t do tit-for-tat. They know I cannot be bought, and they don’t like that. I’m not their little butt-boy,” he said.

Hmmm, is that gay innuendo, Frank?

NRSC ad buy: ‘Save the Flake’

October 5, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The bedwetters at the National Republican Senatorial Committee are so worried that the billionaire hedge fund owners of Club for Growth and the billionaire bastard Koch brothers' front group Freedom Works are not enough to get the job done to save Rep. Jeff Flake from impending defeat that the NRSC is making … Read more

September Jobs Report: unemployment at four year low

October 5, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I am sure the Romney campaign will find some little-known blogger to come up with "unscewed" labor department statistics, just like they did for "unscewed" polls which show him (not) losing this election. The right-wing lives in a closed-loop alternate reality in which facts cannot penetrate their insular bubble. I am sure we will be hearing conspiracy theories this morning — that's what the right-wing thrives on for cognitive dissonance.

Steve Benen has the monthly jobs report for September. Job market shows signs of life, unemployment falls to 4-year low:

The new jobs report released this morning was largely in line with expectations, showing a U.S. economy that added 114,000 jobs in September. As is nearly always the case, there was a gap in the public vs. private sectors — American businesses added 104,000 jobs last month, while the government shed another 10,000 jobs. [Thanks to Tea-Publican austerity measures at the state and local government level.]

* * *

[T]he new report is encouraging is the larger context: the unemployment rate dipped to 7.8%, which is nearly a four-year low, and the revisions found 86,000 additional, unreported jobs from the last two years.

And while drops in the unemployment rate are sometimes the result of Americans leaving the workforce, that's not the case in this new report — the employment-to-population ratio went up, not down.

By most measures, this can fairly be described as a strong jobs report, at least relative to where we've been.

For context, I'd note that so far in 2012, the economy has created over 1.3 million jobs over, which isn't even close to being good enough, but the total is already better than five of the eight years of the Bush/Cheney era.

Here is another chart, this one showing monthly job losses/gains in just the private sector since the start of the Great Recession. [31 consecutive months of private sector job growth.]

Big Bird was the big winner of the debate

October 5, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: h/t Daily Kos According to the AP, Big Bird is the one that got the biggest post-debate bounce: Big Bird has never been so hot. "Saturday Night Live," Jimmy Fallon, Piers Morgan, the "Today" show and "Good Morning America" all asked for appearances from the "Sesame Street" character on Thursday after he … Read more

About that McSally Push Poll

October 5, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The Martha McSally CD2 campaign has released an internal poll for the campaign conducted by Wes Anderson of OnMessage Inc. which claims she is tied with Rep. Ron Barber. Barber: 47.3 percent   McSally: 47.3 percent   Undecided: 5.2 percent. The push poll was conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 1. The live telephone interview survey polled … Read more

The Gish Gallop

October 5, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: AmBushed writes at Daily Kos, Romney Won Using a Debate Technique Called the Gish Gallop: As fact checkers busily highlight the myriad number of lies and distortions offered by Mitt-Etch-A-Sketch-Romney during last night's debate, and the spinners spin their polls with impunity, I find it interesting that the debate tactic itself has … Read more

Obama campaign ad: ‘Trust’

October 4, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Facts are a stubborn thing. The Obama campaign is up with a new ad entitled "Trust," based upon Willard "Mittens" Romney's "pants on fire" $5 trillion tax cut lie during last night's debate.

From the ad description:

Reporter:
"I'm not in favor of a 5 trillion tax cut. That's not my plan. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center concluded that Mitt Romney's tax plan would cost 4.8 trillion dollars over ten years."

Voice-over:
"Why won't Romney level with us about his tax plan which gives the wealthy huge new tax breaks? Because according to experts he'd have to raise taxes on the middle class or increase the deficit to pay for it. If we can't trust him here how could we ever trust him here?"

Video below the fold.