[HOSTED.AP.ORG] In a story of political redemption, Mark Sanford is headed back to Congress after his career was derailed by scandal four years ago. I am genuinely surprised.
"I am one imperfect man saved by God's grace," the Republican told about 100 cheering supporters Tuesday after defeating Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch to win back the 1st District seat he held for three terms in the 1990s. ...and by Dick Harpootlian...
"It's my pledge to all of you going forward I'm going to be one of the best congressmen I could have ever been." "I'm gonna be a regular John C. Calhoun!"
On Wednesday, Sanford told NBC's "Today" show he thinks his record as a watchdog for taxpayers was more important than his personal redemption story. His personal redemption story was actually the more interesting of the two.
"I think I have an incredibly strong track record with regard to watching out for people's pocketbook," he said. That will be great, assuming he can keep his pants on in the future.
Although the race was thought to be close going into the voting, Sanford collected 54 percent of the vote against Colbert Busch, the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, in a district that hasn't elected a Democratic congressman in more than three decades. About 32 percent of the district's voters went to the polls. Green Party candidate Eugene Platt finished far behind. Here's the data massage. Sanford collected 54 percent of the vote because a Publican hasn't been elected in the district in more than 30 years. And besides, only 32 percent of voters turned out. If it had been more it mighta gone the other way. And the Green Party guy probably pulled votes from the Dem ticket. Um, no, the district has been red for a couple decades. Sanford had three terms there back in the 90s. Pubs there elected Tim Scott more recently. It's so red it's darned near crimson...
"Some guy came up to me the other day and said you look a lot like Lazarus," Sanford told the crowd Tuesday night, referring to the man who, according to the Bible, Christ raised from the dead. What'd Lazarus look like?
"I've talked a lot about grace during the course of this campaign," he said. "Until you experience human grace as a reflection of God's grace, I don't think you really get it. And I didn't get it before." If you're a Catholic you understand that thing about admission, contrition, and penance. Of the three Sanford's penance period is the most interesting. His wife divorced him, he's not allowed on her property, he married his mistress, and when he won the primary the RNC abandoned the campaign, convinced it couldn't be won.
While he credited his conservative credentials on Wednesday, he did not back away from his problems. If I was him, I'd make it a point not to refer to it again. Having been absolved, he should go and sin no more.
"I let a lot of folks down back in 2009 and yet I've been on a remarkable personal journey since then and I hope my life will reflect that going forward," Sanford said. Clear the airway, stop the bleeding, cover the wound...
Sanford, who turns 53 later this month, has now never lost a race in four runs for Congress and two for governor. And he said before the votes were counted Tuesday that if he lost this one, he wouldn't run for office again.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2013 11:35 ||
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Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/08/2013 13:52 Comments ||
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#3
Yuck
Mr Sanford will be a talking point in thousands and thousands of Donk fund raising tweets, emails and letters and hundreds of MSMBC diatribes until he leaves the House.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/08/2013 16:54 Comments ||
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#4
His district is reliably Republican. Their choice was either him or that witch. The outcome was predictable.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
05/08/2013 18:45 Comments ||
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[NATIONALREVIEW] Former South Carolina Democratic party chairman Dick I don't want to buy the black vote. I just want to rent it for a day Harpootlian ...once and present chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Harpootlian is the man who, when he lost to a Publican in 1994, said The people have spoken. The bastards... today attempted to clarify remarks he made Friday at the party's Jefferson-Jackson dinner when he assured the audience that the Democratic challenger to GOP governor Nikki Haley ...first woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley is the youngest current governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems... would "send her back to wherever the hell she came from."
Many understood Harpootlian's barb to be directed at Haley's ethnicity -- she is the Indian-American daughter of Sikh immigrants. The longtime Democratic activist immediately waved off such criticism, and today told MSNBC, "All I'm suggesting is she needs to go back to being an accountant in a dress store rather than being this fraud of a governor that we have."
Haley, who was raised in Bamberg, S.C., previously worked in her parents' clothing business, Exotica International, and took over the bookkeeping there at the age of 13.
Harpootlian is no stranger to controversy. At last year's Democratic National Convention, he compared Haley to Hitler's mistress -- after she participated in a presser from a basement television studio at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C., Harpootlian said she was "down in the bunker a la Eva Braun."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Keep digging there, Bub. You'll get to the bottom eventually.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/08/2013 7:22 Comments ||
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By my experience the sorts of people who say this couldn't hold down a job as a secretary.
[POLITICO] AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka bashed President B.O. and Vice President Biden for "valorizing" Walmart pledges to hire returning veterans.
"Walmart's recent announcement of a plan to hire returning honorably discharged veterans is more about public relations than honoring our heroes," Trumka said. "That this effort was valorized by President B.O. and Vice President Biden reflects an acceptance of economic failure out of line with America's history or future.
"We owe it to our returning veterans to make sure they are treated as the heroes they are, rather than as symbols used to "greenwash" Walmart's eroding brand. After facing enemies abroad, is an $8.81 an hour part-time job the best we can offer returning veterans?"
Obama, Biden and their wives participated in a White House event last week announcing the commitments by Walmart and other companies to hire veterans. The retailer pledged to hire "any honorably discharged veteran within his or her first 12 months off active duty beginning this Memorial Day," according to the White House announcement.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Some returning vets need a job and a civilian career path. Walmart STARTS people out at 8.81 but promotes from inside, once people have proven themselves.
We all can't start at the top like Trumka
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/08/2013 7:24 Comments ||
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It's never 8.18 to the employer. Add in their share of social security, unemployment insurance and workers comp. That can quickly double and will as Obamacare kicks in. This lowballing is the BS pushed by the unions and their political sock puppets.
#5
I know a lot of very good people that make good $$ working at Wal-Mart.
They do promote from within based on initiative and work ethics. Of course, that logic flies in the face of a sniveling union entitlement weasel like Trumka.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/08/2013 10:15 Comments ||
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No wonder Thug Trumpka hates Wallmart so much. Can you imagine? Rewarding good work....
#7
Granted Walmart shoppers can be the butt, literally of many jokes but, no one slams people for working at Costco or Home Depot. Both non-union and promote internally. At least here in the Peoples Democratic Republic of Kalifornia (PDRK)
Posted by: Retired LEO ||
05/08/2013 20:59 Comments ||
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Lets see there Mr Tumpka - how do you propose that Walmart can hire at a higher wage rate (presumably dicated by government or union use/threat of force)? Raise wages, then you raise costs, which, unless passed to customers, eliminates profits. Or pass them on to consumers, who will no longer be able to afford the products and services. So your policy results in fewer jobs (less employment), lower profits (or even going out of business), higher costs to consumers (hits the poor the hardest). So, exactly who are you saying is helped by your policies? Thats right - your fat ass, and the lawyers and government jackals that would be enforcing the policy,
Such attempts at coercion should be a hanging offense when they threaten so many people.
[Washington Post] Nothing Gov. Martin O'Malley ...Democratic governor of Maryland and aspiring presidential candidate, known locally as The One-Man Economic Wrecking Crew. O'Malley was elected to his second term driven by union support and near-Stalinesque vote margins in Baltimore city (82%) and Prince George's County (88%)... said made news Tuesday morning when he greeted the Dalai Lama at a lecture at the University of Maryland. But photos of what O'Malley did upon meeting the Dalai Lama quickly went viral. The pictures showed Tibet's spiritual leader rubbing noses with Maryland's governor in what one O'Malley adviser later described on Twitter as "a special moment in College Park."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2013 00:00 ||
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Rubbing noses is a customary greeting with the Maori, and I believe with the Inuit, but this is the first time I have seen it with the Democrats.
[CintiEnquirer] Three more people were charged today with voter fraud related to voting in Hamilton County in the 2012 presidential election, bring the total charged to six.
Margaret Allen, 64, Ernestine Strickland, 84, and Andre Wilson, 49, were indicted Tuesday on one count of felony illegal voting.
If convicted, they face up to 18 months in prison.
Allen is charged with attempting to vote in the 2012 Ohio general election by requesting an absentee voter ballot despite being a resident of Florida. She hasn't lived in Ohio since 2009, according to the Hamilton County prosecutor's office.
Strickland is charged with registering to vote and voting by absentee voter ballot in the 2012 Ohio general election even though she is a resident of Tennessee and has never lived in Ohio.
Wilson is charged with registering to vote and voting by absentee voter ballot in the 2012 Ohio general election by using a fictitious Ohio address.
"Our democracy is built on our lawful right to vote," Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said. "Everyone's vote is weakened when some people decide to disobey the law.
"We must be vigilant in protecting everyone's right to vote," Deters added.
The charges come as the Hamilton County Elections Board continues to investigate voter anomalies in the 2012 presidential election. There is disagreement among board members about whether all voter anomalies should be referred to the prosecutor's office for investigation. A decision on that matter is pending. In the meantime, the board had sent seven cases where it suspected fraud to the prosecutor for review, according to Board of Elections records.
Tuesday's indictment's are in addition to three previous indictments related to voter fraud in the same election.
...the Democratic Party operative who'd worked the polls for about w quarter century before getting caught for voting some six or eight absentee ballots that mostly weren't hers in addition to voting at the polls on election day...
and Russell Glassop, 75, of Symmes Township,
Richardson, a former poll worker, is charged with eight counts of illegal voting. She is accused of voting twice in November's election and for relatives in various other elections. She faces up to 12 years in prison.
Glassop is charged with one count of illegal voting. He is accused of voting for his deceased wife via absentee ballot.
#1
As per BILL CLINTON, clearly we must determine or ascertain the validity of the election by finding out iff any of these suspects cheated on their spouses wid someone wearing a blue dress!
#3
Funny how the mail ballot seems to be the biggest source of fraud. And the "D" party has been pushing it, as well as suppressing voter ID requirements.
Funny how those things intersect like that.
Go back to the original system - hold the election on ELECTION day, Make people show up to vote, or else pick up their mail-in ballots in person prior to this, with exceptions for the military and others. And require photo ID - a copy of which (or a thumb/finger print must be part of the submitted ballot.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was looking to strengthen ties with Russia as he tries to put an end to the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but instead he was met with the coldest of receptions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin kept Kerry waiting three hours before their meeting at the Kremlin on Tuesday and continuously fiddled with his pen as the top American diplomat spoke about the ongoing crisis in Syria.
Good thing we have the best minds in our country working to solve our problems...
Kerrys visit to Moscow comes as he seeks Russian help in ending Syria's civil, telling President Putin that common interest in a stable Middle East could bridge divisions among the big powers.
Putin, however, made no mention in his own public remarks of the conflict in Syria, which has generated some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War. Yet with the killing now in a third year and no end in sight as U.N. intervention remains stymied by international arguments, Kerry struck a positive tone as he set about trying to narrow differences sufficiently to agree a plan for a settlement that proved out of reach at talks in Geneva almost a year ago.
'The United States believes that we share some very significant common interests with respect to Syria - stability in the region, not having extremists creating problems throughout the region and elsewhere,' Kerry told Putin.
'We have both embraced in the Geneva communiqué a common approach, so it's my hope that today we'll be able to dig in to that a little bit and see if we can find common ground.'
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2013 13:00 ||
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Well, Well, Well, somebody ELSE thinks Kerry's a worthless piece of shit.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/08/2013 13:50 Comments ||
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Putin may think Kerry is French and blames him for the Napoleonic problems.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/08/2013 18:01 Comments ||
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After reading the KGB files on John Kerry, it probably took Putin three hours to compose himself from the laughing fit.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Washington Post] Nothing Gov. 
[CintiEnquirer] Three more people were charged today with voter fraud related to voting in Hamilton County in the 2012 presidential election, bring the total charged to six.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was looking to strengthen ties with Russia as he tries to put an end to the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but instead he was met with the coldest of receptions.
