There's something fishy in South Carolina

[Keith Millea]

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/06/10-1
06.10.10 - 2:03 PM
"I Have A Beep," But, Like, Whoah, Maybe You Better Not Answer It...?

by Abby Zimet

Greene with a copy of the "campaign check" he offered to officials
A remarkable, uh, conversation with Alvin Greene, the new Democratic "nominee" for the Senate who it turns out is also facing a federal obscenity charge. Has it come to this? Nope, it couldn't. This is a plant or a joke or a script for a new Monty Python movie, right?

"I'm the Democratic Party nominee. I mean, I mean, the people have spoken. The people of South Carolina have spoken. The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina. The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina."

[Keith Millea]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.co...didate.php
Clyburn Alleges Conspiracy To Plant Candidates In Three Dem Primaries In S.C.

Christina Bellantoni | June 10, 2010, 1:06PM




Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn has called for a U.S. Attorney investigation into the mysterious candidacy of Democratic Senate nominee Alvin Greene because he thinks the mischief goes far beyond one wacky race. Clyburn (D-SC), Congress' highest ranking African American, told TPM in an interview today he believes at least two other Democratic candidates on Tuesday's primary ballot were planted by people with deep pockets and nefarious motives.




"The party's choice in the 1st Congressional district lost. The party's choice for U.S. Senate lost. Sounds like a pattern to me," Clyburn told TPM. He said Greene was one of three Democratic candidates in three separate races whom the state party didn't back or even recognize. All three candidates are African American.

One is Gregory Brown, who ran unsuccessfully against Clyburn in the 6th Congressional district. Another is Ben Frasier, who prevailed against state party-favored candidate Robert Burton in the 1st district. Greene, Brown and Frasier have something else in common -- they haven't filed any campaign finance reports with the Federal Elections Commission.

Brown announced his candidacy against Clyburn on Facebook in October, saying he is "concerned about the plight of our District and specifically the areas of health, education, and economics." His Web site uses the state Democratic party's address and no contact information. Brown did not immediately return a call to a company he's listed as working for in a local press account. The Times and Democrat reported he is president of Keystone Enterprise Inc.

Unlike Greene, who appears to have mounted no campaign at all, Brown actually mustered a campaign, according to Clyburn. Brown paid his filing fee, ran television ads on the most expensive station in the district and put his campaign slogan on billboards and yard signs, Clyburn tells TPM.

"Somebody paid for all that, yet he showed not one dime in contributions. He spent $300,000 if he spent a penny," Clyburn said. Brown only earned 5,500 votes, losing to Clyburn who won 90% of the vote.

In the third race that Clyburn calls suspicious, the 1st Congressional District, Frasier won even though the establishment-favored candidate, Robert Burton, raised and spent $100,000. Frasier's campaign didn't file any details about his spending with the FEC. But he's far from a first-time candidate, having run nearly three dozen times -- and losing -- for elected office. Frasier has run as a candidate for both parties, and has even been accused of being a Republican plant and not qualified to be a candidate in the past, according to local press accounts.

Frasier doesn't have a campaign Website or Facebook page we could find, but Frasier beat Burton by about 2,200 votes or 56%-44%. I spoke with Burton campaign manager Ann Beser this morning and told her about Clyburn's accusation that Frasier is a plant. She agreed it's possible, saying, "There is something radically wrong."

Beser said that since election night the Burton campaign has been doing precinct tallies and has seen numbers that far surpass what turnout had expected to be, including all-white precincts where Greene beat Senate candidate Victor Rawl and Frasier beat Burton. Both Rawl and Burton are white. "None of it makes sense," she said.
Attempts to locate Frasier or a representative of his campaign were not immediately successful.

This morning Clyburn told radio host Bill Press he considers Greene a "plant" and he called for the U.S. Attorney to look into potential charges as to how an unemployed man paid $10,000 to be placed on the ballot and then came out of nowhere to win.

"All the Democrats I know were pushing for Victor Rawl," Clyburn said in our interview. "No Democrat I know ever heard of Alvin Greene."

Additional reporting by Lucy Madison

[Ed Jewett]

Picked to Lose: The Alvin Greene Story

Posted on June 10, 2010 by willyloman
by Scott Creighton
(UPDATE at the end of the article…)
He had no buttons, no posters, not even a campaign slogan. He never even ran an ad in his $10,400 bid for the U.S. Senate Democratic primary race in South Carolina and yet he claims that the 60% of the vote he got was certainly “not by chance”.
How Obvious can it Be?

That is the ONLY honest thing Alvin Greene has said publicly so far since his victory. In the electronic voting world of South Carolina, Alvin Greene certainly did not win “by chance”
Alvin Greene claims he paid the $10,400 filing fee “out of his own pocket”; he’s been unemployed for 9 months (after they kicked him out of the military), living with his parents in his father’s home, and he refused to tell an ABC reporter in an interview whether or not he filed to run as a democrat before or after his felony charge in Nov. of last year.
Before he was dismissed by the military in August of last year, Alvin Greene had worked as an “intelligence specialist” for the Air Force. The Air Force has at least one PSYOPS program but Greene has not yet commented on what exactly he did during his 13 year career with the military.
Now if you go to the ABC News article which also has the video interview of Greene in his home, wearing sweat-pants (hmmmm), you can see him babbling about like a mental patient, hunched over when he walks, holding his hands together like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
One thing is clear though… he’s acting. It’s obvious that he is acting because he is not very good at it. Even Jan mentioned when she saw it that he was “putting on”… that it was an act.
I trained as an actor for over 10 years in various schools, worked professionally as a stage actor, directed several plays, even worked on a few films and TV shows in various other capacities… so I know acting when I see it, especially bad acting from someone who has been coached. Alvin Greene has been coached.
His sweat-pants and his tee-shirt were his costume, his hunched over walk is part of his physicality, his parents house and baby picture is the set and props. The idea is to make people not want to vote for him, to make him look like the biggest loser on the planet. No man acting like that idiot gets a career working in the Air Force as an intelligence specialist. It’s PSYOPS people… and it’s pretty obvious.
Remember this?
another planned loser

Go to the ABC site and watch the interview. Tell me what you think. Is he acting? Is he a bad actor? Has he been coached?
He is refusing to step aside on the grounds that the people of South Carolina “have spoken”… even though no one knew who he was prior to the electronic voting machine hack. Now he wants a debate and some money from the national and state level Democratic Party… and they will give it to him. Last thing the Democrats need right now is to appear like they don’t support a minority candidate.
Alvin will get his money, he will get his debate, he will make himself look like an idiot, and all the while a decent candidate who stood against the neoliberal agenda is sitting at home wondering how this all happened.
When it is all over and Alvin has helped hand Jim DeMint his seat in the senate, Alvin will get a book deal (ghost written of course), he will get some speaking engagements (well paid of course), and then he will quietly take a job working for Lockheed Martin or some other Air Force defense contractor and will sit back and laugh about the whole thing. It is quite funny when you think about it, isn’t it? What a circus this whole thing has become and how desperate people are to thing their vote really “counts”…
UPDATE:
Well, look at that. I am not the only one calling Alvin Greene an obvious “plant”.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) is suggesting that the circumstances of Alvin Greene’s victory in the South Carolina Democratic Senate primary Tuesday are suspicious and should be investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
… “There were some real shenanigans going on in the South Carolina primary,” Clyburn said this morning on the liberal Bill Press radio show, the Hill notes. “I don’t know if he was a Republican plant; he was someone’s plant.”
Clyburn said the U.S. Attorney’s office should investigate whether a third party gave Greene the money for the $10,400 filing fee, a violation of federal campaign finance laws.
“I would hope the U.S. Attorney down there would look at this,” Clyburn said. “Somebody gave him that $10,000 and he who took it should be investigated, and he who gave it should be investigated.” CBS News

He’s a neoliberal plant, Rep. Clyburn. He’s there to keep a real democrat from taking office in the senate. His $10,000 was probably paid for by Rahm Emanuel or Hillary Clinton. But good for you for calling this out in the national press. Good for you.


#####


Picked to Lose 2: Alvin “Forrest Gump” Greene Goes to Washington

Posted on June 10, 2010 by willyloman
by Scott Creighton
You gotta see this. Apparently Alvin Greene filed as an indigent in South Carolina in order to get a public defender while he had $10,400 is his pocket just burning a hole to plop down for a shot at the United States Senate.

“So how did you win?”
“Got my message out to the people. Hard work.”
“Really? Like what? You had no campaign events, no advertising, no posters… how did you get your message out to the people?”
“You know. Old fashioned campaigning”
“Really? Where did you go? Who did you meet? Who did you talk to?”
(pause) “… all over the state…” (pause)

Does the phrase “shifty eyed” mean anything to you? That’s the question I would have asked him.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYtnrvn9x...r_embedded

[Austin Kelley]

Sex and Silliness in South Carolina

June 13, 2010

By Tom Turnipseed


In the most stunning upset in South Carolina’s sordid political history, Alvin Greene, unknown and unemployed, defeated Vic Rawl, former judge, legislator, and county council member, by a 59 to 41 percent margin to win the Democratic nomination for US Senate. The mysterious Greene will face Republican incumbent Jim DeMint, an ultraconservative tea-bagger, in November. The state Democratic Party has asked Greene to withdraw from the race because he faces a felony obscenity charge. Greene was recently charged with disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity. Police say he showed obscene photos to a University of South Carolina student. He has been appointed a public defender which requires proof of being an indigent. The 32-year-old unemployed veteran haltingly insisted he was a democrat and would not withdraw as he discussed his curious campaign with Keith Olbermann, but had “no comment” on the criminal charge.

The mysterious Mr. Greene told reporters he was the “real deal” and would “make a difference”, “I knew I could win if I worked hard, just like I knew I could win in November if I work hard, and we can get South Carolina back to work.” “I can beat DeMint.” “Education, better education for our children, jobs and justice in the judicial system are my issues.”

Greene recently got out of the Army, and lives at his dad’s home in rural Clarendon County. He presented a $10,400 personal check to the Democratic Party headquarters for his filing fee but was told it had to come from a campaign account. He left and came back soon with a check that was accepted. Greene said he got the money by saving it up in the service.

He had no campaign signs, website, or media ads and didn’t attend the South Carolina Democratic Party convention in April.

SC Congressman Jim Clyburn said it was “shenanigans” and that Greene must have been “planted” and financed by those who opposed Rawl and supported DeMint. Former Democratic Chairperson Dick Harpootlian told NPR that the alphabetical placement of Greene above Rawl on the ballot could be the reason for the unbelievable upset and also mentioned the extremely low quality of life of poor and working class people in South Carolina.

In the South Carolina Republican Gubernatorial primary contest a week before the June 8th vote, State Senator Jake Knotts of Lexington County called Representative. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American candidate, a “raghead” Knotts said Haley was hiding her true religion from voters. “She’s a f…king raghead,” Knotts said. He later clarified his statement, saying he did not mean to use the F word. Haley led the ticket in the Republican Primary, 49% to 23% for Congressman Gresham Barrett the 2nd place finisher. Haley and Barrett are competing in a June 28 runoff.

Knotts is a likable former cop. He’s a friendly caricature of a Southern Sheriff like Rod Steiger’s portrayal of Sheriff Gillespie in The Heat of the Night. Knotts told Corey Hutchins of Free Times of Columbia that Haley was set up to run for governor by a network of Sikhs and outside influences in foreign countries. Knotts said Haley is ashamed of her religion and is hiding behind being a Methodist. “South Carolina is a religious community. We need a good Christian to be our governor,” he said. “She’s hiding her religion. She ought to be proud of it. I’m proud of my god.”

Knotts says he believes Haley’s father has sent letters to India saying that Haley is the first Sikh running for high office in America. He says her father walks around Lexington, SC wearing a turban. “We’re at war over there,” Knotts said. He said he did not mean the United States was at war with India, but was at war with “foreign countries. “We got a raghead in Washington; we don’t need one in South Carolina,” he said, referring to President Obama, whose father was a Muslim from Africa. Knotts has rejected the Republican Executive Committee of Lexington County’s request that he resign, saying that libertarians were taking over the party.

Recently, political blogger Will Folks said he’d had an intimate relationship with Haley in early 2007. Folks is a former campaign staffer for Governor Mark Sanford, who is a Haley supporter. On June 2, Larry Marchant, a prominent lobbyist said he had sex with Haley while they were both married. Haley has denied any sexual infidelity, and volunteered to resign if the charges were proven to be true after she becomes Governor.

Political nuttiness is nothing new in South Carolina: In 1858, US Congressman Preston Brooks "caned" abolitionist US Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, crippling him for life; when South Carolina seceded from the Union in 1860, James L. Petigru famously remarked, "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum”; Strom Thurmond impregnated his family's 15 year old black maid and sent his daughter up north to hide her away; in 2009, Congressman Joe Wilson shouted, "you lie" at President Obama who was addressing a joint session of the US Congress; and in 2009, Governor Mark Sanford told us he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while he was in Argentina shacking up with his "soul mate".

Sex and silliness, mystery and meanness, South Carolina politics is a never-ending mess.



Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer and peace activist in Columbia, SC. His blog is http://tomandjudyonablog.blogspot.com

From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/sex-and-s...turnipseed