Welcome to the Utopia Forums! Register a new account
The current time is Thu Mar 28 13:52:42 2024

Utopia Talk / Politics / Are we too retarded for Democracy?
Daemon
Member
Fri Nov 13 07:30:47
http://www...e-plants-funded-by-dark-money/

Evidence suggests several state Senate candidates were plants funded by dark money




MIAMI – Why would candidates for Florida Senate seats do no campaigning, no fundraising, have no issue platforms, nor make any effort to get votes?

Local 10 News has found evidence to suggest three such candidates in three Florida Senate district races, two of them in Miami Dade County, were shill candidates whose presence in the races were meant to syphon votes from Democratic candidates.

Comparisons of the no-party candidates' public campaign records show similarities and connections that suggest they are all linked by funding from the same dark money donors, and part of an elaborate scheme to upset voting patterns.

In one of those races, District 37, a recount is underway because the spread between the Democratic and Republican candidates is only 31 votes. The third party candidate received more than 6300 votes.

That third party candidate is Alexis Rodriguez, who has the same last name as the Democratic incumbent senator Jose Javier Rodriguez. The Republican challenger is Ileana Garcia.

Alexis Rodriguez falsified his address on his campaign filing form last June. The couple who now live at the Palmetto Bay address say they have been repeatedly harassed since then by people looking for Rodriguez, who hadn’t lived there in five years.

Local 10 visited Rodriguez’s place of business Tuesday, where Rodriguez lied about his identity. Pretending to be a business partner, Rodriguez shed little light on his sudden candidacy in the District 37 race and lack of fundraising or campaigning.

Local 10 began investigating Rodriguez’s candidacy because of a hunch by Executive Producer Natalie Morera de Varona last month. She was collecting candidates' headshots for election broadcast graphics and was curious why a candidate was nowhere to be found, not returning phone calls.

A search of campaign documents filed by Rodriguez led to a money trail and campaign finance connections with other no-party third candidates in Florida Senate District 9 in Central Florida, and District 39 in Miami-Dade.

The District 39 candidate is 81-year-old Celso Alfonso, a retiree who named the woman he calls his wife as campaign treasurer. She owns a day spa, and the home where we found Alfonso Tuesday afternoon.

He, too, lied about his identity at first, and finally admitted to being the candidate.

Alfonso claimed he had a lifelong dream to be in public service. He said he filed on his own, that no one assisted him.

A comparison of candidates Alfonso and Rodriguez show unusual similarities.

Both filed as No Party Affiliated candidates, yet both had recently been registered Republicans.

Both qualified as candidate on the same day, June 12, 2020, by paying a qualifying fee.

Both listed Gmail addresses with identical patterns: first initial, last name and district number and 2020.

Both list one single contribution to their campaign; both contributions are $2000 self-loans, presumably to pay the filing fee.

Both candidates' support appears to come from the same Political Action Committee, “Our Florida” - that have no previous political contributions or expenditures listed. It is the PAC that paid for campaign fliers for the candidates, all done by the same Clermont, Florida mail house, Advance Impressions.

Celso Alfonso gave conflicting answers about campaign fliers, first claiming there were none, then claiming his own campaign paid for them, though that expenditure is not listed in his campaign finance report. An unlisted campaign expenditure could be a campaign finance violation.

That $370,000 PAC expenditure to the printing house on Oct. 5 is the sole expenditure of “Our Florida”. And the PAC’s only contributor is an entity called Proclivity, whose $370,000 contribution is listed two days earlier.

Proclivity lists an address that traces back to a mailbox in a UPS Store in Atlanta.

Florida law allows the group to keep people behind its money private.

Local 10 News could not locate any businesses registered in Florida or Georgia under the name Proclivity.

The end of the money trail leaves no information on who is ultimately funding at least three candidates for Florida Senate who did no campaigning and no fundraising, whose presence in the race might have recalculated the number of voters who cast votes for the Democrats in the race.

Alex Rodriguez received 3% of the D37 vote, more than 6300 votes. The race, currently in recount, has a margin of .02 between the Democrat incumbent and Republican challenger.

The race for D39 was decided by 12.3 percent, a large enough margin to make Celso Alfonso’s 1.5 percent of the vote moot.


Paramount
Member
Fri Nov 13 08:36:42
Republicans are such cheaters. Vile evil demons. Enemies of democracy and decency.
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 08:56:06
What there is cheating? Even if what is alleged is true, its all very legal.

Shady? Yes.

More shady than the DNC banning the green party? No. It would almost be equal, except that the DNC literally just made shit up in court to get the greens kicked off the ballot and strictly on party lines were they voted off. Further more the situation in PA was because the candidate didnt go in person to file, did so by fax.

So when it benefits them ( mail in votes) they dont want people to go in person. But if it could cause competition they insist people go in person to spread the virus.

Further more the greens filed with plenty of time to be told this and fix the situation, but were not.told until much later, to where they were.told they didnt have enough time to re make tue ballots.
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 08:57:52
Also, if these people.on the ballots did nothing to try and garner votes, then what is the problem?

Plenty of small time politicians do that. Look.at the case in SC I think his name was Green. He lived in his parents house, did zero campaigning and fucking won!
Daemon
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:02:43
"Shady? Yes."

So do you support something like this or not?

FYI: the greens are not the topic of this thread.
Dakyron
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:04:55
Is this shadier than the Dems trying to disqualify Jill Stein and Green party from being on the ballot?
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:14:40
Daemon, Do I support what is alleged? No, if these people were paid off to siphon votes, that is wrong.

If they did it themselves, thats fine, I mean anyone can run. Look at the case of Am green.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/politics/12greene.html

Was what this guy did wrong?
Daemon
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:23:12
"Daemon, Do I support what is alleged? No, if these people were paid off to siphon votes, that is wrong."

Then we do agree.

Also note the thread title: my concern is that such tactics work and can change the outcome of an election.
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:29:11
On that we do agree. This definitley should be investigated thoroughly.
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:30:14
Daemon, Would you also admit that the DNC pushed by Hillary to ban the green party in swing states is also wrong?
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:30:14
Daemon, Would you also admit that the DNC pushed by Hillary to ban the green party in swing states is also wrong?
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:30:52
For fairness the RNC tried to do it with the Libertarians in TX.Which is also wrong.
Rugian
Member
Fri Nov 13 09:53:32
"Why would candidates...do no campaigning, no fundraising, have no issue platforms, nor make any effort to get votes?"

Sounds like Joe Biden's campaign.
Dakyron
Member
Fri Nov 13 10:16:49
http://www...ptember-fundraising/index.html


Hrothgar
Member
Fri Nov 13 11:52:23
Integrity matters to long term stability. And playing grey area "technically legal" games leads to a nation that is the flaming dumpster of leadership the US is currently in.

Treating democracy like a sort of Game of thrones where anything goes as long as a party doesn't get caught destroys trust in the system. And without trust in the system, there is no democracy.

Only political games and conspiracy culture arm waving endlessly. Unable to take hold of truth and facts required to keep culture shifts stable over time. Unable to respond to unforeseen problems effectively.

chuck
Member
Fri Nov 13 12:10:57
^ +1

Nobody thinks about what they'll do once they win the race to the bottom.
habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 12:13:42
Hrothgar, I agree that something can be technically legal and still be flat out wrong.

What I reject is this idea that it's one sided Unfortunatley the mainstream media is as corrupt as politicians, probably more so.
Forwyn
Member
Fri Nov 13 13:54:03
Another point for poll testing.

But jerguls want retards voting.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Nov 13 14:35:49
Yes.
Dakyron
Member
Fri Nov 13 14:39:06
Real question...

If forced to choose, would you want some inner city high school dropout with 8 kids and no job or some rural area redneck former high school football standout who smokes meth and has 8 kids with no job, choosing the next president?

sam adams
Member
Fri Nov 13 14:55:27
It looks like unlimited suffrage is a bad idea. Government appears to be most stable and most effective when the vote is limitted to citizens in good standing.
habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 14:58:04
Real question...

If forced to choose, would you want some inner city high school dropout with 8 kids and no job who smokes crack or some rural area redneck former high school football standout who smokes meth and has 8 kids with no job, choosing the next president?

So crackhead or methhead, thats your choices Amurica.
Forwyn
Member
Fri Nov 13 16:28:33
"Real question..."

Whoever passes the poll test. Nothing insanely difficult. A basic civics quiz, perhaps some modern events.

After this requirement is established, feel free to make it as easy to vote as possible - vote online, for all I care.
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 16:34:24
It does seem silly that we have a naturalization test but not a test to vote.
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Fri Nov 13 16:55:27
Tommy Tuberville (football coach now Senator) thinks the 3 branches of gov't are "the House, the Senate and executive" & that WW2 was about freeing Europe from socialism
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 17:05:01
It should have been waged against socialism.But FDR was a pinko warmonger.
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 17:10:09
Tommy can represent the meth smoking football coach.

“I held an AR-15 in my hand, I wish I hadn’t. It is as heavy as 10 boxes that you might be moving. And the bullet that is utilized, a .50 caliber, these kinds of bullets need to be licensed and do not need to be on the street.” - Rep.
@JacksonLeeTX18

This can be the inner city crack head.
kargen
Member
Fri Nov 13 18:00:11
So sounds like President Trump is correct in saying this election needs to be scrutinized and all votes carefully checked so that all legal votes are counted and illegal votes are not. All kinds of shenanigans going on.
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Fri Nov 13 18:44:40
where is he saying that
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Fri Nov 13 18:47:21
& as to "All kinds of shenanigans going on"... are any of the endangered species Fox News 'news' shows saying that?

or all just the entertainment/opinion shows?
habebe
Member
Fri Nov 13 19:30:45
TW, When I say Shenanigans . it doesn't come from Fox news which I dont even get. afaik the other shows are not even mentioning most of the issues I'm talking about.

To be clear Im talking about actions that many politicians and series are either actively doing or are complicit in that are both legal and illegal but at the very least are immoral and negatively impact our elections.


So it's rather broad.Such as.but not limited to.

1. Gerrymandering
2. Controlling who gets on the ballot.

3. Rigged Primaries.
4. Fucking with mail delivery.
5. Ballot harvesting.
6. voter suppression efforts.
7. Fake candidates.

Technically all of those things can be legal. Doesn't mean they are not fucked up and are big reasons why there is so much mistrust.
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Fri Nov 13 21:10:48
I was quoting kargen actually, who seems to be swimming in the frauds delusions
kargen
Member
Fri Nov 13 22:06:53
Didn't get mine from FOX News either so there ya have it...
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Fri Nov 13 22:16:09
did you follow your leader's advice to Newsmax or OANN?
kargen
Member
Sat Nov 14 01:08:30
That is three strikes. Back to the dugout for you.

I know you need talking heads to give you your truths. Some of us do not.
tumbleweed
the wanderer
Sat Nov 14 01:24:21
please enlighten us with your truths
show deleted posts

Your Name:
Your Password:
Your Message:
Bookmark and Share