Politics Blog

Moving from the “financial services industry” into politics is not a good idea especially when the company that you own and are touting has a track record likethis: LINK HERE

I wonder how long it will take to find the many investors who lost their “life savings” in vFinance, Inc?

I did see that Tim Mahoney (D) was against individual social security accounts. With a track record like his publicly traded company, I do not blame him.

Plus, it is a very fun exercise to google vFinance and lawsuit……

UPDATE:The best part of this is that all that shareholder value was lost while Clinton was President!!! This company went public in March 2000 at $7.00 a share. In one year, Tim Mahoney (D) lost $300,000,000 of shareholder value for the stockholders. This chart from Yahoo Finance will sink this guys campaign. Please help spread the news.

— Oak Leaf

Leaders end session a week early so they can go home and campaign to be re-elected just to come back and do nothing for another 2 years:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaving behind a pile of unfinished work, members of the scandal-rocked U.S. Congress adjourned and went home on Saturday to ask voters to re-elect them in five weeks.

With polls showing President George W. Bush’s fellow Republicans could lose control of Congress in the November 7 contests, their leaders even decided to depart a week early to give members more time to campaign.

“It’s been a ghastly congressional session, particularly the last year,” said Stephen Hess, a congressional scholar the Brookings Institution. “They figure the best thing to do is get out of town. They aren’t doing anything here.”

Congress has been dogged by low approval ratings, huge federal deficits, the increasingly unpopular Iraq war and a string of scandals. At the top of the list was the departure of indicted former House of Representatives Republican leader Tom DeLay of Texas and an investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who, according to a congressional report this week, had frequent contact with the White House.

— ‘The Commish’ A.J. Sparxx

But a Muslim student gets to wear her Islamic attire in gym class, while everyone else has to follow the dress code rules:

CNSNews.com) - A Muslim ninth-grader in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington will be allowed to wear Islamic attire in gym class, thanks to the intervention of an Islamic civil rights group. The Maryland and Virginia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it intervened after the gym teacher warned the girl she would flunk the class if she didn’t dress out in the nylon shorts that other students are required to wear. According to CAIR-MD/VA, the teacher allegedly told the girl that the law required her to wear shorts. The student’s family contacted CAIR-MD/VA for assistance, and following CAIR’s discussions with school officials, the student was moved to a different gym class and will be allowed to dress in attire that meets her religious needs, the group said.

Here comes the “sensitivity training” card:

CAIR-MD/VA said it will conduct “diversity training for some of the school’s newer staff.” CAIR-MD/VA has also plans to visit other middle schools and high schools - “to review their policies for accommodating the religious needs of Muslim students during Ramadan, Eid and throughout the school year.”

You know what happens when you keep bending over backwards for someone?, you snap, and that is exactly what is happening to our society. We are about to bend and break.

— ‘The Commish’ A.J. Sparxx

Nice job, Ahnold:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday vetoed a bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses, saying the state should wait for federal regulations designed to combat terrorism.

Schwarzenegger said his administration was working with federal officials to develop the federal guidelines for the REAL ID Act of 2001, and to get money to help the state pay to comply with them.

The bill’s author, Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, said his legislation complies with the federal law, although he acknowledged it goes beyond what federal law requires.

His bill would provide for security measures and a special mark showing that the license is held by an illegal immigrant.

A 1993 law bars the state from issuing licenses to drivers who cannot prove they are in the country legally.

— ‘The Commish’ A.J. Sparxx

But a Rhode Island gay couple can marry in Massachusetts:

A gay couple from Rhode Island has the right to marry in Massachusetts because laws in their home state do not expressly prohibit same-sex marriage, a judge ruled Friday.

Wendy Becker and Mary Norton of Providence argued that a 1913 law that forbids out-of-state residents from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be permitted in their home state did not apply to them because Rhode Island does not specifically ban gay marriage.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Connolly agreed.

“No evidence was introduced before this court of a constitutional amendment, statute, or controlling appellate decision from Rhode Island that explicitly deems void or otherwise expressly forbids same-sex marriage,” he ruled.

— ‘The Commish’ A.J. Sparxx

But a Dad can teach his 13 yr old daughter about polygamy:

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A father may teach his young daughter about his religious belief in polygamy despite his ex-wife’s objections, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Thursday.
The 5-1 decision by the state’s highest court said Stanley M. Shepp, whose Mormon fundamentalist beliefs endorse polygamy, has a constitutional right to express his beliefs about plural marriages and multiple wives even though bigamy is illegal.

“Where, as in the instant matter, there is no finding that discussing such matters constitutes a grave threat of harm to the child, there is insufficient basis for the court to infringe on a parent’s constitutionally protected right to speak to a child about religion as he or she sees fit,” Justice Sandra Schultz Newman wrote.

— ‘The Commish’ A.J. Sparxx

Right now, the Republican Party in Florida is working to determine who will go against the “token democrat” who is running in Florida-16. Yes, Mahoney is/was the “token Democrat” put in that race.

According to The Corner, the Mahoney Campaign has $226,000 of debts and only $343,755 of cash. So the Republican nominee will be starting off “no worse off” than the Democrat.

Here is some background on this token Democrats business from his website:

Tim Mahoney is the co-founder, Chairman and COO of vFinance, Inc and the founder and President of The Center for Innovative Entrepreneurship. Since its inception five years ago, vFinance has grown to become a $26 million provider of financial services in the Retail Brokerage, Investment Banking and Institutional Service businesses. The company manages in excess of $1 billion of client assets and has over 200 employees located in more than 30 offices nationwide.

Tim has over 25 years of experience in the computing and financial service industries. He was a pioneer in the personal computer business where he is regarded as an expert in the commercialization of technology, its production and mass distribution on a global basis.

My initial observation is that there was probably little opposition research performed on him because he was a long shot to begin with. That said, in todays environmentit is impossible to be in the “financial services industry” without a whole lot of litigation against you. I am confident that NASD records along with court filings and there will be a wide assortment of intersting reading.

I have seen refernces that he was a “former Republican.” This may have an effect on the race as well with respect to the leftnuts providing support.

It is very important that the local republicans in Florida quickly unite around a single candidate and present a united front. It appears that is happening and we have a solid nominee in waiting:

“Joe Negron has lined up a lot of support,” agreed state Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter. Domino said he probably would not run, but wouldn’t decide until today.

Negron said he has about $1 million in his bank account from his race for attorney general. He dropped out of the race in July after concluding that he could not beat former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum in the GOP primary.

Negron would not be allowed to transfer that money into a federal race. But he would have a strong potential contributor base for a campaign in which the Republican candidate will need to raise money quickly.

Earlier, I wrote “(URGENT) Foley CAN Be Removed From The Ballot” in which it appears that Governor Jeb Bush can thread the needle on this and push for a “special primary election” in an effort to get Foleys name removed from the ballot. This is very important for two reasons. First, it will generate tremendous local media coverage that “Foley does not belong on the ballot” and “__________ is the Republican nominee.” This will end up in Leon County Circuit Court which tends to interpret election law liberaly. The Republican Party can offer to pay for the printing of new ballots, though there a very few to be printed because of electronic voting. Further, existing election law already allows, and in fact requires, that the new nominee gets the votes of the old nominee which covers the overseas ballots that may have been sent out.

— Oak Leaf

This is an interesting article about “progressive” efforts to develop new messaging and electoral strategies. However, I enjoyed this part the most:

Asurprise guest at the meeting wasBill Clinton, whose agenda seemed to be protecting his wife. But things didn’t work out quite as planned. When Guy Saperstein, a retired lawyer from Oakland, asked Clinton if Democrats who supported the war should apologize, the former President “went fucking ballistic,” according to Saperstein. Forget Hillary, Clinton said angrily during a ten-minute rant; if I was in Congress I would’ve voted for the war. “It was an extraordinary display of anger and imperiousness,” Saperstein says.

The willingness to challenge Clinton at least temporarily reassured progressive Democrats that partners in the Alliance had a spine and wouldn’t be a front group for “Hillary ‘08.” But Clinton’s response was a not-so-subtle warning to partners to avoid divisive issues, like the war, that might harm his wife in the next presidential election. Hillary herself has had a number of one-on-one sit-downs with members of the board, as has Howard Dean.

Oh, and note how Democrats are truly the party of the rich.

— The Ace

From this morning’s San Francisco Chronic, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein say (I’m paraphrasing): “The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Produce rotting in the field! $5 for a stalk of broccoli! Mass starvation! We are doomed!”

The truth? Low-paid illegal work force has little impact on prices.

You might assume that the plentiful supply of low-wage illegal workers would translate into significantly lower prices for the goods and services they produce. In fact, their impact on consumer prices — call it the “illegal-worker discount” — is surprisingly small.

The bag of Washington state apples you bought last weekend? Probably a few cents cheaper than it otherwise would have been, economists estimate. That steak dinner at a downtown restaurant? Maybe a buck off. Your new house in Subdivision Estates? Hard to say, but perhaps a few thousand dollars less expensive.

The underlying reason, economists say, is that for most goods the labor — whether legal or illegal, native- or foreign-born — represents only a sliver of the retail price.

Feinstein’s numbers are laughable. $5 broccoli? Instead of hiring illegal aliens at $5 an hour, let’s say you had to hire American teenagers at $10 an hour –or workers from Manpower at $15 per hour. You’re telling me they’ll only be able to pick 3 or 4 heads of broccoli in an hour? American workers might be slow, but that’s a joke!

— W.C. Varones

Latest VA poll from SUSA:

In an election for the United States Senate in Virginia today, 9/29/06, incumbent Republican George Allen maintains an advantage over Democrat challenger James Webb, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WUSA-TV Washington DC and WDBJ-TV Roanoke. In a 3-day rolling average of interviews conducted Tuesday 9/26/06 through Thursday 9/28/06, Allen leads Webb, 50% to 44%. On 9/27/06, SurveyUSA released poll results based on interviews conducted Sunday 9/24/06 through Tuesday 9/26/06, which showed Allen ahead 49% to 44%. Day-to-day volatility remains very high. The 6-point Allen lead in today’s results may change - but it appears as likely to change in one direction as the other.

— PoliPundit