I’m sitting here thinking, “This just can’t be.”

In today’s R-Rated Whistleblower I was reminded that we’re at Day 108 (1st paragraph) of the “Schmidt Illegally Campaigning from Her Congressional Office” watch.

To be more specific, we’re at Day 108 of an exhausting litany of New and Old Media failures to report this story of utmost importance (excuse the nicknames, they’re not mine):

Huggable Howard (Wilkinson), Hawaiian Hottie Malia Rulon, Jon Craig, and Carl Weiser at the Fishwrap; Liberal Lapdog AP writers David Hammer and Terry Kinney; Cleveland P(l)ain Dealer Newshawk Bill Sloat; ComPosters Michael Collins, Dan Hassert, Kevin Eigelbach, and Robert White; BizzyBlogger Tom Blumer; Left-wing Blogger Chris Baker; Schmidt cheerleaders Melanie Laughman, Susan McHugh, Michelle Shaw and Liz Carey at the Community Press; WLW Hate Radio trash-talker Bill Cunningham; Schmidt apologists at the Chillicothe Gazette; Associate Editor Wade Linville at the Georgetown News DemocRAT; Steve Carraway at C-103 Radio in Adams County; Wayne Boblit at the Brown County Press; Reporter Van Rose and Editorial Excellence Committee Coordinator Jennifer M. Cooper at the mighty News Watchman in Waverly, Ohio; Bill Lange at the Peoples Defender in Adams County; Larry Budd Melman at the Dayton Daily News; Clifton Forrest at the Portsmouth Times; TV 19’s Trish the Dish; Channel 9 News Trollop Laure “Not So” Cleanlivin; Somebody from TV 64 before they go out of the local news business; USA Today; anybody at the left-wing Dayton Daily News; Sean Hannity; and whoever in hell is supposed to be covering this race from The Hill newspaper in DC.

So as I was saying, I had to have dozed off early this evening.

I dreamed that I visited an office building north of The Red Lobster near the intersection of Montgomery and Galbraith Roads, in the 8200 block of Montgomery Road, went to an office on the 2nd floor in that building, and saw that it was the place for the “Jean Schmidt for Congress Campaign.”

As the dream continued, I was let inside the office and met three people: Representative Michelle Schneider (who said she had never heard of BizzyBlog — further evidence that this was indeed a dream) and campaign workers Alex and Mark. I walked in as they were making phone calls, presumably to Second District constituents urging them to vote for Jean Schmidt on May 2.

The dream proceeded as either Mark or Alex told me that some people believe I’m coordinating my blog entries with Schmidt campaign efforts — further evidence that SOMEBODY is dreaming, or that someone else besides me wrote these posts:

• October 28, 2005 — Memo to Jean Schmidt and the Rest of Congress: On Economics, Ethanol Is a Loser.
• November 29 — Cleaning Up Some of the Schm…. er, Clutter (go to last half of post).
• April 8 — Team McEwen Has Not Been Interested in Dealing with “Issues”–Including the Most Important One (primarily critical of Bob McEwen, but strongly criticizes Schmidt and the rest of the local congressional delegation for restricting free speech by tightening rules for so-called 527 groups).

Back to the original dream, though. I spoke with one of the building’s maintenance people, who believed the campaign had been there maybe a couple of months, which would make sense because there can’t be an active campaign until there is a challenger, and there wasn’t officially a challenger (and hence no need for a campaign) until about February 14, when Schmidt’s first challenger officially filed.

Just before I woke up, I imagined that I had reviewed my e-mail inbox for a response on this matter, and found this e-mail from a Schmidt campaign person dated February 16:

As far as the campaign using the congressional office. This is not happening. A chief of staff is allowed to take calls from reporters on his personal phone and respond. In fact a chief of staff can also be the campaign manager…. Jean’s chief of staff is not our campaign manager, but he gets calls from reporters asking both congressional and campaign questions and he responds. Any calls he makes campaign oriented is on his own time outside of the congressional office. Again everything is totally above board.

Then I woke up, and here I am.

But it had to be a dream. None of the items described above could possibly have happened.

The R-Rated Whistleblower has been reporting for 108 days that Jean Schmidt is operating her congressional campaign out of her congressional office in The Clear Channel Building at 8044 Montgomery Road.

And the R-Rated Whistleblower is never wrong. Right?

Here is the Election Countdown Counter at Mike DeWine’s campaign site as it appeared on Saturday, April 15 (go to bottom of page; it says 203 today):

It’s one thing, if you’re Mike DeWine, to be looking forward to the general election on November 7.

It’s another to be so confident of a primary victory that you use a clock that counts down to the general election.

But it’s beyond belief, after getting your clock cleaned (so to speak) three out of five times in ballot-based county endorsement meetings (eking out one tie and one win), to not even acknowledge that there’s a Primary Election taking place on May 2.

(On the bright side, maybe his supporters will forget there IS a primary on May 2.)

What do you say we stop Mike DeWine’s clock dead in its tracks at 189?

Tell your friends and family — There’s a genuine conservative, citizen-legislator alternative. He’s Bill Pierce. His web site is here. His blog is here. Contribute here.

Vote for Bill Pierce on May 2.

On Primary Election Day, let’s have Bill Pierce take over custody of that November election clock.
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Note: I have endorsed Bill Pierce for Senate, and have provided nominal financial support for his campaign. BizzyBlog is a member of Blogs for Pierce.

About a week ago, a British JP (Justice of the Peack) called for a non-religious version of the courtroom oath (HT Catholic News Agency):

In a letter to Magistrate magazine, David Taylor said the existing range of religious oaths made the process unnecessarily complicated.

Mr Taylor, a JP in the Hull and East Holderness circuit, has drawn up a new version which he described as “strongly worded” to deter lying.

He said it would also meet today’s “diversity criteria”.

….. “The point that should surely be underlined in the oath is the very real prospect of a charge of perjury for lying under oath if discovered, ” he said.

“Such an oath would surely be much more `fit for purpose’ than the present archaic one, and would have the advantage of not having to hold and carefully handle a range of holy books, just in case they’re needed.

“It would meet the ‘diversity criteria’ of treating everyone equally, and would dispense with the affirmation too.”

Mr Taylor offered a replacement oath for people of “whatever faith or background”.

His suggestion was: “I realise that I must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that to tell lies on oath is perjury – a serious criminal offence, the punishment for which is imprisonment upon conviction.”

Mr. Taylor, with all due respect, I see where this is going, even if you don’t.

Maybe not today, or even 5 years from now, but it will happen — British witnesses who request to make a religious oath will be seen by judges and jurors as less credible witnesses as a result of some perceived fanaticism and general hostility to religion. At some point, lawyers will advise their clients to simply accept the secular version to minimize risk, and another religious legacy of Western civilization will have been successfully thrown overboard. I believe it has already happened in the US; that doesn’t mean it has to happen in Britain.

This post is happening because of a comment posted Saturday by a person claiming to be a “Bob Abernathy” who gave an e-mail address that appeared to be coming from the Red Cross. Short of attempting to verify its validity through direct corresponsdence and reply, I have no way of knowing that, so I sent an e-mail requesting a direct response for that purpose on Saturday (and have not received a response as of Tuesday afternoon).

The previous post is here. The post was about the fact that a Red Cross spokesperson at a conference said that despite reports of waste, abuse, and inappropriate use of prepaid debit cards issued by the Red Cross (and, apparently separately from the Red Cross, FEMA), the not-for-profit does not intend to place restrictions on the cards to prevent similar losses in the future. I feel that this is irresponsible, to the point of being a justification for choosing a charity that is more interested in effective stewardship over its funds.

Here’s Bob Abernathy’s comment:

The FEMA $2000 card program (Smoking Gun report) is NOT the Red Cross program. You are seriously mis- or uninformed. You also show a real lack of how the banking indistry works, how ATMS (which may be owned by one of a hundred thousands entities, each operated seperately) work, and you fail to undertand the BASIC MISSION of the Red Cross. Do some homework before bad-mouthing anyone.

Here’s my response:

#1, If the FEMA program was separate from Red Cross, I apologize (though I believe it’s true that Red Cross distributed FEMA cards too). Attempts to follow up with the CardForum writer about the difference, if any, between the smaller-denominated RC program and the apparently different $2,000 FEMA program did not lead to a response. Believe me, I know plenty about the banking system.

The main point of the post is that YOUR representative was talking about relief cards distributed by YOUR folks, and didn’t seem to care about accountability, which is a violation of the fundamental tenets of effective charity, not only for stewardship of donor funds but for true and effective compassion for disaster victims.

It’s up to YOU to design a responsible card program with controls in it. YOUR representative said in the CardForum.com piece that leads this post that, in essence, you are not interested in monitoring whether relief funds are spent responsibly. As long as that is the case, my wallet is shut to the Red Cross, and open to other, more responsible agencies.

If you wish to repudiate what your representative said in another comment, be my guest.

I visited Charity Navigator to find out what The Red Cross’s BASIC MISSION Abernathy referred to is, since a search on the Red Cross’s USA web site on “basic mission” (with and without quotes) yielded no results relevant to whatever that mission is:

Founded in 1881, the American Red Cross is where people mobilize to help their neighbors in emergencies. Each year, in communities large and small, victims of some 70,000 disasters turn to the nearly one million volunteers and 35,000 employees of the Red Cross. Through almost 900 locally supported chapters, more than 15 million people gain the skills they need to prepare for and respond to emergencies in their homes, communities and world. Some four million people give blood through the Red Cross, making it the largest supplier of blood and blood products in the United States. As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, a global network of 181 national societies, the Red Cross helps restore hope and dignity to the world’s most vulnerable people.

I looked very closely at this mission description, and was unable to find where wasting donors’ money and failing to hold recipients accountable for the funds they are provided is part of said mission. Perhaps other readers can be of assistance.

Go here for Kevin’s takedown, which is superb.

Let me add this from an AM-Coffee post a couple of month ago (last item at link), since one of Ms. Clinton’s claims is that the rich keep on getting richer:

A classic example of cherry-picking in business reporting, followed by misdirection — The big news as far as AP was concerned is that average family income fell 2.3% from 2001 to 2004. Ah, but AP downplayed the fact that median family income went up 1.6% in that same period. The logical conclusion from the average and median stats would be that people with above-median incomes saw their incomes go up less than people with below-median incomes. Of course AP didn’t mention that obvious point, because to do so they would have to acknowledge that income inequality actually decreased. Instead, AP did a “clever” misdirection by changing the subject to family net worth, a largely different topic. AP used the net worth stats to make the usual rich-got-richer claim — well of course, sillies, thanks to the boom in real-estate prices, people with more expensive homes saw their wealth go up by more than those in less expensive homes, or those who are renting. AP’s distortions had their desired effect, as the Federal Reserve reports involved were used for political cheap shots by Mr. Bush’s political opposition. Garbage-heap reporting like this explains the need for this blog’s existence.

Politicians like Hillary who believe garbage-heap reporting like this explain why people like Kevin have to stay on top of them and refute them at every turn. Hope this helps a little.

Life News reports that Northern Kentucky University Professor Sally Jacobsen, who instigated and led the destruction of a prolife “Cemetery of the Innocents” display last week, has been placed on leave, will retire at the end of the semester, and won’t be in charge of a classroom at the university again:

Jacobson will not return to the school after admitting that she told several students in her late Wednesday class that they had the right o trash the display.

Less than an hour later she led the students in destroying the display and was caught on camera by a reporter from the student newspaper destroying a sign accompanying the pro-life display.

University president James Votruba also issued a statement saying Jacobson’s actions were outside her employment.

“While the University supports the right to free speech and vigorous debate on public issues, we cannot condone infringement of the rights of others to express themselves in an orderly manner,” the statement read.

In the letter, Votruba said, “One of the important roles that a university must play is to be a forum for debate and analysis concerning the important issues of the day.”

“Often these issues are surrounded by strident rhetoric and strong emotions, which makes it even more incumbent on the university to create and nurture an intellectual environment in which reason and evidence prevail and where all points of view can be heard,” he added.

It apppears that NKU has done all it can. Which is very good, but not good enough. Prosecution is in order:

Katie Walker, a member of Northern Right to Life, the student pro-life group that set up the cross display, said she would like to see anyone involved in tearing them down prosecuted.

“I just hope they’re held accountable for their actions,” Walker told the Associated Press.

Absolutely. An analogous desecration by a conservative against a liberal display of some kind would have released the hounds of hell; look at what happened to Larry Summers at Harvard for just TALKING about gender differences. The LEAST that should occur is expulsion of the GRAD students involved in the destruction and the prosecution of everyone involved.
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Previous Post:
April 14 — University Intolerance Watch: Abortion Display Destroyed

Free Links:

• This Sounds Like Stealing:
  

  Venezuela reclaimed more than 10,700 square miles in potential drilling acreage from private oil companies last month by requiring them to join new state-controlled joint ventures, a newspaper reported Monday.

  Amid efforts by the Venezuelan government to take greater control of the oil industry and boost its share of revenues, private companies operating 32 oil fields were required last month to form joint ventures with the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.

  Under the new terms, PDVSA took at least a 60 percent stake in each field, hiked taxes and royalties, and took back drilling acreage that it claimed the companies had failed to invest in.

  On Monday, the El Tiempo newspaper cited PDVSA Director Eulogio del Pino saying that companies were compensated for changes.

  Unnamed foreign companies received a total of $900 million in “investment bonds” for use in new joint ventures to develop the oil acreage that was seized, El Tiempo said on its Web site.

  $900 million seems like chump change for what the government “obtained” a 60% interest in. How is this no de facto expropriation?

• Schwab’s Impressive Turnaround — I really thought the company was in serious trouble a few years ago.
• Lawmakers Don’t Do Their Own Returns — I guess it’s just too difficult:
  

  When it comes to their own tax returns, many members of Congress who specialize in writing tax laws turn to professional preparers rather than completing the paperwork themselves.

  “It’s onerous and everybody knows it,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass.

  Three of the four top lawmakers on the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, which are in charge of writing tax laws, pay a professional to file their annual tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.

  Simplification, anyone?

• Coburn Drops a Bombshell (HT Club for Growth) — “U-S Senator Tom Coburn isn’t naming names, but he expects six congressmen and a fellow senator will go to jail. That’s because he thinks they’ll be facing corruption charges following investigations involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others. Speaking at a town hall meeting in Wagoner last night, Coburn said that “if you’ve been keeping up with things, you’ve got a pretty good idea” of who the seven lawmakers are.” Wow.

His story is murky, but his ordeal isn’t (HT Drudge):

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