Attempted guilt by association
Such incidents are hardly shocking anymore in this era of Trump Derangement Syndrome, but we still are amazed that they occur.
Earlier this month, a Baldwin, New York, woman told police four teenage Trump supporters harassed her. She said they yelled "Trump 2016!" and said she didn't belong there. She eventually parked in front of her house but the next morning found one of her tires was slashed and a note on her car reading "Go Home."
Adwoa Lewis, 19, provided police a written statement about the incident, which triggered an investigation. However, the investigation showed the incident did not occur and that Lewis had made it up. When police confronted her about holes in her story, she admitted she wrote the note on her car.
She was arrested and charged with making a false punishable written statement. She was released on an appearance ticket and has a court date today.
Lawbreaker now lawmaker wannabe
What kind of Democrats are hoping to be part of a Blue Wave to take back the U.S. House from Republicans? Joe Radinovich, for one. The Minnesota candidate for an open congressional seat has been charged with 18 crimes, more than 30 traffic violations and even "possession of drug paraphernalia" since 2004, according to a political action committee ad running in the state.
"Fast times," the ad says. "Broken laws. Joe Radinovich isn't fit to serve in Congress."
It doesn't take him off the hook, but more than 20 of the violations were for parking illegally or parking at an expired meter. But he also racked up three instances of driving with a suspended license and four speeding tickets. His driver's license was suspended five times, and he was referred to a state collections agency eight times. Other charges include obstructing traffic and failure to drive with due care.
The drug paraphernalia count occurred in 2005 when Radinovich was 18, and he was given a citation. That citation eventually was "continued for dismissal," though it's unclear if it ever was. At the same time, the candidate also was cited for failure to signal, which brought him under Crow Wing County police eyes in the first place.
One might tote up the violations of the 32-year-old candidate - a former Minnesota state legislator - as youthful indiscretions, but several of them came as recently as 2017.
'Vote early, vote often'
An Illinois Democratic Party leader slipped up and told the truth at a recent rally in Caseyville, a video shows.
"J.B. Pritzker (the Democratic gubernatorial candidate), he's going to win," the St. Clair County leader intoned. "He's going to win big. But he won't win if we don't get out and vote. We need the early vote. Like I say, we can play East St. Louis, vote early, vote often. Whatever you can get away with. I shouldn't say that, but I really don't care."
It's not clear to what the leader referred about East St. Louis, but the Illinois city in the past has seen fraudulent votes cast and has had charges made against it of having some 5,200 illegally registered voters.
The Illinois Republican Party immediately pounced on the video, posting it last week.
Illinois, even beyond East St. Louis, is no stranger to Democratic vote tampering. The most famous case came in the 1960 presidential election when Democrat John F. Kennedy won the state over Vice President Richard Nixon by 9,000 votes - and its critical 27 electoral votes - but did so through a suspiciously overwhelming 450,000 votes in Cook County (Chicago), which was run by Democratic Mayor Richard Daley.
Them again
The whole Brett Kavanaugh-Christine Blasey Ford brouhaha has, undoubtedly to their displeasure, recycled the various sordid tales of former President Bill Clinton and the codependency about them illustrated by his wife, Hillary.
For instance, Juanita Broaddrick, who claims Clinton raped her in a Little Rock motel room when he was Arkansas attorney general, says she would have been delighted to testify before a Senate panel. But senators such as Dianne Feinstein, who released Ford's allegation after holding onto it for weeks, wouldn't hear Broaddrick.
"Oh, it makes me go back to 1999, when Dianne Feinstein, along with every other Democrat, refused to read my deposition to the independent counsel," she said last week on Fox. "They would have nothing to do with it. That shows you the difference in the double standard that existed back then and still does today."
Hillary Clinton, when asked on MSNBC whether the years between allegations against her husband and today had taught the public anything about due process for the accused and the accuser, chose, not surprisingly, to omit anything about her husband in her answer. Instead, she said, "Well I think that you have to take each of these situations sort of on their own merit." But while Kavanaugh stews in a guilty-until-proven-innocent milieu around one allegation, her husband - with numerous charges - luxuriated in a time of innocent until proven guilty.