FBI Plants Fake Candidate in W.Va. Race

[kpete]

FBI Plants Fake Candidate in W.Va. Race
December 3rd, 2005 @ 1:05am
By LAWRENCE MESSINA
Associated Press Writer


CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Thomas Esposito's campaign for the Legislature seemed to be following the usual pattern. The longtime Democratic mayor issued press releases, raised money and bought newspaper ads. Signs bearing his name popped up in yards around rural Logan County.

But less than a month before the May 2004 primary election, Esposito dropped out, saying he had to withdraw because of his ailing mother-in-law.

The real reason surfaced only later: The FBI had planted Esposito among the field of candidates to help find evidence of vote-buying in southern West Virginia.

Federal prosecutors say the gambit worked.

"It has been nearly impossible to prosecute corruption in Logan County because persons with knowledge of it are reluctant to testify against others in their community," Faber wrote. "Putting Esposito forward as a candidate may have been the only possible means to clean up the political process in Logan County."

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=134990

[napi21]

1. I don't see anything wrong with this tactic.

It's just a different version of a sting operation, and those are used in lots of different crime investigations.

[benburch]

2. Go listen to last night's Head On with Bob Kincaid show...

Bob might open your eyes as to exactly why this is horrific!

http://www.WhiteRoseSociety.org/Kincaid.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. You're kidding?

You don't mind the FBI deliberately throwing the race to the Repugs? What a great idea? Let's put fake DEMS in races all over the country and then pull them out at the last minute basically guaranteeing that their opponent will win. No problem.

[napi21]

7. The intent wasn't to throw the race to one side or the other,

but to catch people buying or trying to buy votes. The article said there were 10 candidates i that race! One drop
I don't know why the UC candidate filed as a Dem. For all we know, there were others who filed as Pubs. I don't care! I wan't to get as much crime out of the voting process as possible, and if th Dems commit crimes, I want them caught too!

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Then go to work has a campaign volunteer

there are many other way to get to the inner workings of a party.

However, to deliberately put up a candidate who is a fake is election fraud and last time I checked still considered illegal in this country.

[napi21]

12. I was a campaign volunteer for Howard Dean.

I gotta tell you, we did EVERYTHING strictly by the rules! Even to the point that if we weren't sure, we'd call the attorneys working the his campaign to check.

Of course, we all have to remember, Dean LOST!

I hate to think that the only way to win is to break the law!

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. My point is

if the FBI wants to find out whether or not political parties are cheating the best way would be to go inside a real campaign. Running a fake campaign, with a fake candidate isn't going to prove anything.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. A couple of thousand voters went ahead and voted for him...

after he dropped out, I heard. The voters didn't know it was a sting and that the man was an FBI operative, until long AFTER the election. A couple thousand voters in a small area like Logan County WV, mean a lot, if you are a person running for office in a primary election and you are beaten out by the other guy by, say, 1,500 votes. The FBI's "Sting Operation" tilted the playing field in this case and could be used as a tool in the future, in ANY close race, to shape the outcome. Who controls the FBI, RIGHT NOW? Who exactly ordered the operation? Were these FBI agents, just a few "BAD APPLES?"

[boston bean]

3. Why was it a dem candidate?? why not a repub?

Who eventually won the race? A dem or a repub?

[benburch]

5. This threw the race to the GOP. nt

[boston bean]

6. this is a despicable act. Where the f* are we living?

I can't beleive that this could actually take place.

Never mind! I can believe it.

Just look around the gov't manipulating every god damn waking hour of reality.

[Hubert Flottz]

13. Logan, Mingo and Lincoln counties in WV, are notorious for ...

electile dysfunctions.(Vote Buying and Selling) Those counties are probably the place where the GOP tests out all their voter fraud schemes, before they go nationwide with them.

[MountainLaurel]

19. The beta testing ground

For dirty politics. Yep, I can see it alright.

[hollowdweller]

20. I had a buddy who sold his vote for a pint of whiskey in Lincoln Co i

Back in the early 70's. He was an apolitical hippie at the time and figured it was something free he could get. He said the whiskey was crappy.

[Hubert Flottz]

21. "Two Dollars or Two Swallers?"

Reminds me of the Ellison Hatfield story. The Hatfield and McCoy troubles started over drinking at the polling place in Mingo county. The three McCoy boys fatally wounded Ellison Hatfield in a drunken brawl on election day. Ellison's brother "Devil" Anse Hatfield, caught the three boys as they were headed back to Pike County Ky and killed them. Those killings touched off the famous feud that lasted for decades.

The Hatfield-McCoy Feud 100th Anniversary

http://www.wvculture.org/history/crime/hatfieldmccoy02.html


"Bloody" Mingo and Logan counties may be marked, because of what Captain Michael Cresap's group of men did to the family of Chief Logan of the Mingo tribe. Lots of bad things happened in Mingo and Logan counties over the years. Things like the gunfight at Matewan and the floods the Buffalo Creek disaster and scores of mine fatalities, strikes, shutdowns and layoffs.

Logan County History

http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/wv/Logan/loghistory.html

CHIEF LOGAN'S LAMENT

"I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked, and he cloathed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, `Logan is the friend of white man.' l had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it: I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance: for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?--Not one."


There are some mighty tough folks in those southern WV counties and some even to this day, are so poor that they would sell their vote to feed their kids a square meal. Some still rowdy enough to trade their vote for a pint of whiskey. How sad in a country that is so wealthy, so well educated and so well off.

Coal Tattoo

Written by Billy Ed Wheeler


Travelin' down that coaltown road,
Listen to those rubber tires whine;
Goodbye to Buckeye and White Sycamore
I'm leavin' you behind.
I've been a coal man all my life
Layin' down track in the hole
Got a back like an ironwood bent by the wind
Blood veins blue as the coal.

Somebody said "That's a strange tattoo
You have on the side of your head."
I said "That's a blue print, left by the coal
Just a little more and I'd be dead"
And I love the rumble and I love the dark
I love the cool of the slate.
But it's on down the new road lookin' for a job
It's the travelin' and lookin' I hate.

I've stood for the union, walkin' the line,
Fought against the company;
Stood for the U. M. W. of A.
Now who's gonna stand for me?
I got no house and I got no pay,
Just got a worried soul;
And this blue tattoo on the side of my head
Left by the number nine coal.

Someday when I'm dead and gone
To Heaven, the land of my dreams,
I won't have to worry on losin' my job
To bad times 'n big machines.
I ain't gonna pay my money away
For pensions and hospital plans.
I'm gonna pick coal where the blue heavens roll
And sing with the angel bands.

***************************

I in no way want to come off like I'm making fun of anyone, in those counties. I know a lot of those great, friendly, helpful, folks over there, because I've worked and stayed in the area over the years. I admire the people for their toughness, their willingness to work hard and their ability to adapt and to overcome extreme adversity. I have made some lifetime friends over there in coal country. An example of that toughness would be their ability to bounce back, even from things like this....

http://www.wvculture.org/history/buffcreek/bctitle.html

[Selatius]

9. This sounds almost like Vladimir Putin's tactics

He and his party would set up dummy parties to split the opposition's vote in the legislature, and when that was done, they either abandoned the dummy party, or used it as a placeholder to hold seats it won.

[boston bean]

11. What this does, beyond giving the race away is make

dems look they are crooked and the party can't be trusted.

Who would vote for any dem after a previous one was involved in a scam like this.

This is just wrong!

edit: for clarification.

[Hubert Flottz]

15. I've heard that a lot of Freepers go and register dem before the

primary elections, so that they can run up the vote for the democratic candidate, that they think will lose to the GOP candidate in the general elections. If a GOPer don't cheat, then he/she don't figure he/she did everything he/she could do to win! Winning is the ONLY THING, that matters to them.

[Selatius]

16. But that's why they won power, and why Dems didn't

The whole nature of politics is the struggle to win power and exert it over others. All of history is a giant struggle to win power and impose one's will over others. The only question is who is allowed to exert that kind of force.

[Hubert Flottz]

17. RE: "to win power and exert it over others"

True if you are a republican these days, because morality does not enter into their game plan. The "Rule Of Law" means nothing to people who believe they are above the law. Countries with leaders like we have now, soon erode away from within and implode. The founding fathers wanted something totally different, than this monster we see in Washington now. Greed has trumped liberty and freedom. America is on her way to the trash heap of time, if we "stay this course" much longer.

We have slowly become THEM! The world has always teamed up to fight people like Dick Cheney and the neocons and I believe it always will and rightfully so, IMHO. Exerting unchecked, destructive, sadistic, power over unarmed POWs IS WRONG! Bombing countries flat, that can't fight back, because you want what they have is WRONG. If I break into your house and tie you up and torture you, kill your family and rob you, simply because I can and because there in nobody there that can stop me, THEN I AM A FUCKING CRIMINAL!

[spanone]

18. In the name of criminal justice this country knows no boundaries.