Alvin Greene's 'Phantom' Campaign Leaves Many Unanswered Questions

The media loves a good story, even if it's not true. The story of Alvin Greene, the South Carolina phantom, who won the Democratic senatorial primary in South Carolina, is a great media story -- even if there are several holes in the plot.

In case you have not been following this story, Greene, an unemployed former service man who lives with his parents, managed to win the Democratic primary (garnering more than 100,000 votes,) without doing any campaigning, advertising or media. He had zero money to work with, but somehow managed to come up with the $10,000 filing fee.

Greene has no political experience and the only jobs skills he has are from 13 years in the military. He is also facing a felony charge for showing an underage college student pornography.

Some people are billing this as "Mr. Greene goes to Washington," but this story smells worse than three-day old fish. There is no way you can get elected by sitting on your ass and not spending any money. If it was that easy, hundreds of other people would have done it and billionaires like Meg Whitman wouldn't have spend $80 million to win the California gubernatorial primary.

There have been several theories about how Greene pulled this feat off. South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn is calling Greene a plant who is being secretly directed by hidden powers. The motive is to give incumbent, Sen. Jim DeMint, a pushover opponent. Clyburn is calling for an investigation into alleged election fraud. Additionally, the voting machines used in South Carolina are made by Diebold, the same firm that made the voting machines that turned out mysterious results in Ohio in 2004. The Ohio voter scandal resulted in an unresolved lawsuit and Mike Connell, a GOP operative who was scheduled to testify in the case, died in a mysterious plane crash. Diebold machine provide electronic voting, with no verifiable paper trail. The company is owned by a major Republican campaign donor.

Hiring a simple African American as a ringer is not new in South Carolina. According to an article in the Washington Post, Republican operative Rod Shealy was convicted for hiring a black fisherman to run against his sister in her campaign for lieutenant governor. Shealy's goal was to stimulate white voters.

This story has many troubling elements:

• How did an unemployed man come up with $10,000?
• How did Greene win election without campaigning?
• Why did Greene tally more votes than there were voters in certain districts?

And Greene himself is an oddity. He claims to be a college graduate, but can barely string together a coherent sentence. His interviews make Sarah Palin sound like a genius. When asked about his platform, he repeats a series of cliches, like "more jobs" and "better justice,"but offers no concrete solutions or ideas. Some South Carolina politicians have suggested that Greene is a mentally challenged patsy who is being used. Other voters have suggested that Greene won because his name sounded black. His opponent Vic Rawl, a judge and former state legislator, is white.

There are too many unanswered questions here. These are questions which should have been answered by the South Carolina media, who only seemed to start investigating Greene after he won. Unfortunately, this is what happens when the media has been reduced to a shoe-string operation who don't have the time to do investigative stories. The South Carolina Democratic party also has egg on its face for letting things get to this stage. And the GOP, well all we have right now is accusations, although DeMint stands to benefit from running against a straw candidate.

This scandal may blow up in the GOP's face if they are implicated. A Global Grind columunist says that if it turns out that Greene is a Republican plant, many black voters will stick a fork in the GOP and say they are done.

Radio Show Host Fired for Complaining about 'Black Guy' on Mural

Maybe it's the sun, but it seems that Arizona is battling South Carolina for the title of craziest state in the Union. In case you have not heard, Prescott got caught up in Arizona's latest racial flap when a local principal told an artist to make the children on multi-cultural mural look lighter.

The principal decided to change the mural because passers by were complaining about the "niggers" and "spics" on the mural. So the principal, in his wisdom, decided to cave into the sensibilities of the local racists. The story went viral and over the weekend local authorities have decided to keep the mural as it is.

One of the people complaining about the mural was local radio show host and councilman Steve Blair, who complained about the "black guy" on the mural. Apparently Blair was troubled by the fact that the black child was the largest figure on the mural claiming it had to do with "the guy in the White House." He didn't think this was fitting since Prescott is 92 percent white. Latinos are the largest ethnic minority at 8 percent. Basically Blair is saying Prescott is a white-dominated city and they want to keep it that way. Blair was recently fired by local radio station KYCA AM 1490.

Political analysts have said that much of the reactionary anger coming from the right is based on fear of white people soon losing their majority status. And that seems to be evident, because even in a city that is 92 percent white, people are troubled by the mere implication of the changing cultural dynamic.

Palin's a MILF, Who Cares If She's an Airhead?

Conservatives Love Dumb Women -- As Long as They're Cute

If you ever wondered why a shallow, hypocritical, media-whore like Sarah Palin ever became a national political figure, Bill Maher breaks it down. On Friday's "Real Time," Maher and his panel of guests, which included blogger Andrew Sullivan and director Judd Apatow, discussed the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

Maher says it all boils down to sex appeal. Yeah, Palin is a dim, wingnut who can barely string together an intelligent sentence, but she looks good. Basically, Conservative men still want to have sex with her, and for that they are willing to overlook her flaws. And that makes a lot of sense. If you consider that the Republican party is largely made of old, white men, it explains why they would idolize a pretty woman who speaks their language of God, guns and xenophobia.

Most of the female anchors on Fox News look like they came off a beauty queen assembly line. (Former FOX News commentator Angela McClowan is a former paegent contestant.) They are all pretty, mostly blonde and wear tight, form-fitting clothes. There have been memos showing that the female anchors were told to wear short skirts and show plenty of leg. The web site Right Wing News recently published a list of the top 15 Hottest Conservative Women in the New Media.

Conservatives seem to be under the impression that all left-wing women are hairy, hippies who don't wear deodorant. And because of that they are willing to tolerate the drivel spouted by Neocon bimbos like Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter.

Conservatives think the left hates Sarah Palin because she is attractive and has a big family. But as Jon Stewart said, the left just sees through her BS. They see her for what she is, a mannequin who makes a living parroting right-wing cliches.

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SC Senator Calls Haley, Obama 'Ragheads'

It is evident that the GOP has a problem with race. Even though the party has a black chairman and fielded a string of black candidates in recent primaries, the Republican's racial problem refuse to go away.

In fact it seems the only way to be a black or brown Republican is by pretending to ignore the racial epithets bandied about by your fellow party members. After all, a few months ago, GOP Chair Michael Steele had to pucker up for professional race baiter Rush Limbaugh, after he had made criticized the shock jock.

Now South Carolina GOP State Senator Jake Knotts has used the word "ragheads," an offensive term for Arabs, to describe S.C. gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and President Barack Obama. Knotts shows he is not only racist, but fairly dim. Haley is of Indian descent, and was never a Muslim. Obama is of Kenyan descent and was also never a Muslim, and on top of that Haley is a Republican! With friends like that ... I am sure Knotts considers anyone non-white to a "raghead."

As if South Carolina didn't have enough problems with the Confederate flag issue, bestiality cases, a philandering governor, who went AWOL, and a gubernatorial candidate, Haley, who is currently in the middle of two sex scandals!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donnie-fowler/south-carolina-rises-agai_b_600163.html