Hey, can you guys please slow down with all of your shameful, outrageous, dirty political tricks? Give a poor blogger a break, I can’t even keep up with you!
I’d say this has been a pretty good week for setting new records in political depravity. And our readers wonder why I dislike politics so much.
Hopefully you nice folks have been paying close attention to your mailboxes. Each day, you never know when a glossy piece of questionable political literature is awaiting you. I’ve never been so excited to receive unsolicited mail in my entire life.
And boy, somebody’s printing company sure has been getting a lot of money lately, huh? Makes you wonder if anyone running for office works for a printing company. Oh, wait….this is the Platform of Patronage we’re talking about here.
Anyway, here is the latest brilliantly-devised creation from the “We Have Zero Honor” campaign machine we’ve all been forced to endure lately:
Wait, do these guys expect us to believe that Councilman Kevin Kennedy is now trashing his own running mate? Just how stupid do they think we are?
The Political Headquarters of 69 Heckel Street
So, since mail fraud seems to be the “in” thing around here this week, our eyes go immediately to the return address. Yep, here we go again.
First, we see that the “Belleville Democratic County Committee” is evidently headquartered at 69 Heckel Street. Sounds mighty official to me. Just how many people are behind that committee? Do they have nice offices?
Let’s find out what goes on over at 69 Heckel Street together, shall we?
http://njtaxrecords.com/0701-69-Heckel-St-Belleville-NJ-07109
Well, dip me in mustard and call me hotdog! Guess who lives there?
That’s the home of frequent NutleyWatch headliner, Marie Strumolo Burke. Yeah, I’m sure nobody saw that one coming. Do these people not realize that the internet actually exists?
Well apparently Marie Burke believes herself to be a one-woman Democratic committee. Hey, at least this time you guys used your own address, and didn’t try to drag a poor innocent family into your deception.
So what we have is a mailer, conceived and sent by the Burke/Longo/Freda think-tank, which claims to be from Councilman Kevin Kennedy, who is now suddenly trashing Mayor Kimble, his own running mate. Not that we weren’t already pushing the boundaries of truth-in-advertising in this election already, but this is getting embarrassing.
To be clear, we have official word from Councilman Kevin Kennedy that he had nothing to do with this mailing. In addition, he has already filed a complaint with the authorities.
However, perhaps this mailer constitutes more than just an outright, nasty lie, and a blatant abuse of the U.S. Postal Service.
Intent to Defraud
The following website has a pretty good summary of mail fraud, and its most important elements to be considered a federal crime.
http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal/Federal-mail-fraud.htm
“Federal law requires that a person engage in some kind of scheme or plan to defraud someone else of something valuable, and must have an intent to defraud.”
To constitute mail fraud, evidently it’s not enough to just to deceive. There must be an intent to defraud. To defraud someone means to trick them into doing something, for your benefit. To obtain something of value through deception.
Well, seems to me that there is a very clear argument as to how these despicable mailers are an attempt to defraud us. Defraud us out of what, you say?
Defraud us out of our vote, which is far more valuable than money. Arguably priceless, when you consider the ramifications of winning an election.
This particular mailing was designed in such a way as to defraud the voter by influencing them (and therefore their vote) with a material misrepresentation.
That material misrepresentation involves deceiving the voter into believing that the mailer is authored and endorsed by Kevin Kennedy at the present time, that he is highly critical of his own running mate Ray Kimble’s performance as the mayor of Belleville, and that he suddenly opposes Kimble in this election.
In addition to believing this fully meets the requirements of mail fraud, we believe these actions also constitute a form of electoral fraud.
It should be the obligation of every resident of Belleville to call them to task for this mailer, and this deliberately deceptive attempt (one of several) to steal your vote based on a blatant lie, and a willful material misrepresentation of a public official and their own political platform.
This mailer did not come from Kevin Kennedy. He does not oppose Mayor Kimble. Kevin Kennedy stands united with Mayor Kimble, as he has this entire election.
Perhaps there is desperation and dissension among the Burke/Longo/Freda camp, but there most certainly is not in the Kimble/Kennedy/Hood camp.
~ Griff
Be the first to comment