Chess politics - Those screwballs at the Campaign Finance Board

Author

Those screwballs at the Campaign Finance Board

Sam Sloan

2005-05-30, 8:32 pm

At 08:09 AM 5/28/2005 EDT, WTurtleNY@aol.com wrote:

quote:

>At 07:55 AM 5/28/2005 -0400, Sam Sloan wrote:
>At 12:02 AM 5/28/2005 -0400, Audrey Silk wrote:
>page and got to the bottom of it. I admire that.
>
>Audrey,
>
>I hope you start taking the requirements of the Campaign Finance Board
>seriously. In past years, several of our candidates have been investigated,
>gotten into trouble or dropped out of races because of the financial
>disclosure laws. Please note that even major party candidates, including
>Democrats with lots of money to pay lawyers, have gone to jail under these
>laws, so these laws are no laughing matter.
>
>Gary Popkin makes no claim that he has "gotten to the bottom of it". I
>still receive threatening letters from the Campaign Finance Board, even
>though I never even made it onto the ballot.
>
>Sam Sloan

quote:

>Willie: They do that on general principle.

Willie, as far as I know you have never run for election. This is a
serious matter and joking around about it might unintentionally get
our candidate into serious trouble.

The letters I get from the Campaign Finance Board are not routine
mailings. However, I believe that I am exempt from their requirements
because they want my campaign committee to file. Since I never formeed
a campaign committee, I feel that I am not required to file.

However, I might be wrong. I am not sure.

Audrey's remark shows that she has no idea of what she is getting
into. She says that Gary Popkin "has gotten to the bottom of it".
However, Gary said exactly the opposite. He has not gotten to the
bottom of it.

Gary wrote that an official from the Campaign Finance Board informed
him that he must file by June 8. However, Gary believes that
Libertarians do not have to file until August 8. However, Gary
recommends that to be on the safe side, candidates should file by June
8 even though he believes the correct date is August 8.

That is not getting to the bottom of it.

Audrey, I believe that you have been told this in the past but perhaps
you did not get it: This is not a joking or a trivial matter. Several
of our candidates have gotten into serious trouble. As I recall, but I
am not sure about this, our last candidate for mayor either was
convicted or pled guilty to a crime regarding campaign finance laws. A
previous candidate, Howard Stern, dropped out of the election race
because of campaign finance disclosure laws. The others we do not
know about. Scott Jeffrey disappeared shortly after the election, so
we do not know what may have happened to him.

I hope that you will start taking these matters seriously. Otherwise,
you, me, Gary Popkin and the rest of our gang may be sitting around
our jail cell playing spades and trying to figure out what we did
wrong.

Sam Sloan

Sam Sloan

2005-05-30, 8:32 pm

From: gary popkin

I got a call from Jasmine at the Campaign Finance Board today to
remind me that my candidate profile has to be in by June 8. I told her
no, Libertarian profiles don't have to be in until August (see
http://www.nyccfb.info/PDF/2005-Vot...20Candidate.pdf
).

She said, "Oh, that's changed. All profiles have to be in by June 8
regardless."

I said, "So the web site is wrong? Candidates are going to be relying
on it."

She said, "That's why I'm calling all the candidates."

I directed her to the link shown above, which she had never seen. She
said, "Oh, that's from Publishing. That's a different department." I
said, "Someone seemed to go to some trouble to figure out the specific
August filing date for this year."

She became convinced that the August filing date applies to us. I
said, "So you called all those candidates and gave them wrong
information?" She said the information was not wrong, because, get
this, it is still OK to file by June 8.

With screwiness like that at the CFB, I suggest that all candidates
file their profiles by June 8 and not take any chances. I realize that
some candidates cannot do so. They will have to do the best they can,
but all the rest of us should get going on meeting the June 8
deadline.

Gary Popkin

Sam Sloan

2005-05-30, 8:32 pm

At 10:41 AM 5/28/2005 EDT, WTurtleNY@aol.com wrote:

quote:

>In a message dated 5/28/2005 9:00:50 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>sloan@ishipress.com writes:
>
>Sam: I might be wrong. I am not sure.
>
>Willie: That's the first intelligent thing you've said in ages. You know
>something, Sam, Audrey is an adult and an intelligent woman. The MLP has run
>candidates before. They don't need you to micro-manage their campaign for them.
>Especially since you've done nothing but try to kill Audrey's campaign from
>the start. As far as I'm concerned (which, I recognize, is moot) your
>accumulated experience points to "how not to get on a ballot." As far as my
>experience goes; I did stand for State Senate in 2002 but like you I failed to get on
>the ballot. Maybe that's why we get along so well.
>
>Another thing...... Why do you continue to crosspost ??? Audrey, apparently
>wrote what she did on another list. You could have continued the
>conversation and offered your opinion on that list. We in Discuss don't need your sage
>advice and, frankly, it's getting tiresome. If you don't cease and desist I
>might join all your groups and start putting in my two cents in on those lists.
>I'm sure I'll prove popular.

Dear Willie the Turtle,

In the first place Willie, I do not mind it when you attack me. I am
happy when you attack me. This way, I get to put in a response, and I
usually have a good response.

Also, every regular reader of this group knows that you have some sort
of mania that compells you to attack me all the time. So, nobody takes
your attacks seriously. If you did not attack me we would be afraid
that you might be sick or dead or something.

Also, I realize that you do not play chess (no doubt due to your low
inteligence) but over in the chess groups we are familiar with the
same phenomena. For example, Dubeck always attacks Goichberg. Dubeck
has been attacking Goichberg for the last 30 years since 1975. Dubeck
is a very strong chess player by the way, so we do not want to lose
him. He even once beat me. Imagine that! He does not remember the
game, but I certainly do. Dubeck attacked Goichberg again in the May
issue of Ches Life magazine. If Dubeck ever stopps atacking Goichberg
we will know that Dubeck must be dead.

Similarly, Winter always attacks Keene. Winter has been attacking
Keene for the past 30 years and is not letting up.

However, when it comes to attacking me, you have a lot of competition.
There are at least a half dozen chess players who attack me all the
time. This does not really hurt me. To the contrary, it gives me six
times more web traffic than anybody else gets.

Now, with regard to your latest attack above: I did get on the ballot
for the February 2002 Special Election for New York State Assembly and
I even got 11 times as many votes as anybody expected me to get.

I am not trying to kill Audrey's campaign. I am trying to make sure
that Audrey's campaign does not kill us.

I believe that you were not around at the time but in 1994 our
candidate for Governor withdrew at the last moment because of the
campaign financial disclosure laws. Months of work by party regulars
went down the drain. Many dropped out of the party, never to return.
This debacle caused the Manhattan Libertarian Party to close down
completely. For several years there was no Libertarian Party in
Manhattan. Finally, in 2000 Jak Karako re-started the Manhattan
Libertarian Party.

Would you like to see this happen again? Apparently, you would.

You say above that "Audrey is an adult and an intelligent woman".
Well, Hillary Clinton is also an adult and an intelligent woman. Would
agree with that? Yet, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager in her race
for New York State Senator was just sentenced to time in prison for
trivial violations of the campaign finance law, the very same laws
that "those screwballs at the Campaign Finance Board" are trying to
apply to the Libertarian Party.

Do you agree that Hillary Clinton has more experience with election
campaign laws than Audrey Silkevans does? If you agree with that, do
not you think that this would be a good time for Audrey Silkevans to
become familiar with those laws?

Sam Sloan