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Cain Campaign Head Mark Block Stars In Creepy Cain Ad, Reveals Creepy Past

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Herman Cain‘s latest campaign ad stars his campaign manager, Mark Block. The ad is creepy. It shows Block speaking about Cain and the campaign and why they will win, and ends with Block inhaling a lit cigarette, then blowing smoke. No wonder it’s posted on YouTube, by Herman Cain’s campaign, as “unlisted.”

The YouTube description reads, “Chief of Staff Mark Block talks about Herman Cain’s Presidential Campaign and urges people to act because together we can elect Herman Cain!”

This ad, aside from how creepy and offensive it is (smoking a cigarette? Really?) is a big mistake, because it highlights Mark Block, Cain’s up until now fairly anonymous campaign manager.

Who is Mark Block? Apparently a Koch Brothers backed line-crossing pol who has been in legal trouble for his political activities, and has been forced to pay thousands of dollars in fines and was banned from politics in the late 1990s.

“Block formerly served as the executive director of the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a free-market advocacy organization. Block serves on the Board of Directors of the MacIver Institute and the First Freedoms Foundation,” according to Ballotpedia.

The MacIver Institute has been described as “a conservative propaganda organization dolled up to look like a conventional news service.”

“Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) and First Freedoms Foundation are challenging the new same-sex domestic partnership law authoried and signed into law by Gov. Jim Doyle in the 2010-2011 state budget,” according to the First Freedoms Foundation website.

Ballotpedia adds:

“Mark Block managed the 1997 election campaign of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jon P. Wilcox. Wilcox won the election, and Block was later charged with illegal coordination with the political activities of Wisconsin Citizens for Voter Participation. During that period the constitutionality of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was facing a legal challenge. If Wilcox’s opponent Walt Kelley had been elected the Milwaukee program might have been ruled unconstitutional.”

“Block reached a settlement to end litigation by paying a $15,000 fine and agreeing to a three-year ban on volunteer or paid political activity. Brent Pickens, a former Wisconsin State Assembly staffer who was running Wisconsin Citizens for Voter Participation, ended related litigation against him by agreeing to pay a $15,000 fine. Pickens also agreed to avoid political activity for five years.”

“In 2007, The West Bend Area School District attempted to pass a $120 million school referendum. This would have been the largest school referenda in Wisconsin history. Americans for Prosperity organized a phone call campaign to communicate with voters in the district about the referenda’s tax ramifications. The school district’s attorney responded to a request from It’s Time, a West Bend group supporting passage of the referendum, to investigate whether the message violated state law. The calls were placed Friday before the referendum in November 2007.

“Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens ruled in favor of Americans for Prosperity, writing, “I believe the language in the call comes dangerously close to express advocacy…Although it appears that some of the information in the call is misleading and a distortion of the true financial impact of the referendum on taxpayers, the veracity of the political speech is not the issue in determining whether Americans for Prosperity is required to register as a political committee.”

“State election law requires anyone expressly promoting the passage or defeat of a referendum question to register to campaign, according to the state Elections Board.

“Block has said the message was intended to educate West Bend residents.

“In the West Bend referendum, Americans for Prosperity’s telephone message said the building plan would cost “$574,000 for each child” added to the district since a 2001 referendum.

“West Bend School Superintendent Patricia Herdrich described the message as ‘inaccurate and misleading‘.”

 

If Herman Cain thinks this is a good representation of him and his campaign, imagine who he’d hire in the White House.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qhm-22Q0PuM%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US%26rel%3D0

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BREAKING NEWS

Trump Indictment Is a Massive 34 Counts: CNN

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When he appears in New York next week, Donald Trump will face a 34-count indictment.

CNN’s John Miller on-air Thursday evening announced, “I am told by my sources that this is 34 counts of falsification of business records, which is probably a lot of charges involving each document, each thing that was submitted, as a separate count.”

Attorney Tristan Snell, who assisted in the successful prosecution of the Trump University case for the New York Attorney General’s Office, responded via Twitter:

“This is WAY more than expected. If this is correct, it could mean that the indictment covers FAR more than the Stormy Daniels hush money — like Karen McDougal hush money or other hush money/catch-and-kill cases.”

READ MORE: Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Says It Is Coordinating With Trump to ‘Surrender’

“My hunch for a while,” Snell adds, “given [David] Pecker’s involvement and the drawn-out timetable of the indictment, plus the TWENTY interviews of Michael Cohen with the DA, showed that something far larger than Stormy might be in the works.”

“May still be wrong, of course. But 34 counts is a LOT!”

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News

Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Says It Is Coordinating With Trump to ‘Surrender’

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Donald Trump’s attorneys were notified Thursday afternoon a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict him on felony charges related to his alleged hush money payoff of a porn star he reported slept with.

The ex-president’ attorney recently said if indicted Trump would travel to New York to turn himself in.

The Office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has just issued a strongly-worded statement saying it is “coordinating” with Trump’s attorneys for his “surrender.”

“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected,” the statement reads.

READ MORE: ‘You Can’t Stand on Fifth Avenue and Just Shoot Somebody’: Donald Trump Indicted – Legal Experts Respond

The Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery posted the statement to Twitter.

NBC News explains the process, noting he is expected to be arraigned next week.

“After the indictment, Trump will be arrested and taken into custody. He will likely have a mug shot and fingerprints taken,” NBC reports. “Trump will then appear in court to be arraigned, where he will hear charges and enter a plea. Two sources familiar with the situation told NBC News that the former president is likely to be arraigned next week. Trump will either be jailed or released while pre-trial hearings take place.”

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'INDICTED FOR HIS BEHAVIOR'

‘You Can’t Stand on Fifth Avenue and Just Shoot Somebody’: Donald Trump Indicted – Legal Experts Respond

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Just past 5:00 PM ET The New York Times broke the news that Donald Trump, the ex-president, had been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on felony charges.

It is a historic moment.

Legal experts are weighing in to help guide Americans through an event that has never before happened in this country.

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman says the fact that this is the first time in U.S. history a president is facing criminal charges is itself a problem.

“I think it would have not been a novel event,” Ackerman said on MSNBC, “if we had done this 49 years ago with Richard Nixon, and he had not been pardoned, this will not be a big event [that] it is today.”

READ MORE: New Poll Sends Trump Damning Message About 2024 if He’s Criminally Indicted

“Everybody should be held accountable,” Ackerman added, citing former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s earlier remarks. Cohen testified repeatedly before the Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump late Thursday afternoon after a three-hour session.

Ackerman lamented that despite over 30 people being indicted during Watergate, “Richard Nixon was pardoned, he wasn’t held accountable.”

“I think this is very important,” Ackerman continued, “establishing a principle, a line in the sand, that even if you’re the President of the United States, and you commit a crime, you can’t stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and just shoot somebody.”

Ackerman was referring to Trump’s infamous comments during the 2016 election, when he bragged he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

Attorney and civil rights activist Maya Wiley, also on MSNBC, said, “It’s important and sobering that we had somebody who had the highest office of this country who has now ben indicted for his behavior, his acts, in order to win that office, but also faces what are more shoes that will drop, I believe.”

“It is a sobering moment for this country, that we are witnessing this happened to somebody who was entrusted with such power who has now had a jury of his peers, because that is what a grand jury also is, say we believe he had to face the music.”

READ MORE: Here’s How Five Republicans in Congress Are Responding to the Mass Shooting of 3 Children and 3 Adults in Nashville (Video)

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, now a professor of law, called this a “moment where we would do well to seriously assess who we are as Americans and who we are not as Americans, because we re all so familiar with Donald Trump’s tactics.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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